For six centuries Laos faced a multitude of difficulties arising out of the constant disputes between Burma and Siam, which were jealous of its prosperity and the attacks by the Chinese "Ho pirates" and the Tonkin "black flags". The Khmer religious and cultural hegemony also caused major problems. The country experienced a brief period of peace under the French Protectorate from 1893 to 1953, under which the country was geographically and politically unified through the creation of a Kingdom under the authority of the Luang-Prabang royal family, descendants of King Fa-Ngum (1316-1398) and heirs to the Lane Xang Hom Khao (the Million Elephants and the White Prasol) dynasty.

After the Japanese takeover on 9 March 1945, still under the French Protectorate, the Kingdom of Laos published its first Constitution on 11 May 1949 and was admitted in the United Nations Organisation on 14 December 1955.

Lao neutrality

Since then the country, which was experiencing internal agitation due to political rivalry exacerbated by foreign subversion, came under serious attack from the "Pathet-Lao" supported by Hanoî and the international communist bloc.

Laos was dragged into confrontation by the overt interference of its neighbours and transformed into an arena for conflict. However, it was well aware of its vulnerabilty and geographical imperatives and therefore attempted to seek its salvation through neutrality.

Thanks to the extraordinary support of His Royal Highness Prince Norodom Sihanouk and General de Gaulle, the Geneva Agreements granting neutral status to the Kingdom of Laos were concluded on 23 July 1962 under the joint chairmanship of the United Kingdom and The Soviet Union and co-signed by the United States of America, France, the People's Republic of China, India, Canada, Poland, Thailand, Cambodia, Burma, North and South Vietnam, all of which guaranteed help and protection for Laos.

Despite these solemn undertakings, Hanoî retained some of its troops in the country, under the indifferent gaze of the International Control Commision made up of Canada, India and Poland.

After the American military engagement in South Vietnam, North Vietnam responded by stepping up its military intervention in Laos, building the " Ho-Chi-Minh" trail from north to south across the Kingdom reinforcing its politico-military apparatus it created, the "Pathet-Lao", so that it became a diplomatic instrument thus disguising its now overt, blatant interference. This trail has become a veritable tourist route, shifting Laos' eastern border several kilometres to the west and transferring a large tract of land to Vietnam occupied by several tens of thousands of vietnamese families.

For over ten years, Laos was dragged against its will into an armed turmoil in the venture which would prove fatal : overwhelmed by the armed turmoil in the neighbouring states, Prince Souvanna-Phouma attempted to save the scraps of his neutrality policy by reviving the dialogue with his half-brother, the "Red Prince" Souphanouvong, who was in the pay of the vietnamese and soviet communists.

Febrary 1973 brought the dawn of peace and reconciliation, when, following the conclusion of the Paris Treaty on Vietnam, the two conflicting Lao parties decided to put an end to their quarrels and their fratricidal struggle in the name of Independence and Neutrality.

On 5 April 1974, a coalition government of equal numbers of nationalists and communists finally emerged, under the presidency of the neutralist Prince Souvanna-Phouma.

The Government only stayed in power for 13 months : the communist victory in Cambodia and South Vietnam and the pretensions and dishonesty of the left-wing partners, who aspired to undivided power, made co-existence and co-operation impossible.

The national harmony and reconciliation so deeply desired by the Lao people gave way to a pure and simple conquest.

Under the increasingly menacing pressure of the "Pathet-Lao" and weakened by Prince Souvanna-Phouma's ill-health the right-wing leaders were unable to assume their duties and therefore fled the country on 10 May 1975, followed by hundreds of thousands of panic-stricken lao people.

From then on, as the new masters came out of hiding, Laos suffered their arrogance as they assuaged their thirst for vengeance by sending tens of thousands of civil servants, soldiers and students loyal to the Royal Administration to so-called "re-education" camps, where they suffered reprisals consisting of physical and mental torture and humiliation.

A political vacuum thus having been created with the support of Hanoî and the blessing of the Soviet Union (which had twice chaired Geneva Conferences on the Lao issue), the "Pathet-Lao" unilaterally abolished the Political Council of National Union, the Coalition Government and the Parliament.

On 2 December 1975, th monarchy was abolished and a so-called "people's democratic republic" proclaimed, without any consultation of the people.

