Rebellion In Laos

Peasant And Politics In A Colonial Backwater

Geoffrey C Gunn

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367300616, 9780367285159
• eBook ISBN: 9781000309119
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

A study in historical anthropology, this work focusses on the world historical incorporation of Laos into a colonial capitalist system of surplus accumulation. In so doing, new light is brought to bear upon the non-rebellious and, especially, rebellious responses of the majority (Lao) and minority (montagnard) population of that country, at least as determined by a scrutiny of largely archival-based sources. The approach taken is to combine a general world system analysis with a concern for the non-economic, moral and ideological form; of colonial and "feudal" domination.

PART ONE
The Development of Colonial Capitalism in Laos (1893-1954)

During their whole rule over Pathet Lao, the French colonialists did nothing to develop the industrial potential of the country except for the exploitation of tin ores in the southern part of Patene with a yearly output of 1,500 tonnes. The policy of the French colonialists was to maintain the Pathet Lao in a permanent state of backwardness so that they could exploit it as a source of raw materials and as a market for their goods and use it as a strategic position in Indochina and Southeast Asia.

(The Liberafiott Struggle of the Pathet Lao, The Pathet Lao Propaganda Committee for World Peace, October 1952).

1
The Political and Economic Incorporation of Laos

The Political Development of French Laos (1893-1954)

Along with Cochinchina, Annam, Tonkin, Cambodia and Kouang Tcheou-Wan (the treaty port in China), Laos was one of six French possessions in Indochina, each holding a distinct, independent civil personality within the Indochinese Union.¹ The general administration of Indochina was headed by a Governor General seated in Saigon.

While the self-perception of the colonizer of the metropolitan mission in the colonial periphery hardly accords with national versions of history, the following survey and rationale of events leading to the political and economic incorporation of the Lao principalities on the eastern side of the Mekong river into the French colonial empire by one of its servants, Lapomarade, is nevertheless instructive. "History" he wrote,

....explains to degrees the loss of vitality of the Lao in the Mekong valley; internecine wars, successive invasions would have consumed a race which, while weakened as it appears today, was nevertheless once vigorous and combative.

To be sure, the rescue theme occurs like a leitmotif through colonial historiographical accounts of "fallen" Laos:

In the Fourteenth century, at the time the Siamese founded their Kingdom of Ayuthya on the Menam, the Lao, already installed on the upper Mekong, descended the river, driving before them the Khmer, and founding in their turn a Kingdom which they progressively extended towards the South and which, it is said, experienced prosperous years.

In the Nineteenth century, however, a division of families occurred separating Luang Prabang and Vientiane and leading to disunion, bloody conflict and irremediable decadence. Profiting from involvement in the affairs of the country, foreigners then and there created the presumptions of sovereignty, the Siamese in the valley and the Vietnamese on the plateau. Freed from the Burmese menace, the Siamese grew in strength and appetite for treasure and manpower, thus appearing in Laos as conquerors. Relations between the Chakkri and the princes of Vientiane were truly without love, at least judging by the two sackings of Vientiane in 1800 and 1826 and the multiple raids upon its population. On the contrary, it appears that the court of Bangkok had more noble intentions with regard to Luang Prabang, at least helping that Kingdom in annexing Hua Phan (Sam Neua) from the Vietnamese during the 1830s.

The growth of the Chakkri, in any case, coincided with the weakening of the dynasty of Annam, consecutive with the death of Emperor Gia Long. A veritable period of anarchy thus proceeded, to the favor of Chinese bands arriving from the north (ie. those led by Deo Van Tri from a base in Lai Chau and who entered into conflict with the Siamese in 1887 and who sacked Luang Prabang) and the invasion of high country of Laos between the Mekong and the Black River by Siamese regulars arriving from the south. Disorder and insecurity were soon at their limit, and Siam could only profit from this state of affairs. Around 1880 and 1890, the authority of Bangkok was more or less recognized in Luang Prabang and Vientiane while Siamese Commissioners were in place in Caramon, Attopeu and in the province of Bassac encroaching on the territories of Annam and Cambodia.

But, the text continues, an "unforeseen and insurmountable" obstacle arose to stem this "premature expansion", namely France.

France, had recently established its power in Tonkin, then in Annam, substituting the power of a great nation state for the power of a declining authority, namely the government in Hue.

