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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Laos
Index
Wat Pa Huak, one of Louangphrabang's oldest Buddhist temples, has
gilded and carved wood front doors, a mosaic facade depicting
Buddha riding a three-headed elephant, and beautiful interior
murals showing historical scenes along the Mekong River.
Courtesy Gina Merris
The French presence in Laos was sufficient to preserve
internal
peace and cope with sporadic localized revolts among some
of the
mountain tribes in the years 1900-40. These revolts owed
their
origin to resistance to paying taxes and supplying corvée
labor or
to outbreaks of messianic hysteria. However, the French
military in
Indochina were too ill-equipped to contemplate resisting
Japan's
movement to the south, which by 1940 had become the main
focus of
Japanese military strategists. On August 30, 1940, the
French Vichy
government signed the Matsuoka-Henry Pact granting Japan
the right
to station troops in Indochina and use bases there for
movement of
forces elsewhere in the region. The agreement, although
recognizing
Japan's preeminent role in Southeast Asia, preserved
France's
sovereignty over Indochina.
To the west, French forces in Indochina were confronted
by a
threat from Thailand (Siam adopted this name in June
1939), where
Pibul Songkram's government was arousing public opinion
with
inflammatory speeches in Bangkok and radiobroadcasts to
those he
called his brethren across the Mekong. The broadcasts
called for an
uprising against the French, an endeavor in which Pibul
promised
help--and for which he had secretly sought Japanese
backing. After
a series of increasingly serious incidents in the last
months of
1940, Thai ground troops attacked French forces in
Cambodia in
January 1941. The May 9, 1941, Peace Convention Between
France and
Thailand, under mediation from Japan, was highly favorable
to
Thailand, which regained the right-bank territories that
it had
given up in 1904.
Lao outrage was predictable. King Sisavang Vong of
Louangphrabang (r. 1904-59) only had the promises made to
his
grandfather by Pavie as the basis for France's intentions
to treat
his kingdom as a protectorate. Worried in this regard, he
had
obtained in 1932 from Paul Raynaud, the French minister
for
colonies, written guarantees that France would continue to
honor
Pavie's promises. Therefore, the French were obliged to
explain
their giving away part of his kingdom or else offer the
king
suitable compensation. As a result, the French governor
general,
Admiral Jean Decoux, offered the king a treaty
regularizing the
protectorate and enlarging his domain. The Franco-Laotian
Treaty of
Protectorate between France and the Kingdom of
Louangphrabang of
August 29, 1941, attached the provinces of Vientiane,
Xiangkhoang,
and Louang Namtha to Louangphrabang, which already
included
Phôngsali and Houaphan.
Data as of July 1994
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