This masquerade culminated when, having been forced to abdicate under the threat of arms, His Majesty King Sri Savang Vatthana was demoted to the rank of an ordinary citizen and appointed " Adviser to the President of the Republic", comrade Souphanouvong.

His Majesty the King, whe had decided to share the suffering of his people and stay with them to the end, was arrested and deported in March 1978, together with all the remaining members of the Royal Family. The present government has only acknowledged the death of the King , refusing to specify the reasons, date or place of his demise. At all events, the Lao people will never forget this government's inhuman conduct; this regicide will go down in the annals of our History.

The implacable face of a despotic, totalitarian, and what is more, foreign regime has reigned for more than twenty years over a people once known for its kindness and hospitality, which is now surviving paralysed by the fear of the arbitrary, anguished by the uncertainty of the future, in destitution and deprivation.

Shamelessly flouting the most basic rules of democracy and deliberately violating the inalienable humans rights of lao citizens with arbitrary arrests, mass deportations and violence of all kinds, the lao-vietnamese communists have driven almost 500.000 nationalists from all backgrounds to flee their mother country (in 1975 Laos has a population of some 3.5 million).

Nevertherless, breaking with their reputation as a tolerant, dispassionate people, Laos have got together to try and oppose the foreign destruction of their rights and freedom, which took place to the general indifference of the free world and their former allies.

Outside the country, those fortunate enough to escape the lao-vietnamese hell have become active within a number of oganisations in order to preserve their national identity and safeguard the specific values and ideals of their race. In order to secure an historic and legitimate framework to their struggle, they called on the services of the Royal Family in exile, presided over by His Royal Highness Prince Sauryavong Savang, the only son of the late King Sri Savang Vatthana to have got out of Laos in time to escape the death camps.

In agreement with community of Laos in exile worlwide and in accordance with the 11 May 1947 Constitution, which stipulated "that in the event of physical or legal incapacity of His Majesty the King and of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, a Regent shall be appointed to ensure the continuity of the monarchy and discharge the duties deriving therefrom", such as acting as the spiritual head and national representative of all lao, the guardian of our customs and traditions and protector of the Buddhist religion and its precepts, until the lao people themselves hold a referendum to decide whether the monarchy should be re-established in the country, His Royal Highness accepted this weighty responsability in order to support and contribute to the efforts towards reunification and national harmony.

Since 1975, the "Pathet-Lao" and their Vietnamese masters have consistently plundered the natural heritage, which the Royal Government had managed to preserved despite the state of war imposed by the communist rebels, and have established an abominable political situation : after twenty years of usurped power their tyrannical administration is completely bankrupt. The country's economic management is totally paralyzed, thrusting the lao people back at least fifty years and placing the country among the three poorest nations of the world. Their dream of a collectivised society has only resulted in an unprecedented tragedy for the lao people, an unimaginable demographic upheaval and families torn asunder, leaving sores that will be difficult to heal.

Despite the collapse of the international communist bloc, the democratisation of Central Europe and the independence of the former member states of the Soviet Union, Hanoî is still maintening an armed force of occupation of over 60.000 bodoîs, and the so-called Vientiane government, which did not publish its first Constitution until 14 August 1991, is continuing to violate the universal principles of human rights and to reject the theories of pluralism.

Today, using misleading campaigns by travel agents, those famous dream merchants, the government of the PDRL is trying to sell the illusion of economic expansion in order to assuage the greed and personal powers of its leaders, who wax lyrical about democracy while dozens of political prisoners are still rotting in their jails, and about freedom while the country is in fact controlled by an oligarchic system protected by Hanoî.

In order to establish its legitimacy, it has become a member of the United Nations Organisation and the French-Speaking Communities, while continuing its campaign against the French colonisation in the schools, and was recently admitted to ASEAN as if it was a state in its own right, whereas it is in complete subjection to the dictates of communist Vietnam and only survives through bribery and corruption at all levels and arms and opium trafficking.

Laos abroad

The Lao Communuty in exile is not deceived by all this and is keeping up its guard thanks to first-hand reports supplied by individual lao who have ventured back into the country, where they are greeted as "traitors", suffering the lowest humiliations and halted at every street-corner by "authorities" who crop up as if by chance to conduct "checks". In order to avoid administrative pressure to denounce them, even their relatives refuse to receive them in their homes, and instead, meet them in hotel foyers where they are charged a special rates ( twice more than for an ordinary tourist).

