As you may already know, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon plans to visit Laos soon. What will he see? Well for the most part, only what the Pathet Lao communists allow him to see of course.
PRESS FREEDOM
In Laos there is only one "legal" full-time photojournalist given "official" permission by Pathet Lao to do photojournalism work there on a daily basis out in the open and he contributes to AFP. Presumably, all his transmissions are reviewed. The rest sneak around and say they are tourists on holiday if asked. Laos ranked 161st out of 169 countries listed in the 2007 Worldwide Press Freedom Index.
Ask photojournalist Thierry Falise. He regularly contributes (text and photos) to magazines and dailies L'Express, Le Point, Paris-Match, Le Figaro Magazine, Marie-Claire, Marie France, VSD, Grands Reportages, Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Sunday Times and many more.
In 2003, along with a French colleague, he was arrested on his way back from a forbidden trip in the Laos jungle to an abandoned Hmong community, former ally of the CIA during the Indochina war. Both reporters were sentenced to 15 years in prison but, thanks to a vast international solidarity campaign, they were released after five weeks.
SPEAKING OF THE HMONG PEOPLE
In Phonsavan in 2007 a Hmong “guerilla” fighter turned over 150 starving women and children to a village headman about 16 kilometers from the town center. The Hmong are taken to refuge type detention centers and are malnourished and mistreated according to the last people from civil society who actually saw one of these facilities. Malnourished Hmong in rural Laos can be observed just 15 kilometers from Luang Prabang. Normally, a visitor wouldn’t observe this as the Pathet Lao government is very particular as to what aspects of their society outsiders can legally see, and it has been less than 10 years since Laos opened its doors to "full-fledged tourism".
In June 2008 over 800 ethnic Hmong were forcibly returned to Laos from Thailand. While former UN Human Rights Commission Louise Arbour issued a statement of concern, Hmong sources told Inner City Press that the UN's Department of Political Affairs, while polite, had declined to participate in meetings by Hmong leaders seeking to avert these forced returns, and that the UN Development Program had declined to meet with Hmong, saying it is outside of the mandate, which involves engaging only with governments, whether in North Korea, Myanmar, Zimbabwe or Laos. Whether UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon will address this topic, well we will have to wait and see.
This is a continuing story.
HEALTHCARE
Organized healthcare in rural Laos is virtually non-existent. Basic medicine such as aspirin is unavailable in the countryside where doctors earn $40-60 USD per month and diagnostic equipment is scarce. Take the case of sixteen-year-old Khenemone Chanmeechai, a resident of the National Rehabilitation Center (NRC) in Vientiane, Laos. She began losing her vision at age nine as a result of conjunctivitis. By the time her parents could afford to get her to a hospital in Vientiane, the damage was irreparable and the doctors told her she would not see the world again. She gradually lost her vision. "It is so hard to live my life but I have to carry on." she laments.
REHABILITATION
The National Rehabilitation Center (NRC) is a one-hundred percent foreign funded institution comprised off roughly ten NGO's that provide a variety of services. According to an NGO official, the facility receives no funding from the Pathet Lao government. Rather than a facility for bed-ridden, chronically ill or terminal patients, it serves as a "half way house" for people fortunate enough to get there. Other than approximately one hundred thirty blind and deaf children living in dormitories and attending classes, there are few permanent residents. At times, it appears to be a ghost town. See for yourself.
EDUCATION
Typically, teachers in Laos earn $20 USD per month while trying to educate student bodies 120-400. Many schools are comprised of main structures containing three or four classrooms along with a detached dirt floored bamboo bungalow reserved for the youngest students. They sit on thin wooden benches wearily resting heads in hands, as textbooks that would offer diversion are unaffordable. The paucity of secondary schools in the Lao countryside as well as the sheer distance between primary schools and high schools is problematic. The biggest boulder along the road of scholarship may be a near total lack of a basic infrastructure. In other words, Laos needs more schools and school supplies, and after that, a way to get to these schools. Here is a look at what I'm talking about.
FUTURE PLANS
Laos is a communist state inhabited by 6 million people, and ranks among the world's poorest nations. The country stands to win big if their hydropower potential is tapped since Laos has 60,400 cubic meters of renewable water resources per capita, more than any other country in Asia. The landlocked country's almost complete lack of basic infrastructure coupled with a poorly educated workforce has precluded the benefits of large-scale foreign investment enjoyed by some of its neighbors, but six large mainstream dams are being proposed.
Is dam construction the best way to provide Laos with sorely needed energy? Not according to Guy Lanza, Director of the Environmental Science Program at the University of Massachusetts (USA). In an email interview that recently appeared in The Cambodia Daily, Lanza, an expert who has studied the region for nearly 40 years remarked, "The most pressing issues related to hydroelectric dam projects include ecological damage and human suffering. Planners tend to view water in terms of quantity rather than quality."
Speaking of planning, virtually all funding for Lao dam construction will come from China through state-owned financial institutions such as the Chinese Export-Import Bank. There is scant information regarding the financial details for these projects available to the public however
RESOURCE ALLOCATION
PRESS FREEDOM
In Laos there is only one "legal" full-time photojournalist given "official" permission by Pathet Lao to do photojournalism work there on a daily basis out in the open and he contributes to AFP. Presumably, all his transmissions are reviewed. The rest sneak around and say they are tourists on holiday if asked. Laos ranked 161st out of 169 countries listed in the 2007 Worldwide Press Freedom Index.
