Laos

During the transition period between November and January, President-elect Donald Trump developed perhaps the most publicly antagonistic relationship with U.S. intelligence agencies of any incoming president in at least decades. He compared the intelligence agencies to Nazis, repeatedly disdained their reports as fake, and dismissed their assessments of foreign interference in the 2016 election. In an interview published in the Wall Street Journal last Monday, outgoing CIA director John Brennan called Trump’s allegations “repugnant.” Other intelligence officials have reportedly expressed a sense of dread about what’s to come. Yet of all the U.S. government agencies likely to benefit, in terms of money and power, under the new administration, the winner may well be the CIA. Not the CIA’s leaders in Washington, to be sure. The incoming president seems eager to cut some of the Agency’s senior spies and analysts. Instead, power will flow to CIA operatives in the field---to those who help arm allied foreign military forces, manage drone strikes, command small battles, and kill enemy fighters in places from Somalia to Syria to West Africa to Afghanistan. For more on how the CIA’s paramilitary operatives, and Special Forces, are actually likely to gain in the new administration, it’s vital to look back to the biggest covert operation in U.S. history, the subject of my new book on the U.S. war in Laos: A Great Place to Have a War: America in Laos and the Birth of a Military CIA. In this past Sunday’s Washington Post, I have an adaptation of that book. You can read more here.

In my previous blog post, I noted that the bilateral relationship between the United States and Laos remains limited, and will likely remain very limited for years to come. Sure, Laos is the chair of ASEAN this year, which gives the tiny country some influence, but Laos remains a minor destination for U.S. investment, and a country of more strategic relevance to China, Vietnam, and Thailand (among others) than to the United States. U.S. assistance to Laos is primarily focused on humanitarian areas. In addition, the United States’s history with Laos includes some of the most horrific in modern U.S. history. During the Vietnam War, successive U.S. administration authorized a secret conflict in Laos, which came to include arming a large, mostly Hmong army, heavy bombing, and the insertion of small groups of CIA trainers and other contractors into the country. There, they trained Hmong and other forces, spotted for air strikes, helped forces allied with the U.S. attack the Ho Chi Minh Trail, managed radar and other communications sites, and occasionally got into firefights directly with Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese forces in Laos. In the late 1950s and the 1960s, Laos was far from irrelevant to U.S. policy. President Dwight Eisenhower spent a considerable amount of time speaking with president-elect John F. Kennedy about Laos during the transition period between administrations after November 1960; the United States was becoming increasingly involved in Indochina at the time, and a coup in Laos in 1960 had triggered panic in Washington that the country would become dominated by a communist government. Some senior U.S. military leaders wanted the incoming president to insert a large ground force into Laos. Kennedy held the first foreign policy related press conference of his administration about Laos, where he warned that unrest in Laos, sparked by the coup and an ensuing battle for Vientiane, posed a threat to the United States. He would eventually authorize a growing covert operation in Laos in which the United States funded and armed an army comprised primarily of Hmong fighters. In addition, the Thai government would increasingly involve itself in Laos’s war; Thai commandos played an integral role quashing the coup in 1960, and fought alongside Hmong and other Laotian forces against the Pathet Lao. Laos was more heavily bombed than any other country in modern history, and at times the U.S. bombings seemed to have no strategic purpose. Obama will be confronted with the legacy of the bombing during his trip, as other senior U.S. officials have been; to visit Laos today, virtually anywhere in the country, it is impossible to avoid the legacy of the war. Bombers released payloads on Laos reportedly because they were returning from North Vietnam without hitting targets. Today, according to a comprehensive story in Mother Jones, “80 million live bomblets lurk under Laos’ soil” and more than 100 Laotians are killed each year by unexploded cluster bombs left over from the war. As I examine in my forthcoming book on the war, which will be released in January, the Laos war was important to U.S. policy in many ways, even if it is largely forgotten in Washington now. The Laos war can be seen, in some ways, as a forerunner of other, later U.S. war efforts, in which the line between the Central Intelligence Agency and Special Forces becomes blurred---and in which the United States manages a large proxy army. Many CIA leaders viewed Laos as an example of a highly successful operation. Veterans of the CIA’s Laos war effort went on to involvement in Afghanistan in the 1980s and Central America in the 1980s, and some aspects of the Laos war mirror the CIA’s tactics in the global war on terrorism. In fact, Laos was the largest covert war in U.S. history, and one that needs to be better understood today.

