Freedom in the World 2004 - Laos

Political Rights: 7
Civil Liberties: 6
Status: Not Free
Population: 5,600,000
GNI/Capita: $300
Life Expectancy: 54
Religious Groups: Buddhist (60 percent), other [including animist] (40 percent)
Ethnic Groups: Lao Loum [lowland] (68 percent), Lao Theung [upland] (22 percent), Lao Soung [highland] including the Hmong (Meo) and the Yao (Mien) (9 percent), ethnic Vietnamese/Chinese (1 percent)
Capital: Vientiane

Overview

With its command economy, Brezhnev-era politics, and sporadic political violence, Laos is likely to remain among the world's poorest and least developed countries for years to come. The Communist ruling party in 2003 continued to jail dissidents and showed few signs of speeding the pace of limited economic reforms introduced nearly two decades ago. Meanwhile, a string of attacks on buses in remote areas of this Southeast Asian nation killed at least two dozen people, while stepped-up attacks by Laotian forces against antigovernment rebels in the rugged north reportedly led to scores of civilian deaths.

Landlocked, mountainous Laos won independence in 1953 after being a French protectorate for six decades and occupied by the Japanese during World War II. Backed by Vietnam's Viet Minh rebels, Communist Pathet Lao (Land of Lao) guerrillas quickly tried to topple the royalist government in Vientiane. Following several years of political turmoil, Communist, royalist, and so-called neutralist forces in 1960 began waging a three-way civil war.

Amid continued internal fighting, Laos was drawn into the Vietnam War in 1964, when the United States began bombing North Vietnamese forces operating inside Laos. The Pathet Lao seized power in 1975 shortly after the Communist victory in neighboring Vietnam. The guerrillas set up a one-party Communist state under Prime Minister Kaysone Phomvihane's Lao People's Revolutionary Party (LPRP). By the mid-1980s, the Laotian economy was in shambles, reeling from the LPRP's central planning and tight political control and the legacy of civil war. In response, the LPRP in 1986 began freeing prices, encouraging foreign investment, and privatizing farms and some state-owned firms. Partially unshackled, the economy grew by 7 percent a year, on average, from 1988 to 1996.

At the same time, the LPRP continued to reject calls for political reforms, jailing two officials in 1990 who called for multiparty elections. Meanwhile, Kaysone's death in 1992 ushered in a new strongman to lead the country. Veteran revolutionary Khamtay Siphandone, now 79, took the reigns of the all-powerful LPRP and later became state president.

Besides rejecting political change, Khamtay and other leaders also have been unwilling to pursue deeper economic reforms, including privatizing the large, creaking state firms that dominate the economy. They apparently fear that reducing the party's control over the economy could undermine its tight grip on power by giving ordinary Laotians more control over their daily lives.

Diplomats in Vientiane blamed the bus attacks in 2003 on ethnic Hmong rebels, although no group claimed responsibility and little hard evidence linked the insurgents to the attacks. The Hmong rebels are the remnants of an army that was backed by the U.S. CIA during the Vietnam War to fight Communist forces. The rebels are divided and poorly equipped, and experts caution that claims of heavy fighting in 2003 by a U.S.-based Hmong exile group were very likely exaggerated.

Late in the year, a group of several hundred rebels and their families remained surrounded by Laotian forces in Khouang Province, northeast of Vientiane, a situation first reported by Time Asia in May. The human rights group Amnesty International said in October that the holed-up rebels were unable to obtain food and that it had received reports of scores of civilian deaths from conflict-related injuries and starvation.

Laos is Southeast Asia's least developed country and depends on foreign aid and loans. Around four-fifths of Laotians are subsistence farmers, most of whom live on less than $2 per day. Trade, tourism, and sales of hydroelectric power to neighboring Thailand are key sources of foreign revenue. The economy has yet to recover from the regional financial crisis that began in 1997, when the country's mainly Thai foreign investors pulled out in droves; most have not returned.

