page_title: Kou Voravong
section_title: Creation in Bangkok
hierarchical_section_title: Kou Voravong / The statue / Creation in Bangkok
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Face intérieure de l'entrée du parc d'activité sportive et ancien stade Kou Voravong
context_page_description: Kou Voravong was a Laotian politician. He was part of the anti-Japanese resistance leading group during the Second World War and after then anti-Lao Issara in the post-war period. Throughout his career, from 1941 to 1954, he has been District Chief, Province Governor, member of the Lao National Assembly, and Lao Royal Government Minister.
  The political crisis caused by his assassination, barely two months after the Geneva Agreements which prepared to restore peace in Indochina, contributed to bring down the current neutralist government which was replaced by a progressive one in extremely tense atmosphere of the Cold War between Russia and the United States. From 1955 indeed, the political history of this small landlocked country fell trapped inexorably in the ideological confrontation between the capitalist United States and the communist Soviet Union, annihilating any hope of national unification.
  We can find a Kou Voravong Road in the city of Thakhek as well as in Savannakhet where his name is also given to an old stadium now a sports park. Since 1995, a statue is erected in the garden of the family residence where he lived as a child.
context_section_description: During the confrontations in 1946, Phoumi Nosavan had sided with Chao Phetsarath's Lao Issara Government. And then in the aftermath of the defeat, he took refuge in Thailand. Upon his return from exile in 1949, he joined the newly formed Lao National Army, created in March of the same year.
  Early in 1950, when Bounkong and his band engaged in violent anti-government campaigns in the South of the country, Kou Voravong created the "Pacification of Southern Laos Mission" to combat internal subversion and border piracy. This organization whose headquarter was based in Pakse, was responsible to bring together supporters, volunteers and former members of the Lao Issara movement, to form units to combat subversion and banditry. Occupied with his ministerial responsibilities in Vientiane, he entrusted the command to his cousin and brother-in-law, the young lieutenant Phoumi Nosavan.
  Considering that the Bounkong Band was known in the province, he got in touch with its members and proposed them negotiations so that they convinced the local insurgents to lay down arms and to adhered to the national cause. But the bandits would take advantage of the naivety of the young lieutenant to carry out during several months, acts of banditry, spying and intense anti-government guerrillas, by using the pass, material and funds provided by the chief himself. Despite the failure of the "Pacification of Southern Laos Mission" which has nearly cost his political career, Kou Voravong renewed his confidence in Phoumi Nosavan who would pursue his military career until becoming the Lao National Army's chief of staff, in 1955.
  Following Kou Voravong's death, he led his family members in their search for the truth concerning the assassination. In 1960, during the legislative election campaign of Ou (ອຸ) and Bounthong (ບຸນທົງ) – Kou Voravong's half-brothers – the three cousins promised to the Savannakhet population that in the event of electoral success they would pay tribute to their brother and cousin, "the home-grown child", a murdered rising political figure. Ou and Bounthong Voravong shall be both elected assembly members of the Savannakhet Province that year.
  Starting from 1959 and during six years, with the financial support of the CIA, the general Phoumi Nosavan became the dominant figure in the Laotian political life. At the height of his career in May 1960, thanks to his relationship with Sarit Thanarat – the current Thai Prime Minister – and in association with Ou and Bounthong Voravong, he commissioned and financed a life-size statue of Kou Voravong at the Department of Fine Arts of the Ministry of Culture of Thailand. In Savannakhet, a "Kou Voravong Stadium" was built at the extreme north of the avenue of the same name, and the site of the statue was planned on an esplanade just at the entrance.
  But the country was immersed in a civil war, itself within the context of the Cold War. In 1963, when his uncle the General Sarit Thanarat died, he lost Thailand's Government support, while on the other side, the United States opted for direct military intervention policy. At the end of January 1965, after several "disobediences" to the American military advisory, and following a coup against his government, whose instigator was General Kouprasith Abhay, Phoumi Nosavan was forced to go into exile in Thailand with his followers and relatives. The statue of Kou Voravong had not been erected and still waiting in the reserve of Fine Arts Department in Bangkok during nearly 30 years.
caption: entrance to Kou Voravong stadium
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