Next week, President Obama will arrive in Laos for the first visit of a U.S. president to the country. He comes to Laos for the U.S.-Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit, for the East Asia Summit, and also for bilateral meetings with several of Laos’s leaders. The tiny communist country, the current chair of ASEAN, selected new leaders---in its typically opaque way---earlier this year. According to some reports, Laos’s new leaders are eager to move the country away from its growing dependence on China for trade and aid, and are seeking to shift Laos back toward its historically closer relations with Hanoi, which was the patron of Laos’s communist party during the Indochina wars. The new leadership also may want to cultivate closer links to the United States as a balance to China. Other countries in the region---most notably, Myanmar---have had similar strategic viewpoints; their leaders have welcomed U.S., Japanese, and European investment, aid, and diplomacy in part out of fear of becoming too dependent on Beijing. So, President Obama’s trip provides some opportunity for a major step forward in U.S.-Laos relations, which have already warmed considerably since the 1990s and early 2000s. But the relationship cannot move too far forward. U.S.-Laos relations are necessarily limited. Laos is a high strategic priority for Vietnam---many of Laos’s new leaders also were educated in Vietnam and have close personal links to Vietnam’s current leadership, as do many top military officials in Laos. Vietnam is the historically dominant outside power in Laos, and Laos’s strategies for increasing its hydropower potential have potentially vast impacts on Vietnam’s portion of the Mekong River. Meanwhile, Laos is a modest strategic priority for Beijing, and for provincial governments in southern and southwestern China---modest, but significant. The country is, however, relatively unimportant to U.S. policies in Asia, even in this era of the rebalance. And the fact that Laos has refused to offer clear support for U.S. partners in the region, like the Philippines, which are involved in disputes over the South China Sea, further complicates the U.S.-Laos relationship. Meanwhile, Laos’s authoritarian and highly opaque regime makes it unlikely to be a recipient of a major boost in military-to-military ties with Washington anytime soon. Laos has no organized political opposition, and the brief period of growing government tolerance for slightly freer domestic media, a window that appeared in the early 2010s, seems to have closed. Civil society is more constrained than it was in the late 2000s or early 2010s; foreign NGO workers are more closely monitored. Social media is more closely monitored. Laos’s economy, though one of the fastest growing in Asia, remains dominated by Chinese, Thai, and Vietnamese companies; U.S. investors are minuscule players in the country right now, and that is unlikely to change any time soon. The United States government has boosted aid for programs designed to protect the environment of the Mekong River basin, improve nutrition in Laos, and address other environmental and health issues, but U.S. investors are less enthusiastic about Laos. Laos’s most important sectors, like energy, are not particularly attractive to U.S. companies that do not want to deal with the complexities of hydropower projects in Laos, and the challenges of dealing with many parts of the Laotian government. Other economic sectors, like casino gambling and tourism, are already saturated with French, Thai, Laotian, Chinese, and Malaysian companies, among others. Political instability in Laos appears to be rising as well, although it is always difficult to tell for sure what is happening in a country with many remote areas, no reliable domestic media, limited internet penetration, and a highly repressive government. Still, in the last two years Laos has witnessed a string of disturbing incidents, particularly in central-northern Laos and in Vietnam. There have been a series of attacks on vehicles traveling on the main road in central and northern Laos, in an area that was full of Hmong insurgent groups in the past. In addition, there has been a string of killings of Chinese nationals in Laos over the past two years, which has left at least four people dead. The attacks have come against people working at a logging company near Luang Prabang and against people working at a mining company, among others. Laos’s government has offered no clear answers to these tragedies, further adding to the sense of insecurity.

