How did Kou Voravong die?
50783233#41
The attack occurred at approximately 22:15, at Phoui Sananikone's, an official residence nearby the Voravong family's. The attackers launched three grenades by one of the windows on the ground floor, in the dining room. They fired three or four pistol shots and then run away. Kou voravong, sitting with his back to the window, was directly hit by a bullet which came in by the kidney and out through the navel, after cutting the vena cava and crossed the liver and intestines. His dead is declared shortly after admission to hospital. A dozen people were injured by the explosion of the grenades, slightly for most of them.
Kou Voravong
50783233#1
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 (pro-French) which was replaced by a progressive one (pro-American) 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.
Kou Voravong
50783233#57
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.
Kou Voravong
50783233#58
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.
Kou Voravong
50783233#7
Kou Voravong grew up in Savannakhet and pursued a primary education there. He obtained the « certificat d'études primaires complémentaire indochinois » - Certificate of Indochinese Additional Primary Studies - (CEPCI) in 1930, went afterward to Vientiane and began his first-secondary-school year at the Collège Auguste Pavie. But because of a conflict which opposed him to French Colonial administration, his adopted father was sentenced to prison that same year. As reaction to this situation, Kou Voravong left school and returned to Savannakhet. As an out-of-school teenager, he practiced sports, especially soccer.
Kou Voravong
50783233#6
Born in this influential family in 1914 in Khanthabouri district, Kou Voravong was the only son of Thaan-krou Khammanh Nakphoumin (ທ່ານຄຣູຄຳໝັ້ນ ນັກພູມິນ) – schoolteacher, and Nang Chanheuang (ນາງຈັນເຮືອງ), one of Phagna Poui's daughters. When his parents separated, he was adopted as infant by Nang Kiengkham (ນາງກຽງຄຳ), his mother's older sister, married to Thao Taan Voravong, who was, at the time, interpreter at the « Résidence de France ». The couple didn't have any children.
Kou Voravong
50783233#28
As the Prime Minister Chao Boun Oum had submitted the resignation of his government on February, 13th, 1950, the 3rd Royal Government, chaired by Phoui Sananikone (ຜຸຍ ຊນະນິກອນ) was invested on 27th of the same month – just two months before the effective transfers of powers, on April, 13th, Buddhist year 2492's last day – with Kou Voravong as Minister of the Interior. Being himself behind the creation of the National police force in 1949 and consequently very attentive to its development, Kou Voravong imposed on its direction, colonel Jean Deuve, a man of experiment, who he could fully trust, for having fought side-by-side four years ago against the Japanese and the Lao Issara troops.
Kou Voravong
50783233#62
When the general Phoumi Nosavan died in Bangkok in 1985, since the time-limit for conservation by the Department of Fine Arts was thirty years, questions arose regarding the statue of Kou Voravong. In 1989, the collapse of the communist Eastern Bloc – symbolized by the Berlin Wall's fall – allowed gradually Laos to enter the market economy, which then provided the opportunity for the Voravong children to approach the LPDR authorities for the return to the country of their father's statue. In 1992, the cost of conserving paid, the statue was legally returned to the family. The eldest daughter of Thao Bouaphet, who lived in Bangkok, entrusted it to the monastery of Amphawan (thai language: วัดอัมพวัน), around the Thai capital.
Kou Voravong
50783233#2
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.
Kou Voravong
50783233#8
One day, after a game, Kou Voravong and friends gathered some coconuts from trees bordering the playground to satisfy their thirst. Madame Malpuech, the previous Commissioner's wife shouted at them, considering these behaviors as an act of vandalism on public property. As captain, he defended his teammates with such virulence that she filed complaint with the police against him for assaulting.
Kou Voravong
50783233#19
On the 11th, 1946, an election was organised to set up a constituent assembly. Khammouan Province won 4 seats including Kou Voravong, who had to go to the capital for the development of the Constitution. On March 6, 1947, he undertook the trip, accompanied by 2 other deputies and the French counselor of the Savannakhet Province's Governor. On the west side of Khammouane Province, between Thakhek and Paksan, they encountered an ambush, established by a Việt Minh company from Thailand, near a bridge located upstream on the mouth of the Hinboun and the Mekong rivers (Paak Hinboun – ປາກຫິນບູນ). The French counselor and both other deputies were instantly killed; Kou Voravong, seriously wounded, was left for dead. Shot by several bullets, in his head, legs and body, he nevertheless managed to crawl nearly one kilometer in the jungle, to slip into a pirogue and to row along the river until finding assistance. He was then saved, healed at the hospital of Thakhek.
Kou Voravong