The explorations of the Mekong (Mouhot, Doudart de Lagree, etc.) then the voyages of the missions of Auguste Pavie along the river and in the high region of the north had made known to the French public the existence of the Lao principalities, the historical foundations of their sovereignty, the rights of the empire of Annam in certain territories of the Mekong basin and, by way of consequence, the recent and debatable pretensions of the Siamese.

A western colonial power and a young Asian state in a growth crisis (en crise de croissance) thus met and collided on the great Indochinese river, although the forces were a little too unequal for the outcome to be in doubt.

Siam, however, was tardy in relinquishing its hold. Our hesitations only encouraged them. Didn't the Convention of 7 May 1886 implicitly recognize our rights in Luang Prabang? Although this convention was never ratified, we nevertheless signed it. Another encouragement for Siam came from England. Anglo-French rivalry was at its fullest; the installation of France on the peninsula offered the Indies a dangerous cousin, and the advantage of having the Siamese state as a strong buffer, wasn't lost upon the British cabinet. London supported Bangkok.

This lakes us to the opening days of 1893. The situation was tenuous in the extreme: the Siamese government expelled one of our commercial agents from the Mekong. Three columns of colonial troops and militia thus departed from Annam to reoccupy it in the name of the government of Hue, including the five provinces of middle Laos, from Gammon to the northern frontier of Cambodia. Armed conflict ensued, the islands of Khone were the theatre of combat and an Inspector of the militia was shot dead by the Siamese Commissioner as they were entering into discussions.

The events which followed are well known: the forcing of the Menam by gun-boats, an ultimatum addressed to the Royal government, and the acquiescence by the latter in all the claims made upon it.

The treaty or 3 October 1893 recognised the exclusive rights of Annam and Cambodia on the territory of the left bank of the Mekong and fixed the frontier as the east bank of the river. The Anglo-French declaration of 1896, then the treaty of 24 February 1904, restored to Luang Prabang certain districts on the right bank of the Mekong, thus completing the work commenced in 1893.²

French Laos thus came into being.....

(Ministre des Amies, Archives Historique, Tonkin 10H71, Lapomarade, Attache Militaire de Prance, Notice Concemant le Laos Francaise et ses Rapports avec le Siam, Bangkok, 1 April 1928).

A contrary view of the background to political incorporation is provided by a Vietnamese source. This account observes that French explorers first appeared in Laos as early as the nineteenth century under the guise of scientific research. Exploration also served the broad goal of establishing commercial routes to southern China. Among them were Henri Mouhot (1861), who explored the area from Paklay to Luang Prabang; Doudart de Lagrée, who explored not only the Mekong basin but the Sekong, Sebanghien, and other regions such as the Bolovens; Attopeu and Saravane, and who arrived in Luang Prabang in mid-April 1867. In addition, missions led by officers such as Harmand (1875-77) and Paul Marie Net (1882) explored the Mekong, its tributaries, and even the mountain regions inhabited by ethnic minorities, hi June 1886 a preliminary accord was signed between France and Siam authorizing the opening of a French vice-consulate in Luang Prabang. The following February the French Vice Consul, Auguste Pavie, arrived in Luang Prabang purportedly as an explorer but in fact to prepare the invasion of the country. By early 1892 the French vice-consulate in Luang Prabang was transformed into a trade representative. Semi-commercial and semi-political agencies were set up in several other localities. Later that year the expulsion of two Frenchmen by the Siamese government and the death of an employee of the French vice-consulate in Luang Prabang served as a pretext for French armed intervention (anon, Laos: An Outline 1982:34).

Writing of French colonialism in tropical Africa, Suret-Canale notes that to open up the various territories for "development" or colonial exploitation not only had an administrative/military system to be imposed but chiefdoms acting as intermediaries had to be anointed. This was to aid in the raising of taxes, the supply of forced labor, and so on. For people accustomed to living in freedom, he writes, this could not be imposed other than by force. Colonial history dubbed this process "pacification", but it "took the form of a long and cruel series of military operations, aimed at disarming the population and removing any possibilities of resistance among them" (Suret-Canale 1971:95). Africa or Asia, as we shall see, the process was the same.