Last week, Thanat Khoman, the longtime politician and former foreign minister of Thailand, died of natural causes in Bangkok. He was 102, and one of the last surviving leaders who played a central role in the Indochina Wars of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Thanat was foreign minister between 1959 and 1971, when the spread of communism through Indochina---communist forces had nearly encircled Luang Prabang during the First Indochina War, and communist forces obviously were making gains in Laos and South Vietnam during Thanat’s tenure---terrified the conservative Thai military regime. Thailand supposedly prided itself on neutrality and working with all nations, a foundation of Thai diplomacy for centuries, yet it already had been moving closer toward a security partnership with the United States even before Thanat’s tenure as foreign minister. In March 1962, Thanat and U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk signed a bilateral communiqué in which Washington promised to come to Thailand’s aid if it faced aggression by neighboring nations. The communiqué built upon an already-close U.S.-Thai relationship that had been forged in the 19th century, with the bilateral Treaty of Amity and Commerce in 1833. The communiqué solidified Thailand’s role as a crucial U.S. ally. During the Vietnam War years that followed the communiqué, the United States would dramatically build up Thailand’s armed forces, and Thai troops would become deeply involved in the wars in Laos and South Vietnam. (For an excellent, English-language account of Thai soldiers in the Vietnam War, see Richard Ruth’s In Buddha’s Company: Thai Soldiers in the Vietnam War). In addition to their contributions in Vietnam, Thai troops helped a conservative Laotian general defeat a neutralist/leftist force in Laos in civil conflict in Vientiane in 1960. In later years, Thai troops repeatedly reinforced Hmong irregulars in Laos when the army of Hmong and other hill tribes, led by Vang Pao, faced disaster in Laos’ highlands. Overall, the United States lavished security and economic assistance on Thailand between the mid-1950s and the mid-1970s, rapidly modernizing the kingdom’s physical infrastructure. Washington gained as well. The U.S. Air Force based much of its Indochina campaigns in Thailand, and bases in Udon Thani and Ubon Ratchathani swelled into virtual mini-Americas in the midst of the drought-ridden, baking-hot Thai Northeast. (I am in the final stages of editing my next book, which will examine the secret war in Laos during the Vietnam War, and how the Laos war turned the CIA into a military organization. Many of the key actors involved in the U.S. effort in Laos were based at the CIA’s station on the Udon Thani facility.) At the time of the Thanat-Rusk communiqué, the U.S-Thailand alliance was built on real mutual needs. Although, in retrospect, the communist threat to Thailand was limited---the actual Communist Party of Thailand never gained significant traction in the kingdom, for one---it seemed reasonable to believe that Thailand might be threatened by the political upheaval in Southeast Asia. And Thai leaders needed U.S. protection, U.S. diplomatic support despite the Thai generals’ abuses, and massive U.S. economic and security aid. The United States needed a stable and friendly Thailand for its bases, its leadership among non-communist countries in Asia, its example of economic development via free market economics, and its ability to make the defense of South Vietnam seem, at least superficially, like a multinational endeavor. Later in his career, Thanat became less supportive of the U.S.-Thailand relationship he had helped forge. He played a significant role in the founding of ASEAN, which he saw as an organization that could help Asians solve their own problems. He later advocated closer Thai relations with China, as the Vietnam War wound down in the 1970s, in part to reduce Bangkok’s dependence on Washington. By the 1980s, a time when he was still deeply involved in Thai politics, Thanat had become publicly critical of Thailand’s dependence on the United States for its security. But the reality is that, today, even before the May 2014 coup in Thailand, the bilateral relationship is significantly diminished---a far cry from what it was in Thanat’s day. The hard truth is that the United States needs much less from Thailand than it did, putting the Thais in a weaker position in the relationship, and making it easier for U.S. governments to criticize Thai leaders for rights abuses. The United States no longer relies on Thailand as a security partner the way it once did; there is no major war in Southeast Asia, and the United States has built close partnerships with Vietnam and Singapore, partnerships that are taking the place of many aspects of the U.S.-Thai security relationship. The alliance is frayed and weaker, and probably never will recover its vitality.

