Jan 23, 2011

Martin Stuart Fox on Recent Politics in Laos

I was pretty surprised to see anything written about the recent sudden change of prime ministers in Laos. Usually discussions of politics is limited to pre Lan Xan kingdoms for fear of controversy.

Here's the link with a hat tip to Lao FAB

Family Problems


Former PM Bouasone Bouphavanh

I couldn't always keep all the names straight when trying to make heads or tales of the article. Eventually I began to understand the whole dustup is likely between competing corrupt factions fighting over who is going to make off with the spoils.

One part that had me thinking was the reference to pressure on the Lao Army to stop cutting and selling forests. Another interesting part was that most of the players are "southerners". When I hear the Lao Army and logging spoken in the same paragraph I think General Cheng, who must be somewhere in his 70s by now if not older.

Must be quite the scramble to see who can sell Laos to the Chinese the quickest. You can only sell a country once, and once it's sold there will be no more to resell.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have heard two rumours regarding the resignation:
1) His mia noi was making money from the Govt
2) He was tryoing to put pressure on the army to stop logging.
Not sure which one if either is correct.
By the way, the most literal translation I have seen in Khob Jai Der. It is definitely not pronounced "Duh"

somchai said...

No R in the Lao Language.

Joe Cummings writes the sound using oe, the soup called pho being pronounced like fur without the R.