Insurgency in Laos

"Hmong genocide" redirects here. For the genocide committed by the Qing dynasty, see Hmong people § China.
Insurgency in Laos
Part of the Third Indochina War
Date2 December 1975 – Present (to a lesser extent since 2007)
Location
Southern Laos (royalists and rightists); Central and Northern Laos (Hmong rebels)
Belligerents

 Lao PDR

Supported by:
 Vietnam

 Soviet Union (until 1989)

Royalists:

Supported by:
Royal Lao Government in Exile
 China (until 1988)[4]
Cambodia Khmer Rouge (until 1999)

Rightists:

  • Supported by:
  •  Thailand (early to mid–1980s)
Casualties and losses
Over 100,000 Hmong civilians killed[5]
300,000 displaced[6][7][8][9]

The insurgency in Laos is a low-intensity conflict between the Laotian government on one side and former members of the Secret Army, Laotian royalists, and rebels from the Hmong and lowland Lao ethnic minorities on the other. These groups have faced reprisals from the Lao People's Army and Vietnam People's Army for their support of the United States-led, anti-communist military campaigns in Laos during the Laotian Civil War, which the insurgency is an extension of itself. The North Vietnamese invaded Laos in 1958 and supported the communist Pathet Lao. The Vietnamese communists continued to support the Pathet Lao after the end of the Laotian Civil War and the establishment of the Lao People's Democratic Republic.[10] At least 100,000 Hmong civilians were killed as the result of Laotian governmental policies, in what has sometimes been referred to as the Hmong genocide.[5][11]

While severely depleted, the remnants of an early 1980s-era, and 1990s-era, Royalist insurgency has been kept alive by an occasionally active guerrilla force of several thousand or so successors to that force. In June 2007, Vang Pao was arrested in the United States for an alleged plot to overthrow the Laotian communist government. His arrest led to an end of various attempts to overthrow the Laotian Government by the Hmong people, the royalists, and right-wing rebellions.

  1. ^ "UCDP - Uppsala Conflict Data Program". Uppsala University. Archived from the original on 12 August 2022. Retrieved 8 August 2022.
  2. ^ "The Thwarted Overthrow of Laos Government By American Hmong". Global Politician. 14 June 2007. Archived from the original on 18 May 2008. Retrieved 16 May 2019.
  3. ^ "Laos' controversial exile". BBC News. 11 June 2007. Archived from the original on 17 June 2010. Retrieved 18 June 2010.
  4. ^ O'Dowd, Edward C. (16 April 2007). Chinese Military Strategy in the Third Indochina War: The Last Maoist War. Routledge. pp. 186–. ISBN 978-1-134-12268-4. Archived from the original on 16 January 2016. Retrieved 11 November 2015.
  5. ^ a b "37. Laos (1954-present)". University of Central Arkansas. Archived from the original on 7 April 2024.
  6. ^ Rummel, Rudolph. "Statistics of Democide". Archived from the original on 19 April 2023.
  7. ^ "UCDP - Uppsala Conflict Data Program". Uppsala University. Archived from the original on 8 August 2022. Retrieved 8 August 2022.
  8. ^ "UCDP - Uppsala Conflict Data Program". Uppsala University. Retrieved 8 August 2022.
  9. ^ Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ "Land Concessions and Postwar Conflict in Laos". online.ucpress.edu. 1 September 2023. Retrieved 9 December 2023.
  11. ^ "The Forgotten Genocide: Hmong And Montagnards Face Violent Religious Persecution". 14 October 2021. Archived from the original on 7 April 2024.