Despite its reputation for placidity, and its popularity as a backpacker tourist destination, Laos remains one of the most repressive and politically opaque countries in the world. It is consistently ranked as “not free” by Freedom House’s annual Freedom in the World Index, and unlike neighboring Thailand, Cambodia, or even Myanmar during junta rule, Laos has no organized opposition party. In fact, even small public protests in Laos are quickly suppressed, their leaders going missing for years afterward. The state media is highly uninformative, and there are few other outlets for information. (Radio Free Asia–Laos is an exception.) Strange incidents in Laos often remain unresolved. Last winter, a Canadian traveler was apparently stabbed to death in Vientiane’s international airport; Laos’ government initially insisted he committed suicide, but multiple news reports suggest murder was more likely. The case remains unsolved. In 2007, the co-owner of one of northeast Laos’ best-known guesthouses mysteriously disappeared, an apparent kidnapping. Some aid workers in Laos suggested he had been kidnapped for angering local officials for criticizing their management of land and the environment. His case remains unsolved and he has not returned. Last year, Radio Free Asia reported that several Lao citizens who used social media to document alleged land grabbing and harassment by local officials were detained, sometimes for months at a time. Laos’ political repression receives little international attention. Only the 2012 disappearance of its best-known civil society activist, Sombath Somphone, has received much global notice. In particular, reported repression of the country’s ethnic minority groups is met with international silence. The country has no charismatic opposition leader, and the somnolent quality of everyday life in much of the country tends to give some outsiders the impression that not much is going on in Laos. In such a repressive environment where there is no means to express dissent peacefully, violence sometimes flares against Laotian officials and government targets, particularly in Hmong-dominated areas in upcountry Laos. Indeed, for decades after communist forces won the country’s civil war and took over government in 1975, bands of Hmong fighters continued to hold out in parts of Laos, fighting a guerilla war with little food and ancient weapons. (During the Vietnam War, the United States government provided military assistance, training, economic aid, and air support to the Hmong.) Reports of Hmong-government violence were, however, often impossible to confirm, since the areas of attacks are relatively remote and Laos is barely covered by most news organizations. When I worked as a journalist in Southeast Asia in the late 1990s and early 2000s, even alleged bombings that took place in Vientiane itself were frequently hard to confirm. The Hmong-government violence quieted down in the 2000s, as Laos’ army pursued the remaining guerrilla bands, but in recent months it may have picked up again. Radio Free Asia’s Laos service has reported that there has been a spate of shootings of Laotian government soldiers and other targets since November 2015. Meanwhile, the Associated Press, citing sources close to Hmong activists in Laos, reports that the violence that has occurred since November is due to government attacks on groups of Hmong. The U.S. embassy in Vientiane reportedly in November initiated a ban on its employees traveling to the province of Xaysomboon in central Laos, for fear of violent attacks there. Then, on Sunday two Chinese citizens were killed in upcountry Laos in what the Associated Press reported was a bomb attack. Another Chinese citizen was injured. Although previous attacks attributed to Hmong militants tended to be against government forces or government targets, Chinese investors and businesspeople are not particularly popular in many communities in central and northern Laos. (To be sure, the motives and details of this bombing remain unclear; it is possible that the two Chinese citizens were killed for reasons having nothing to do with Hmong-government tensions.) Although China is now the biggest investor in the landlocked country, there have been numerous allegations of land grabbing and environmental disasters related to Chinese investment in the rubber industry and mining in northern and central Laos. In addition, attacks on Chinese nationals may seem like a way to deter investment---particularly in a month when both Secretary of State John Kerry and China’s special envoy to Laos are visiting the country---and potentially undermine the Laotian government, which has promised to deliver enough economic growth to lift Laos out of the ranks of least developed nations by 2020. It is almost certain, however, that the spate of violence in Laos will never be fully explained, or even acknowledged by the government in Vientiane.

