Phoumi Vongvichit

Phoumi Vongvichit
ພູມີ ວົງວິຈິດ
Phoun Sipraseuth (Lao PDR Government)
Personal details
Born	(1909-04-06)6 April 1909 French Laos
Died	7 January 1994(1994-01-07) (aged 84) Vientiane, Laos
Nationality	Laotian
Political party	Lao People's Revolutionary Party
Spouse	Khamsouk Vongvichitr
Occupation	Politician

Phoumi Vongvichit (

.

He was born April 6, 1909, in

.

In 1946, after the French reasserted their authority in Laos, Phoumi made his way to northern Thailand where for the next three years he was active in the Lao Issara. At the end of 1949, having refused to accept the offer of amnesty upon dissolution of the Lao Issara government-in-exile in Thailand, Phoumi was one of the handful of Lao who joined Souphanouvong in northern Vietnam. There he attended the founding congress of the Neo Lao Issara (the Free Laos Front). Phoumi was nominated both Secretary-General of the Front, and Minister of the Interior and Deputy Prime Minister in the Pathet Lao Resistance government that the Front established in opposition to the Royal Lao government in Vientiane. The Resistance government gained no international recognition, but Phoumi nominally retained both positions until the Geneva Agreements of 1954 brought the First Indochina War to an end.

In 1954 and 1955, Phoumi led

, recognizing its potential as a propaganda organ for opposition to the Americanization of Lao society, but also as a vehicle for the propagation of Lao cultural values.

In the supplementary elections of May 1958, Phoumi was elected to the National Assembly to serve as a deputy for Luang Prabang. In the political crisis that followed the electoral success of the left, Phoumi lost his ministry. In July 1959 he was arrested along with other Pathet Lao deputies, and imprisoned without ever being brought to trial. In a famous May 1960 episode he escaped with Souphanouvong and other leading Pathet Lao prisoners and their guards, and made the long march to the Pathet Lao zone in Xieng Khouang.

After the Battle of Vientiane in December 1960 and the subsequent retreat of Neutralist forces to the Plain of Jars, Phoumi was instrumental in arranging for Pathet Lao-Neutralist collaboration. He led the Pathet Lao delegation to the Geneva Conference on the neutrality of Laos in 1962, and served as Minister of Information, Propaganda and Tourism in the Second Coalition government. In 1964, after a series of political assassinations, Phoumi left Vientiane with other Pathet Lao ministers.

By this time Laos had been dragged into the

and leading various Pathet Lao delegations to international communist gatherings. He retained his positions in both the Politburo and the Lao Patriotic Front, and took a leading role in negotiations leading to formation of the Third Coalition government in 1974, in which he served as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs.

After

for reasons of health, Phoumi was named Acting President of the LPDR and Chairman of the Lao Front for National Construction. He retired from the Acting Presidency and the Politburo at the Fifth Party Congress in March 1991.

Since 1991, he and Prince

Selected bibliography

• Phoumi Vongvichit: Laos and the victorious struggle of the Lao people against U.S. neo-colonialism, Neo Lao Haksat Publications, 1969

References

• Lao Cultural Profiles
• Obituary by Martin Stuart-Fox
• New York Times, January 12, 1994

Political offices
Preceded by Souphanouvong	President of Laos Acting 1986 – 1991	Succeeded by Kaysone Phomvihane
Party political offices
Preceded by Souphanouvong	President of the Lao Front for National Construction 1986 – 1991	Succeeded by Khamtai Siphandon