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Laos - Thai Relations

Despite cultural and linguistic ties between Laos and Thailand, after 1975 relations between these two countries were often marked by severe strains. Such strains often resulted in exchanges of gunfire followed by border closures. In some respects, Thailand can be seen as a greater threat to the country's independence than Vietnam because of its closer cultural affinity (Theravada Buddhism). The majority group, the Lao Lum or “Lao of the lowland valleys," are Theravada Buddhist and ethnically identical to people of northeast Thailand.

Other factors are Thailand's easier access, and its control over the railroad and highway routes to the sea. The Mekong River, which both sides have an interest in making a "river of true peace and friendship" -- as their respective prime ministers called for in 1976 -- also provides a north-south artery during the rainy season.

During the Second Indo-China War, direct support to the Meo tribesmen and thc government of Laos, as led by Souvanna Phouma, was provided by a combination of the CIA, US Army advisors, and a contingent of Thai military personnel. The Thai were estimated to be about 17,000 at their peak in 1972.

Relations with Thailand have been uneven. An alarming patrol boat shooting incident occurred in 1980, but this brief encounter was overshadowed by the border disputes and military clashes of 1984 and 1987 in Xaignabouri Province west of the Mekong. These conflicts originated in rival claims to forest resources based on maps from the early days of the French protectorate.

Relations between Laos and Thailand entered a new phase of tension in the middle of 1984 after a period of relative calm. Thai Army roadbuilding crews encountered three remote villages whose location on available maps they apparently took to favor Thai sovereignty. The LPDR government and army thought otherwise, and a military and diplomatic standoff ensued for several months. Laos took the dispute to the United Nations (UN), where Thailand was striving for election to the Security Council. In keeping with such aspirations, Thailand announced that it would remove its troops from the three villages and seek a peaceful settlement through a resurvey of the watershed border.

Further complicating the border situation, in late 1984 Thailand accused Vietnam of meddling in Laotian affairs by pushing Laos into hostilities with Thailand in order to draw attention away from the situation in Cambodia. Thailand also complained that Laos was harboring Thai communists belonging to a new organization called Green Star, whose cadre numbered 2,000, and were said to be training in six insurgent camps along the Laos-Thailand border. Little came of Thai accusations because world attention was focused on Vietnam's activity in Cambodia, not on Laos.

Following the mid-1984 incident and until early 1986, relations were tense. However, by mid-1986 tension began to ease as both sides attempted to downplay the various minor border incidents. For example, in mid-July 1986, approximately thirty-five Laotian ethnic minority refugees were killed in Thailand. Thailand alleged that LPA troops had attacked a refugee settlement near the village of Ban Huai Pong, Phayao Province, killing the refugees. The government said Thailand prevaricated the accusation. Previously, less significant border incidents had become contentious; this time, however, after trading vitriolic charges in both countries' media, the issue died down, foreshadowing an improvement in cross-border relations.

In late 1986, relations between Laos and Thailand moved forward when several delegations were exchanged in order to work out border differences. Of significance were discussions between military and police delegations, who exchanged information on problems with resistance groups, infiltration, smuggling, and bandit gangs. Laos was concerned with the embargo Thailand had placed on strategic goods crossing Thailand for import into the country. As a landlocked country, Laos is dependent upon goods transiting from and through its neighbors. Negotiations ended the embargo on these goods, excluding some military-related items. Laos was also concerned about restrictions on commercial goods.

Between 1986 and 1990, the number of border incidents along the Laos-Thailand border declined significantly. However, there was a major border dispute in December 1987. A cease-fire was proclaimed in February 1988, ending the fighting that resulted in 1,000 deaths, and meetings were held to defuse the conflict.

Other factors helped to soften the confrontational relationship. Thailand's criticism of Laotian-Vietnamese military ties lessened after 1988 when the majority of Vietnamese troops had departed Laos. Commercial trade continued to be a stabilizing force. Diplomatic relations between the two countries were normal but wary. The fact that resistance fighters operated from refugee camps in Thailand, however, remained a constant source of irritation.