It’s that time again---time for resolutions that last a couple weeks into the new year and bold predictions that (surely) will turn out right this year. Right? 1. Najib tun Razak will be Malaysia’s Prime Minister at the End of 2016 For most of 2015, many Malaysian politicians, observers, and activists wrote Najib off, sure that the in-fighting within the governing coalition, the scandals around the 1MDB state fund, and the torrent of criticism of Najib by former prime minister Mahathir would ultimately force Najib out of office. They were wrong. In fact, after surviving UMNO’s December general meeting unscathed, Najib passed legislation that will entrench his power. Just before the end of parliament’s sessions for the year, Najib presided over the passage of new legislation that will potentially give the government unprecedented powers to detain critics on national security-related charges. Expect Najib to still be in control in Malaysia as this year ends as well. 2. Thailand’s Elections will be Pushed Back Farther The Thai junta, which took power in a coup in May 2014, has pushed back the date for elections and a handover of power several times, after a draft new charter collapsed. Prime Minister and junta chief Prayuth Chan-ocha has now promised elections in 2017, but Prayuth also shows signs that he is consolidating his rule. This past year, the military has been busy purging members of its ranks not aligned with Prayuth’s army faction, and launching an even more intensive crackdown on dissent than it did in the months after May 2014. With the Thai king still alive but apparently quite ill, expect Prayuth and the other generals to push elections off even farther, possibly into 2018 or beyond. 3. Jokowi Will Have a Better Year 2015 was a difficult year for Indonesian President Joko Widodo. Struggling to make the transition in his first full year on the job from city mayor to leader of one of the most powerful nations in the world, at times he seemed to zigzag on foreign and economic policies from day to day. His personalized style of decision-making, in which he relied on few close advisors and often made decisions by his gut, proved unworkable in governing such a large and diverse country. Saddled with ministers and other officials who had proven themselves at PDI-P loyalists but did not embody Jokowi’s brand of clean politics, the president also found his reputation as a different type of politician tarnished. It got worse. In the fall, haze enveloped parts of Indonesia and spread throughout the region; Jokowi went home after one day of a planned multi-day trip to the United States to help lead the fight against the haze. By leaving so soon, he may have alienated some of the major corporate leaders he had planned to meet and woo later in the trip on the U.S. West Coast. Given his troubled 2015, 2016 could hardly go worse for Jokowi. And, in all likelihood, the Indonesian president will have a better year. He already has shed himself of several ministers and advisors who had damaged his reputation for fighting graft, and his public image also has benefited from the recent scandal surrounding the speaker of the lower house of parliament, who allegedly tried to extort money from Freeport McMoran. The fact that Jokowi’s energy minister actually reported the allegations against the speaker to the parliamentary ethics committee is, to many Indonesians, a sign that Jokowi’s administration is taking graft seriously. In addition, Jokowi has slowly and steadily begun to push back against economic nationalists within his administration and in parliament. Although the president is unlikely to deliver the massive regulatory reforms he promised in late 2015, the president has set an ambitious economic reform agenda. If he can even push through half of the reforms he has promised for 2016, both local and foreign investors will cheer, and the Indonesian economy will benefit. 4. Laos will not be an Effective Asean Chair In 2015, the Association of Southeast Asian nations was chaired by Malaysia, a country with a wealth of skilled and English-speaking diplomats and officials, and the capacity to capably hold hundreds of meetings annually. Although the Malaysian government was distracted by the 1MDB scandal and in-fighting within UMNO, it still managed an effective chairmanship. Laos will have serious trouble doing the same. Of all the members of Asean, Laos is by far the least prepared to chair the organization; its diplomatic and bureaucratic corps is small, and it has no leaders who could take charge at an Asean meeting and help bridge gaps on divisive issues. Laos is the most authoritarian nation in Southeast Asia, and Laotian leaders already have shown that they are uncomfortable with the nongovernmental aspects of Southeast Asian integration, declining to let Asean civil society groups hold a meeting next year in Laos. 5. China Will Show Southeast Asia both the Stick and the Carrot As I noted in CFR.org’s roundup on Chinese policy in 2016, Beijing this year probably will continue its dual approach to Southeast Asia. Expect China to continue upgrading atolls in the South China Sea and preparing them for use as military bases, while also using ever-tougher tactics to threaten Vietnamese and Philippine ships traveling in disputed waters---tactics like openly displaying guns pointed at Vietnamese and Philippine vessels. But in dealing with mainland Southeast Asian nations like Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos, which chairs Asean in 2016, China will turn on the charm. In particular, Chinese officials and leaders will be eager to win over the new Myanmar government led by the National League for Democracy. Read Part 2 here. 

