A quick reminder to all the people in America who think Laos was some free great society with the Lao Royal Family in charge.

http://www.chomsky.info/articles/19700723.htm

For the Lao, however, there is nothing. Virtually everything is owned by outsiders, by the Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese. Apart from several cigarette factories (Chinese-owned), lumber, and tin mines, one of which is owned by the right-wing Prince Boun Oum, there seems to be little that is productive in the country. After decades of French colonialism and years of extensive American aid, "in 1960 the country had no railways, two doctors, three engineers and 700 telephones."^[2] In 1963 the value of the country's imports was forty times that of its exports:

Economic development has been virtually non-existent and the attempts by the Americans to stabilise a right-wing and pro-Western regime by lavish aid programmes led merely to corruption, inflation and new gradients of wealth within the country and so played into the hands of the extreme left, the Pathet Lao.

The Lao educational system presents a similar picture. It is estimated that only about half of the children ever reach school. Of about 185,000 children in school in 1966-7, 95 percent were in the first six grades, 70 percent in the first three grades. In 1969, only 6,669 students were enrolled in secondary schools. The American aid program has helped, but it too tends to perpetuate the distorted pattern of education for the elite. Secondary education has about the same funds as primary education:

 

The school is still training a minority of the youth, particularly at secondary levels, to take their place in administration. The biggest and best schools are still located in the cities. The values and attitudes communicated to children are still those of an urban-thinking, technocratic West. The curriculum is still a catch all of often unrelated pieces of information. And the concept of responsibility to the nation is still not being taught forcefully anywhere in Laotian society

 

The Lao elite do not seem popular among foreign observers in Vientiane, who comment repeatedly on their venality and corruption. Typical is a report by two French journalists who were at the site of a short but brutal battle near Paksane, southeast of the Plain of Jars. They describe the arrival by helicopter of "the strongman of Vientiane, General Kouprasith,…the most powerful of the Lao generals," well after the battle was over:

A well-informed observer describes the Royal Lao Government in the following way:

Its corruption, lethargy and indifference is as great if not greater than it ever was. Few people living under its rule actively support it. American officials have been unable to push for basic reforms due to the political necessity of getting on with the Lao civilian and military elite so that continued American bombing will be permitted.^[7]

With some bitterness he gestured to the street outside the room where we were talking, observing that every one of the stores that lined the street was owned by a non-Lao. The Lao elite is busy building bowling alleys, running the prostitution and opium rackets,^[8] renting villas to Americans, living at the exorbitant level permitted by the flow of American commodities and the pervasive corruption. He felt that the American aid program was essentially destructive in having perpetuated a consumer-oriented society which benefited, while corrupting, the elite, and in not having even begun to lay the basis for development or modernization that would involve the Lao masses or create a productive society.

This was, of course, a factor in the support for the Pathet Lao revealed by the 1958 elections and subsequently. As Dommen points out in his book Conflict in Laos, the Pathet Lao needed no propaganda to turn the rural population against the townspeople; indeed the enormous corruption and graft associated with the aid program sickened many city dwellers as well. In 1962 the US therefore decided to channel more funds to the countryside and to do this through an American-controlled apparatus so as to reduce corruption. The plan required the presence of Americans in the villages, and IVS filled the breach. As one volunteer puts it, "IVS became a private agency recruiting young, relatively idealistic Americans to engage in politically motivated counter-insurgency programs in Laos."

The US has penetrated every phase of the existence (as well as the destruction) of Laos. To cite just one relatively innocuous case, consider the role of the US Information Service, the USIS, in "information dissemination" in Laos.^[25] About half of the programming on the Laotian radio is music. Of the other half, USIS, according to Administration testimony, "prepared or participated in the preparation" of about two-thirds. USIS also participates in the publication of a bimonthly magazine with a circulation of 43,000 (the largest Lao newspaper has a circulation of 3,300). In addition there are films and other printed material, pamphlets and posters, wall newspapers, leaflets for air drops. In most of this "there is not US Government attribution"—i.e., the impression is conveyed that these appear as documents or programs sponsored by the RLG. But the Government witness denied that any of this is done "covertly." When asked to explain, he answered as follows:

About the Pathet Lao

This informant had never been to school and was pleased with the Pathet Lao educational reforms. He said that the teachers were taken to Phonesavan to be taught and then returned to the village. Other boys joined the Pathet Lao to be soldiers, and some went to the towns for medical training or to join the civil administration. No Pathet Lao lived permanently in the village, he reported.

He was not sure what the Pathet Lao taught the teachers, but when they returned they taught only in Lao, no longer in French. Everyone was taught to read, particularly the women.

The only people who didn't study were those who were blind. I knew how to read. I studied arithmetic. Before I didn't know anything. Before, the teacher didn't work as much. Now he worked much more. The teacher wasn't happy because he was working all the time. [General laughter.]

We interviewed two of the village teachers. They said that when the Pathet Lao came in 1964, after driving the Kong Le forces off of the Plain, they took the teachers for ten days to Phonesavan. They instructed them in teaching methods, and told them they must teach in Lao, not French. "They explained that Lao is our own language and Laos is our country and we don't need foreign languages." They also gave them political education.

 

The Pathet Lao cadres encouraged the people not to be afraid of important men or to use honorific forms of address.

The Pathet Lao changed many things. They helped the villagers farm rice and build houses, and gave rice to people who didn't have enough. They changed the status of women. Women became equal to men. They became nurses and soldiers. Wives were not afraid of husbands any more.

At first some husbands got angry, but they were told that there was to be no more oppression: "Look, she's human, you don't have special rights."

Before, everything was for hire. After the Pathet Lao came, money wasn't necessary. They tried to induce cooperation among the villagers and to bring families to cooperate in agricultural work. They used no force, but tried to shame people into helping if they refused, to encourage them to see that all would benefit from cooperation.