Phoumi Nosavan

Phoumi Nosavan ( Laotian ພູ ມີ ໜໍ່ ສະ ຫວັນ , ALA-LC : Phūmī Nǭsavan ; born January 27, 1920 in Savannakhet , Protectorate of Laos , French Indochina ; † November 3, 1985 in Bangkok , Thailand ) was a Laotian army officer and anti-communist politician. In the early 1960s he was the leader of the right wing in the Lao Civil War , Minister of Defense and Deputy Prime Minister of Laos.

Origin and military career (until 1958)

Phoumi Nosavan was born in Savannakhet in southern Laos. His mother came from Mukdahan in Thailand on the opposite side of the Mekong (until the Franco-Siamese War in 1893, the Mekong was not a state border and Lao lived on both sides ). He was a second nephew of the Thai Field Marshal and Prime Minister Sarit Thanarat , who was also from Mukdahan on his mother's side. Phoumi initially served in the French colonial administration. In the late stages of World War II, he was one of the leaders of the Lao Pen Lao nationalist movement , which fought against the Japanese occupation of Laos, and participated in the liberation of Savannakhets from the Japanese. He joined the Lao Issara independence movement , which formed a short-lived government. After the restoration of French colonial rule, he went into exile with the leaders of Lao Issara from 1946 to 1949. During the Indochina War he briefly sympathized with the Việt Minh .

After Laos gained independence, he joined the Royal Laotian Army ( Armée royale du Laos , ARL) as a lieutenant in 1950 , which was supported by the former colonial power of France. He rose rapidly in rank, patronized by his cousin and brother-in-law Kou Voravong , who was Minister of Defense until his assassination in 1954. In 1955 Phoumi became chief of staff and the following year commander of the fifth military region, which was responsible for the capital Vientiane. In 1957 he went to France for a course at the École supérieure de guerre . During this time - now with the rank of colonel - he came into contact with the American foreign intelligence service, the CIA . Supported by the latter, after his return to Laos in 1958, he founded the anti-communist “Committee for the Defense of National Interests” ( Comité pour la défense des intérêts nationaux , CDIN) together with other younger officers and right-wing politicians . This was in response to the relative success of Communist Pathet Lao candidates in the general election in May of that year.

Political career (1959–1965)

In the government of Phoui Sananikone Phoumi was from January 1959 Deputy Minister of Defense. During this time the (first) Laotian civil war broke out between government troops and Pathet Lao. In December 1959, Phoumi was promoted to brigadier general. In the same month, the military and the CDIN, under Phoumi's leadership, launched a coup against the Phoui Sananikon government. In the subsequent government of Kou Abhay he rose to the position of Minister of Defense.

After the rigged election in April 1960, in which CDIN candidates received 34 of the 59 seats in parliament (the left opposition not a single one), he founded a new party called Paxa Sangkhom to replace the CDIN. The new Prime Minister, Prince Somsanith Vongkotrattana, was seen as the government's “friendly face”, while real power lay with Phoumi, who again took over the Defense Ministry, and Foreign Minister Khamphan Panya. They ensured a strictly anti-communist and clearly pro-American and pro-Thai orientation of the Laotian government. Phoumi enjoyed the support of his second uncle Sarit Thanarat , who had been Prime Minister of Thailand since 1959, and whom Phoumi often visited for consultations.

After the coup of the neutralist paratrooper captain Kong Le on August 8/9. In August 1960 Phoumi first fled to Thailand, where he asked Sarit Thanarat for help. This promised him support, as well as the CIA and the US Department of Defense. Phoumi then formed a counter-coup committee under the nominal leadership of Prince Boun Oum of Champasak and declared martial law. Kong Le handed power to a civilian government under Prince Souvanna Phouma on August 16 . However, Phoumi did not recognize this. Instead, he gathered his troops, secretly supported by US arms deliveries, in Savannakhet and began an advance on the capital Vientiane on November 23. This culminated in the Battle of Vientiane on December 13-16, 1960, which ended with a victory for the right. Prince Souvanna Phouma then fled the country again. Boun Oum formed a right-wing, pro-American government, in which Phoumi was deputy prime minister and defense minister, and which was bitterly opposed by the Pathet Lao.

The US government under John F. Kennedy , which came into office in 1961 , called on the right and neutralists to a compromise and the formation of a new coalition government. To do this, she urged Phoumi, who was considered the actual ruler behind the Boun Oum government, to hold talks with the neutralist leader Souvanna Phouma. But he was not persuaded to do so, not even by a meeting with the Thai Prime Minister Sarit Thanarat and the US Secretary of State for Far East Relations W. Averell Harriman . As a result, the Kennedy government stopped its military and financial support for Laos. Phoumi initially tried to replace the payments with income from the opium trade. Only after the devastating defeat for the government troops against the Pathet Lao in the battle of Luang Namtha in May 1962 did he give in. He approved the Geneva Agreement on the neutrality of Laos in July 1962 and the formation of a new coalition government under Souvanna Phouma . In this Phoumi became Deputy Prime Minister. Without the support of the United States and Thailand (his relative Sarit Thanarat died in 1963), however, his political influence declined.

Exile and Death (from 1965)

In 1965 a right-wing coup was uncovered, in which Phoumi was allegedly involved. He fled to Thailand. In absentia he was convicted of numerous crimes, including corruption, by a committee of the National Assembly. He tried repeatedly to restore his reputation in Laos and also personally appealed to Prince Souvanna Phouma, but was unsuccessful. Until his death he lived - according to the Indochina expert Arthur J. Dommen quite comfortably - in exile in Bangkok.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Arthur J. Dommen: Phoumi Nosavan. In: Spencer C. Tucker: The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War. 2nd edition, ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara (CA) 2011, p. 910.
2. ↑ Sutayut Osornprasop: Thailand and the secret war in Laos, 1960-74. In: Albert Lau: Southeast Asia and the Cold War. Routledge, Abingdon (Oxon) / New York 2012, pp. 186-214, at p. 193.
3. ^ Martin Stuart-Fox: A History of Laos. 1997, p. 111.
4. ↑ Thak Chaloemtiarana: Thailand. The Politics of Despotic Paternalism. Cornell Southeast Asia Program, Ithaca (NY) 2007, p. 161.
5. ↑ Martin Stuart-Fox: Historical Dictionary of Laos. Scarecrow Press, Lanham (MD) / Plymouth 2008, p. Xl, 74, entry Coup d'état of 1960 .
6. ↑ Donald E. Weatherbee: Historical Dictionary of United States-Southeast Asia Relations. Scarecrow Press, Lanham (MD) et al. a. 2008, p. 281, entry Phoumi Nosavan .
7. ↑ Arthur J. Dommen: Phoumi Nosavan. In: Spencer C. Tucker: The Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War. 2nd edition, ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara (CA) 2011, p. 911.