On Saturday, the Washington Post ran a front-page article on the story of North Korean refugees, or defectors, in Laos. It has been well-known for years that many North Koreans who try to get to South Korea transit through either Laos, Thailand, or Cambodia after leaving China. But until recently the government of Laos, though hard-line authoritarian, mostly seemed to ignore the fleeing North Koreans, as long as they had the money to pay off the right people and then get to the South Korean embassy in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, or to the border with Thailand. Yet in May, Laos’ government suddenly sent nine fleeing North Koreans, nearly all of whom are orphans, back to the North. The group had been detained by Laos’ security forces, but in the past North Koreans who had been detained often were let go, in exchange for cash, and then continued on to Thailand or to the South Korean embassy. This time,Laos’ government did not release the detainees, instead handing them over to Pyongyang. With countries as opaque as Laos and North Korea, it can be hard to draw conclusions about any event, but the Post and other news outlets offer several speculations. One, that North Korea is pushing Southeast Asian nations harder to crack down on refugees, possibly providing financial incentives to do so. Or, the harsh and xenophobic government of Laos may have become more skittish about giving rights to anyone, including fleeing North Koreans, after facing a torrent of international criticism for the disappearance, last winter, of Laos’ best-known activist, who vanished after being seen at a police station in Vientiane. What is interesting is that few of the news stories talk about the role of China, and whether China may have influenced the behavior of Laos– and potentially of other Southeast Asian nations with North Korean refugees in the future. Over the past decade,China has replaced Vietnam as the most important foreign actor in Laos: China is on track to becoming the largest investor in the country, pouring billions into Laos’ hydroelectric plants and roads and rails and other physical infrastructure, and Beijing has upgraded its defense ties with Laos significantly since the late 1990s. In the past five years, as China has become more assertive in its regional relations, and countries like Laos and Cambodia more dependent on Chinese investment and aid, Beijing has become more aggressive about enlisting Southeast Asian nations’ assistance in returning refugees from China itself, such as fleeing Uighurs. Cambodia, for example, in 2009 returned a group of fleeing Uighurs to China; shortly after this repatriation, which was condemned by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees UNHCR, China pledged nearly a billion dollars in grants and loans to Cambodia. It is very possible that the pressure on the government of Laos to return the North Koreans came as much from China as from Pyongyang. Beijing has never considered the fleeing North Koreans refugees, always referring to them as economic migrants, or illegal economic migrants, thus depriving them of official refugee status in China. And in recent years China has taken a more proactive stance in deporting North Koreans from inside China back to the North. Overall, Beijing apparently wants to decrease the flow of fleeing North Koreans, to take no chances of destabilizing northeastern China with an influx of migrants or of destabilizing North Korea itself. As China becomes closer to the government of Laos, which in the past had more astutely played China and Vietnam and Thailand off of each other, preserving some measure of independence (at least as much independence as a tiny, poor, land-locked nation could have), Beijing likely is applying more pressure on Vientiane to proactively deport North Koreans. Combined with appeals from Pyongyang to Southeast Asian nations not to harbor fleeing refugees, China’s weighing in may create a new, even more dangerous situation for North Koreans in Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, or even Thailand. Right now, there are still at least twenty more North Koreans in the South Korean embassy in Vientiane. Will they face the same fate?