Three years after the nominal occupation by France of the territories east of the Mekong in 1893, Bouloche, the Résident Supérieur on mission in Laos was given the responsibility of giving organizational definition to the newly acquired possession. Accordingly Laos was divided into two parts each with a certain autonomy. The first, with its capital in Luang Prabang, was upper Laos, and the second, with its capital at Khong, was lower Laos. At the head of the two divisions was placed a commandant supérieur, each having the same attribution as a Résident Supérieur and both responsible to the Governor General of Indochina. These two divisions were in turn sub-divided into a number of commissariats — six in the north and seven in the south — each approximating the ancient sub-divisions of Laos, the muong, or those circumscriptions more recently created by the Siamese. Each commissioner was responsible for the general administration of the muong (later renamed khoueng) and also police functions, customs duties and tax collection, opium sales, public works, justice, etc. They were helped in these duties by the Garde Indigéne constituted largely of Vietnamese effectives but also included Lao (Reinach 1911:230).³

Sip Song Chau Tai, by some degrees tributary to Luang Prabang, was placed under the administration of Tonkin, and in 1898 part of the territory of Hua Phan (Sam Neua) was attached to Annam (Reinach 1911:230). A dispute over ownership of Muong Sinh with the British was settled in France's favor in early 1896 and following a convention of 7 October 1902 signed between France and Siam, Bassac (on the west bank of the Mekong) was retroceded to France (Boulanger 1931:333 and 342). The last major territorial adjustment occurred in December 1904 when the Governor General of Indochina detached Strung Treng from the administration of Laos and placed it within the boundaries of Cambodia (Sarin Chhak 1964:32).

Following an arrête of the Governor General on 6 February 1899, the position of Commandant Supérieur was abolished and the two divisions of Laos were united and placed under the authority of a Résident Supérieur. Because of unification, French officials hitherto answerable to a separate administrative service, were incorporated into the general Indochinese civil service. The administrative capital, first placed at Savannakhet, was then fixed at Vientiane, the seat of the Résident Supérieur. The eleven provinces of Laos, then determined, were Vientiane, Upper Mekong, Tran Ninh (Xieng Khouang), Gammon, Saravane, Bassac, Khong, Savannakhet, Attopeu, Muong Hoa and Hua Phan (Reinach 1911:251). This was in line with an arrête issued in the same year determining the establishment of provincial level administrative units on an all-Indochina level. Apart from the provincial administration by civil officials, certain regions of Tonkin and Laos bordering on China were, for security reasons, organized as military territories (Galembert 1924:49).

The system of military forces in Laos was rationalized by a decree of 31 December 1906. The Garde Indigéne, thus established, was placed under the command of the Governor General, on the one hand, and the local administrative chiefs in the component countries of the Indochinese Union, on the other. Its appointed mission was "to assure internal policing, to undertake escorts of convoys, the surveillance of administrative buildings, the guarding of prisoners and the security of communication routes." The strength of the force in Laos was as follows: two inspectors, fourteen garde principals, 29 sub-officers and 625 corporals or gardes. It was constituted into eleven brigades based in the main towns in the provinces. Meray, a colonial inspector, observed that in practice each of the brigades revealed a certain autonomy and only came under the very remote control of the Résident Supérieur. The garde principals, he commented, appear to exercise constraint with difficulty given the ruling which makes them the auxiliary and subordinate of the province chiefs. Indeed, in the majority of the provinces visited by the inspector, the relations between the commissioners of the government and the officers of the Garde Indigéne were observed to be "very tenuous," especially in Pakse and Xieng Khouang. As a consequence, the administration sometimes recoursed to the employment of the (jendarmene to exercise duties otherwise reserved for the Garde Indigéne (AOM Paris NF 95 947 "Etude sur la Garde Indigene au Laos." Maurice Meray, Phnom Penh, 3 March 1914).

The creation of the Fifth Military Region of Laos, with its administrative center located at Muong Khoua (Phong Saly), by an arrête of 21 March 1916 upon the termina...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Tables and Maps
• Glossary of Foreign Words
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• PART ONE: THE DEVELOPMENT OF COLONIAL CAPITALISM IN LAOS (1893-1954)
• PART TWO: THE NON-REBELLION OF THE LAO
• PART THREE: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF PEASANT REBELLION IN LAOS
• Conclusion: From Rebellion to Revolution
• Appendix
• Bibliography
• Index