In order to support our compatriots' morale and preserve our national unity, various humanitarian, cultural and other organisations have emerged to prevent the erosion, manipulation, diversion and separatism that are often the lot of our ethnic groups.

In response to the appeal by the Community of the lao people in exile, through the impetus given by His Royal Highness Sauryavong Savang, the "Assembly of Lao Representatives Abroad" has been founded, and was ratified at a Congress held on 6 and 7 September 1997 in Seattle (Washington State), attended by over 600 delegates from all five Continents, who unanimously adopted a 14-point Resolution (see appendix).

Thanks to the determination of our whole community, on July 1998, the American Senate adopted Resolution 240 against the Government of the Lao Republic (see appended text).

After more than twenty years' separation, and in view of the political, social, and above all economic developments which are drastically changing the world on the threshold of the 21st century, the lao diaspora, which includes thousands of individuals qualified in all the fields of modern technology (medecine, ingineering, building, computer science, mineralogy, etc...) and which embraces untold linguistic and cultural treasures because of the variety of places in which they found refuge,is fully prepared to help with national reconstruction, contribute to the country's economic growth by exploiting its natural wealth in terms of forestry and minerals, while preserving the flora and fauna which are gradually becoming extinct in this South-East Asian peninsula.

However, this can happen if the current Lao government agrees to a frank and sincere dialogue with representatives of the lao people in exile in order to amend its anarchic laws to secure genuine, irreversible and radical change in line with the more human and realistic developments in the modern world, so that this magnificent country can in the future developing fully within a framework of Independance, Peace and Democracy in a State governed by the Rule of Law.

The Assembly of the Lao Abroad representatives, meeting in Seattle,

1. Requests the current lao authorities to discontinue all exactions against and arrests of

those combating totalitarianism and dictatorship;

2. Demands the withdrawal of all armed and unarmed vietnamese forces, together with their military advisers and their secret and espionage services, from the Lao national

territory, under international supervision;

3. Urges the Government of the LPDR to cancel all agreements concuded with Vietnam, including those signed in Vientiane on 17 July 1977 valid for 25 years, which are renewable every 10 years and which tie Laos to Vietnam in military, political, economic and cultural terms;

As soon as Lao national reconciliation has been effectively achieved, we intend to enter into new agreements with our neighbours.

4. Demands the release of both right-wing and left-wing political prisoners or prisoners of conscience from the so-called rehabilitation and forced labour camps, without fear of reprisals;

5. Urges that no distinctions be drawn between ethnic groups or races, or between those belonging to the "ancien regime" and the new regime, and that the same rights be granted to all and the same obligations imposed on all; however, it considers that lao nationality rights must be withdrawn from vietnamese nationals having taken lao citizenship in accordance with the 17 July 1977 agreements, which are, in its view,

null and void;

6. Demands respect for all aspects of the inalienable rights of man and the citizen, both in physical and intellectual terms;

7 Noting that a number of exiles have had to take the nationality of their host countries in order to facilitate their integration, and that several of the world's nations allow citizens to hold dual nationality, recommends that these persons be automatically and unconditionally entitled to resume their lao nationality, and that children born abroad of lao parents be also automatically entitled to lao nationality;

8. Demands the unconditional return to its owners of property confiscated by the State of various profiteers, without interest of any kind;

9. Advocates respect for flora and fauna, nature and the natural environment;

10. Recommends that lao living abroad and those living in the national territory be reunited under the aegis of the Monarchy, which creates, guarantees and ensures national unity;

11 Approves the Monarchy's representations to friendly countries aimed at securing the necessary assistance to promote the country's prosperity once the people have been reconciled in a spirit of democracy;

12. Encourages lao living abroad to consider and prepare for national reconstruction;

13. Mandates the Monarchy to initiate the requisite contacts and negotiations with the current lao Government, directly, through the intermediary of friendly States, through friendly organisations or through non-governmental organisations (NGOs) .

14. Stresses that the aim of such negotiation is to transform this totalitarian regime into a genuinely democratic regime, focusing on national reunification and reconciliation.

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