The tiny country of Laos does not normally get much attention from policymakers or the international media, at least since the Vietnam War; but in Obama’s first term, the administration put a focus on Laos as one of the Mekong Region countries with which Washington would push for closer relations. This push came partly to reaffirm the United States’ presence in mainland Southeast Asia, which had diminished during the Bush administration, in part because of apathy, and in part because of sanctions and restrictions on relations with several Mekong nations. It also came partly because several Mekong region nations, including Laos, seemed increasingly uncomfortable with how dependent they had become on China for investment, aid, military-military relations, and diplomatic relations, and increasingly angry at China’s dams on the upper portion of the Mekong River, which were seriously affecting downstream water flows. Hillary Clinton became the first U.S. secretary of state to visit Laos in decades, the United States increased its aid budget for Greater Mekong nations, and it has boosted limited military-military contacts. In some ways, Laos has seemed to be opening up, consistent with the Obama administration’s beliefs that greater contacts with the authoritarian and long-closed nation would help integrate it better into regional organizations, global trade, and regional security apparatuses. Laos’ government has projected that its GDP will rise by a staggering 12 percent in 2012-13’s fiscal year, due in part to growing construction projects in the capital and other sites, new mining, and new hydropower plants.  The country has aggressively courted investment from Thailand and other neighbors, and has been accepted for membership in the World Trade Organization. A small window of political and social change appeared as well: a popular Laos call-in radio show had begun broaching sensitive topics like land concessions and land grabbing, as well as the environmentally destructive aspects of some investments entering Laos. Vientiane elites seemed to be able to speak more freely about the government, and allowed several foreign academics to come lecture to local universities. But in recent months, it has become clearer that, despite the investment and better relations with the United States and other Western nations, the Lao government remains extremely opaque and paranoid about any domestic criticism. In fact, with Burma opening up, Laos is now the most closed and repressive state in Asia outside of North Korea.  Last year, the call-in show, News Talk, was abruptly forced off the air. Then, in an even more shocking turn of events, in December Laos’ most well-known activist, Sombath Somphone, vanished. According to several news reports, he was held at a police post in the capital and then taken away in another truck which had stopped at the police post. Despite his high profile in Asia—he received the prominent Ramon Magsagsay Award for his community activism—his whereabouts remain unknown, even though, by the standards of political activism in neighboring states like Thailand, Malaysia, or the Philippines, he was hardly even critical of his government. Will Washington alter its rapprochement with Laos in the face of these disturbing events? Given that the administration has continued building closer ties with neighboring Cambodia despite the deteriorating rights climate there, it seems unlikely.

Reports this week that Laos has decided to continue building the Xayaburi Dam on the Mekong river, despite massive protests and many studies showing detrimental environmental impacts, reveals once again that, when it comes to the Mekong, the governments involved pay little attention to popular or scientific opinion. The U.S. government this week openly, and unusually bluntly, criticized Laos’ decision to continue with the work, but I doubt this critique is going to have any impact either. In the wake of Laos’ decision, I wanted to bring back a post from a year ago that effectively outlined all of the major challenges facing Mekong countries, and the sizable number of dams on the board. Check it out here.

