Nervous_Dog Posted January 20, 2006 Report Share Posted January 20, 2006 Me thinks it's more to do with criminal activity than any thing else, working in Laos monthly, I don't seee any signs of distress or uprising soon, in fact everyone there seems to be quite liberal compered to a few years ago. DOG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaiLuk Posted January 20, 2006 Report Share Posted January 20, 2006 I think they can probably work things out over time without any help from outside agitators. Interesting take on the situation. Communists seize power and the previous governing and upper class has to flee their home land or be murdered. And if these refugees get up to anything that relates to THEIR homeland they get tagged as agitators. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuckwoww Posted January 20, 2006 Report Share Posted January 20, 2006 MaiLuk said: I think they can probably work things out over time without any help from outside agitators. Interesting take on the situation. Communists seize power and the previous governing and upper class has to flee their home land or be murdered. And if these refugees get up to anything that relates to THEIR homeland they get tagged as agitators. Right. It depends on what you mean by agitation I guess. If the refugees intend to seize power from the communists and start a civil war that disrupts the entire region and causes a bloodbath they could certainly be tagged as agitators. If on the other hand they just want to go home and act like constructive citizens they would probably be welcome. They may find that their parent's palaces have been turned into government offices but that's the way it goes with revolutions. As the British Loyalists discovered at Yorktown in 1781....all of their world is turned upside down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flashermac Posted January 20, 2006 Report Share Posted January 20, 2006 If memory serves me, the Hmong have never got along with the Vietnamese and many supported the French during the Indo-China War in the early 1950s. Fighting against Hanoi's troops in the '60s was a carry over from that. p.s. When did the South Vietnamese invade Laos??? http://www.hmongnet.org/publications/hmf-intro.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuckwoww Posted January 21, 2006 Report Share Posted January 21, 2006 p.s. When did the South Vietnamese invade Laos??? February 8th. 1971. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flashermac Posted January 21, 2006 Report Share Posted January 21, 2006 Checked and right you are. From the time line site: - South Vietnam & The US invades Laos In an attempt to shut down the Ho Chi Minh trail, the North Vietnam supply route. It wasn't successful. (Of course, one could ask what the N Viets were doing there in the first place ... if not invading.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuckwoww Posted January 21, 2006 Report Share Posted January 21, 2006 (Of course, one could ask what the N Viets were doing there in the first place ... if not invading.) There had been proxie wars going on in Laos long before that. I can't find much news on the double murder/assassination of 2 US citizens in Nong Kai. Very quiet. Where's the foreign press on this? This is from the Asheville Citizen-Times... "Much of Southeast Asia remains a sad echo of the Vietnam War. Lost in that echo was both the culture of the past and opportunity for the future. Phillip and Ashley McRowan said they wanted to change that. By all accounts, the couple wanted to use their titles not to regain power in Laos but as a launching pad to provide education first in the Thailand border area near Laos and then Laos itself, by bringing from the West books, school supplies and computers. They had a comfortable life here in Western North Carolina, with their sons in Buncombe schools, with security and their own educational opportunities." http://urlsnip.com/399310 Today's Bangkok Post.... Pol Maj-Gen Yuthana Palanitisena, the Nong Khai police chief, said police were trying to establish whether Anouvong was really a member of the Lao royal family before going to the US, and whether he had any links with an anti-Vientiane resistance movement. An official at the Lao embassy in Bangkok denied his government played any role in the Jan 18 slaying near the Thai-Lao border. A US embassy official said two consulate staff members were on their way up to Nong Khai ''to look into the situation''. She refused to comment further. http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/20Jan2006_news12.php Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chuckwoww Posted January 21, 2006 Report Share Posted January 21, 2006 Another news snippet from North Carolina.... In an e-mail Thursday to family members, the couple described the circumstances of the killings: "Phillip and Ashley were traveling alone for the first time since we've seen them here. ... They made an unscheduled stop at a small temple, just off the highway, and while Ashley was filming Phillip in front of an ancient statue, someone came up and shot her in the neck and then chased Phillip further into the temple and shot him twice. The spontaneity of the attack, two gunmen, leads us all to believe that we have all been followed in our time here." http://tinyurl.com/b8u7j Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flashermac Posted January 21, 2006 Report Share Posted January 21, 2006 Just realised something ... the communists have sort of made heroes of the Sethathirat dynasty (in contrast to the former monarch's family). They might not have liked the idea of members of that family becoming too popular. I've seen Chao Anuwong's elephant howdah on display in the National Museum in Wiengchan, and the main street is named for him. I think the family is descended from King Fah Ngum of Lan Xang, and Fah Ngum's statue has been erected by the communists (with was a rather un-Marxist thing to do). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flashermac Posted January 21, 2006 Report Share Posted January 21, 2006 Links from an international Laotian site: http://www.vientianetimes.com/Headlines.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.