In 1991 several high-level Laotian-Thai military delegations were exchanged in hopes of resolving remaining border incidents. These talks resulted in agreements in which both sides agreed to withdraw military forces from disputed areas in Xaignabouri Province. The withdrawals, which took the form of a mutually supervised pullback, created several unpopulated demilitarized zones. Thailand also promised to help curtail the illegal activities of Laotian refugees and exiles residing in Thailand. Specifically, it agreed to cooperate in disarming and arresting any armed individuals apprehended crossing the border. In 1992 Thailand reportedly made good on its promise to arrest border violators, and the brother of General Vang Pao and a group of Hmong were taken into custody in northern Thailand as they were attempting to stage a cross-border incursion.

The determination in 1988 of Thai prime minister Chatichai Choonhaven to open up the Indochina market abruptly turned a deadly conflict into a wave of goodwill gestures and business ventures. Kaysone paid an official visit to Bangkok in 1989, his first since the brief 1979 rapprochement with Prime Minister General Kriangsak Chomanand. These gestures were followed by official visits by Princess Maha Chakkri in March 1990 and Crown Prince Maha Wachirolongkon in June 1992. An irony of this process of reacquaintance was the dropping from the Politburo in 1992 of Army Chief of Staff General Sisavat Keobounphan, who had dealt closely and effectively with the Thai military command in restoring neighborly relations but who apparently was considered by his party colleagues to have indulged in personal gains. Indeed, this corruption of a senior party leader symbolizes the fear among some Laotian leaders that Thailand, with its materialism and business strength and greed, "want to eat us."

Two political issues slowed rapprochement during the 1980s: first, the continuing issue of Laotian migrants and refugees remaining in temporary camps--whom Thailand had no desire to accept as immigrants--and second, Laotian and Hmong resistance groups who used the camps as a base. The Hmong constituted half of the camp dwellers and were expected to avoid repatriation the longest, out of fear of reprisal and hope for national autonomy. Thailand announced in July 1992, however, that Laotian refugees who have not returned home or found third-country resettlement by 1995 will be classified as illegal immigrants and face deportation.

In the first few years of rapprochement, Thai businesspersons have not threatened to buy up long-term economic opportunities in Laos because they seem to seek shorter-term commercial ventures. Yet the possibility of heavy interdependence generated by Thai investors remains. A Thai business presence in Laos will probably depend on the continuing demonstration of Laos's independence from Vietnam.

The persistence of a resistance movement since 1975 was attributable to permissive policies on the part of Thailand on behalf of their former Laotian cohorts. With the demise of the Cold War, the motivation to harass the LPDR and its Vietnamese military partners has dwindled. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will continue to press the Thai military command to live up to its March 1991 agreement to disarm rebels and discourage Laotian sabotage operations. At the same time, Thailand has made clear its unwillingness to assimilate Hmong refugees. In August 1992, Laos again called for increased Laotian-Thai cooperation to suppress anti-LPDR activity by ethnic resistance fighters. Cooperation was to include tougher restrictions on exiled Hmong wishing to travel to and in Thailand. Vientiane wanted Bangkok to strengthen its screening procedures of visa applications from exiled and ethnic Lao living in third countries of resettlement. It was also seeking Thai cooperation in patrolling the common border to combat the resistance movement. In 1993 the LPDR's ambassador to Thailand, Bounkeut Sangsomsak, summed up the resistance problem when he noted that the two countries still needed to resolve the problem, that both sides had been consulting each other at government and military levels, but that stringent measures were needed to further disrupt resistance efforts.

The threat of a return of Vietnamese troops remained as a cautionary note to the Thai military, who prefer to keep Laos as a buffer rather than the military line of contact with the Vietnamese. The Friendship Bridge should open the interior to more foreign trucking and commerce and more openly reveal any foreign military presence in Laos.

Future Laotian-Thai relations had a clear path visible toward mutually beneficial trade and investment, which need not be obscured by refugees or economic migrants, by one-sided economic dealings of an exploitative kind, or by inflamed border disputes. The exodus of tens of thousands of middle-class lowland Lao and mountain dwelling Hmong across the Mekong into Thailand created a tense border that Thailand preferred to close off to commerce of any kind. An improved trade relationship has been achieved in spite of past feelings of superiority or victimization, and growing interdependence may make the path easier to follow.