Vientiane, capital of Laos, is one of the quietest cities I have ever been to, though it has more of a nightlife these days than it did when I first started going, in 1999, and the whole town seemed to shut down at around 6 p.m., save a few open-air bars by the Mekong River where people could go and have snacks of grilled chicken and sticky rice and tall bottles of Beer Lao on ice. Still, the visit this week of Hillary Clinton was one of the biggest events for the Lao capital in years, equivalent to ASEAN meetings and the Southeast Asia Games. Clinton met with senior Lao officials and discussed everything from proposed dams on the Mekong River, which will —and are—seriously affect water levels for Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, unexploded ordinance in Laos left over from the massive bombing by U.S. forces, and potential future American investments in Laos. However, any potential investment in Laos is necessarily going to be small, except in power generation; Laos’ population is among the smallest of any country in Asia, and among the poorest as well. Certainly, the visit is a sign of countries in the region balancing China against the United States —even tiny Laos, which now relies heavily on China for training of officers, infrastructure assistance, and technical aid, is engaged in this balancing. Chinese companies’ purchases of large tracts of land in northern Laos, which have then been converted into rubber plantations where local people work in a manner akin to modern-day sharecropping, has alienated many Lao toward Beijing. Although China has begun to be more cooperative regarding Mekong River issues, its cooperation is, for now, mostly superficial, rather than addressing the real problems created in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam by its dams. (The Stimson Center’s Southeast Asia program has a wealth of information on Mekong issues.) In addition, the Lao government’s traditional patron, Vietnam, clearly worries about Laos’ growing closeness to China, particularly in military-military training. And yet the United States can hardly replace China as a donor, investor, and potential military partner; Laos is simply too marginal to U.S. interests. Of all the issues, the area where the renewed initiative toward Laos could have the most immediate impact is in demining and removing unexploded ordinance, the worst legacy of the Vietnam War in Laos. Although the Obama administration is likely to announce a new multimillion dollar program next week for removing unexploded ordinance in Laos, it will pale in comparison to the country’s needs. As Asia Times recently reported, a group of former U.S. ambassadors to Laos and activists have been pushing the administration to adopt a proposal, created last year by the Legacies of War project, to spend $100 million on removing ordinance in Laos; unexploded bombs remains one of the biggest, if not the biggest impediment to development of large parts of the country. And unfortunately, even the relatively modest sums that the Obama administration will propose next week are going to be hard to get through Congress, where many Republicans on the International Relations Committee will oppose greater aid to a government that is still technically communist and undoubtedly authoritarian —there is virtually no opposition movement at all in Laos, compared to neighboring nations like Vietnam and Cambodia.

A spate of articles over the past week has highlighted the growing possibility that former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra will soon return to Thailand from exile. During a recent visit to Laos, just across the border from the Thai Northeast, Thaksin told supporters that he is going to return to Thailand within the next three or four months, in time for his birthday. As The Economist noted last week, his recent visit to Laos had all the trappings of a state visit, with high security, crowds of supporters, and the highest-level audiences with the Lao government. Thaksin has also increasingly dropped the façade that he is “retired” from politics, though he continues to insist that he is not interested in returning to the premiership. He told supporters in Laos that he had “chose[n]” his sister Yingluck to be prime minister, essentially confirming the idea that he manipulates the Puea Thai Party from abroad. Thaksin also increasingly meets with Puea Thai members of parliament, and conducts the type of business that the government would handle, allegedly meeting with leaders of southern Thai insurgent groups in order to potentially negotiate a deal that would tamp down the insurgency. (Thaksin’s spokespeople deny that he met with insurgents, but previously he issued a non-denial denial, and the reporting on the meeting comes from some of the finest journalists in Thailand.) Supposedly, Thaksin will either seek a royal pardon (unlikely) or get back to Thailand through the new amnesty legislation or under a constitutional amendment (more likely). That Thaksin would return at some point was almost assured, and certainly he must want to be home, though his life abroad is very luxurious. But since Thai politics has not moved on since the 2006 coup and 2010 killings, and in fact seems even more partisan and obstructionist than ever, Thaksin must realize that, in returning home, he is likely to only further fuel the warfare, and possibly lead to acts that might undermine or even end his sister’s government --- which would be no victory for Thaksin’s working class and rural supporters. Thaksin hardly bears all of the blame for Thailand’s current mess, though he bears some. But at this point, remaining abroad might show that he, unlike his opponents, is willing to sacrifice greatly for some real reconciliation.