Political Rights and Civil Liberties

Laotians cannot change their government through elections and are denied most basic rights. The 1991 constitution makes the ruling LPRP the sole legal political party and gives it a leading role at all levels of government. The LPRP vets all candidates for election to the rubber-stamp National Assembly; elections are held once every five years. At the last election, in 2002, all but one of the 166 candidates for the assembly's 109 seats were LPRP cadres.

Laotian media are state controlled and parrot the party line. The law authorizes jail terms for journalists who step out of line and criminalizes most criticism of the state or LPRP. Two European journalists and their American interpreter, arrested in June while covering the insurgency, were released in July after being sentenced to 15-year prison terms for the killing of a village guard. Two Hmong assistants arrested with them remain jailed under long sentences. The government controls all domestic Internet servers, and authorities at times block access to Web sites that they consider pornographic or that are critical of the government.

Religious freedom is tightly restricted. Dozens of Christians recently have been detained on religious grounds, some for months, and several have been jailed for proselytizing or other peaceful religious activities. A campaign launched in some provinces in 1999 to shut churches and force Christians to renounce their faith appears largely over, though there continue to be sporadic reports of harassment of worshippers in those provinces. Moreover, local officials in some parts of Laos prevent Christians from celebrating major religious holidays, and some minority religious groups reportedly are unable to register new congregations or obtain permission to build new places of worship, according to the U.S. State Department's human rights report for 2002, released in March 2003. In this predominantly Buddhist society, the LPRP controls training for the Buddhist clergy and oversees temples and other religious sites. Recently, however, officials have permitted some Buddhist temples to receive foreign support, expand the training of monks, and emphasize traditional teachings rather than state doctrine.

Academic freedom is highly restricted. University professors generally cannot teach or write about democratization, human rights, and other politically sensitive topics.

Laos has some nongovernmental welfare and professional groups, but they are prohibited from having political agendas and are subjected to strict state control. Laotian trade unions have little influence, partly because they are state controlled but also because few Laotians are wage-earning workers. All unions must belong to the official Federation of Lao Trade Unions, and workers lack the right to bargain collectively. Strikes are not expressly prohibited, but workers rarely stage walkouts. Most wage earners work for the government, although privatization is moving more workers into the private sector.

Laos's party-controlled courts do not provide fair trials or allow citizens to redress government rights abuses and other grievances. "The judiciary was subject to executive, legislative, and LPRP influence, was corrupt, and did not ensure citizens due process," according to the U.S. State Department report. The report noted, however, that officials appear to be easing somewhat their control of the courts. Security forces often illegally detain suspects, and some Laotians have spent more than a decade in jail without trial, according to a 2002 Amnesty International report. Prisoners are routinely tortured and receive inadequate food and health care. In addition, some must bribe jail officials to obtain their freedom once a court has ordered their release. Authorities continue to brook little dissent from ordinary Laotians. Laotian jails hold hundreds of short- and long-term political detainees, according to the U.S. State Department report. They also hold at least nine political prisoners who have been formally charged and tried.

Both Laotian forces and Hmong rebels reportedly have committed some killings and other human rights abuses related to the Hmong insurgency. The Hmong – one of the largest of several upcountry hill tribes in Laos – and other ethnic minorities face some discrimination in mainstream society and have little say in government decisions on how land is used and natural resources are allocated.

Ordinary Laotians enjoy somewhat greater freedom in their daily lives than they did in the years following the Communist takeover. Many now work for themselves or private employers rather than for tightly monitored state firms. Moreover, the government has scaled back its surveillance of the population, although intelligence agencies still keep tabs on some Laotians, and officials at times conduct searches without warrants.

Many Laotian women hold key civil service and private sector jobs, though relatively few are in the top ranks of government. An estimated 15,000 to 20,000 Laotian women and girls, mainly highland ethnic minorities, are trafficked each year for prostitution, mostly to Thailand.