Ask photojournalist Thierry Falise. He regularly contributes (text and photos) to magazines and dailies L'Express, Le Point, Paris-Match, Le Figaro Magazine, Marie-Claire, Marie France, VSD, Grands Reportages, Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Sunday Times and many more.
In 2003, along with a French colleague, he was arrested on his way back from a forbidden trip in the Laos jungle to an abandoned Hmong community, former ally of the CIA during the Indochina war. Both reporters were sentenced to 15 years in prison but, thanks to a vast international solidarity campaign, they were released after five weeks.
SPEAKING OF THE HMONG PEOPLE
In Phonsavan in 2007 a Hmong “guerilla” fighter turned over 150 starving women and children to a village headman about 16 kilometers from the town center. The Hmong are taken to refuge type detention centers and are malnourished and mistreated according to the last people from civil society who actually saw one of these facilities. Malnourished Hmong in rural Laos can be observed just 15 kilometers from Luang Prabang. Normally, a visitor wouldn’t observe this as the Pathet Lao government is very particular as to what aspects of their society outsiders can legally see, and it has been less than 10 years since Laos opened its doors to "full-fledged tourism".
In June 2008 over 800 ethnic Hmong were forcibly returned to Laos from Thailand. While former UN Human Rights Commission Louise Arbour issued a statement of concern, Hmong sources told Inner City Press that the UN's Department of Political Affairs, while polite, had declined to participate in meetings by Hmong leaders seeking to avert these forced returns, and that the UN Development Program had declined to meet with Hmong, saying it is outside of the mandate, which involves engaging only with governments, whether in North Korea, Myanmar, Zimbabwe or Laos. Whether UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon will address this topic, well we will have to wait and see.
This is a continuing story.
HEALTHCARE
Organized healthcare in rural Laos is virtually non-existent. Basic medicine such as aspirin is unavailable in the countryside where doctors earn $40-60 USD per month and diagnostic equipment is scarce. Take the case of sixteen-year-old Khenemone Chanmeechai, a resident of the National Rehabilitation Center (NRC) in Vientiane, Laos. She began losing her vision at age nine as a result of conjunctivitis. By the time her parents could afford to get her to a hospital in Vientiane, the damage was irreparable and the doctors told her she would not see the world again. She gradually lost her vision. "It is so hard to live my life but I have to carry on." she laments.
REHABILITATION
The National Rehabilitation Center (NRC) is a one-hundred percent foreign funded institution comprised off roughly ten NGO's that provide a variety of services. According to an NGO official, the facility receives no funding from the Pathet Lao government. Rather than a facility for bed-ridden, chronically ill or terminal patients, it serves as a "half way house" for people fortunate enough to get there. Other than approximately one hundred thirty blind and deaf children living in dormitories and attending classes, there are few permanent residents. At times, it appears to be a ghost town. See for yourself.
EDUCATION
Typically, teachers in Laos earn $20 USD per month while trying to educate student bodies 120-400. Many schools are comprised of main structures containing three or four classrooms along with a detached dirt floored bamboo bungalow reserved for the youngest students. They sit on thin wooden benches wearily resting heads in hands, as textbooks that would offer diversion are unaffordable. The paucity of secondary schools in the Lao countryside as well as the sheer distance between primary schools and high schools is problematic. The biggest boulder along the road of scholarship may be a near total lack of a basic infrastructure. In other words, Laos needs more schools and school supplies, and after that, a way to get to these schools. Here is a look at what I'm talking about.
FUTURE PLANS
Laos is a communist state inhabited by 6 million people, and ranks among the world's poorest nations. The country stands to win big if their hydropower potential is tapped since Laos has 60,400 cubic meters of renewable water resources per capita, more than any other country in Asia. The landlocked country's almost complete lack of basic infrastructure coupled with a poorly educated workforce has precluded the benefits of large-scale foreign investment enjoyed by some of its neighbors, but six large mainstream dams are being proposed.
Is dam construction the best way to provide Laos with sorely needed energy? Not according to Guy Lanza, Director of the Environmental Science Program at the University of Massachusetts (USA). In an email interview that recently appeared in The Cambodia Daily, Lanza, an expert who has studied the region for nearly 40 years remarked, "The most pressing issues related to hydroelectric dam projects include ecological damage and human suffering. Planners tend to view water in terms of quantity rather than quality."
Speaking of planning, virtually all funding for Lao dam construction will come from China through state-owned financial institutions such as the Chinese Export-Import Bank. There is scant information regarding the financial details for these projects available to the public however
RESOURCE ALLOCATION
According to The World Bank, one-half of Laotian citizens are living below the poverty line. Fifty to sixty percent of the populace still lives a subsistence lifestyle, mostly, but not completely, independent from government involvement. In Laos, rice grown by rural farmers in small villages is divided into thirds, the first third going to the communist Pathet Lao government. Instead of being able to sell this rice and keep the profits for themselves, the government procures it and administers the proceeds. Additional thirds go to the village rice collective as well as the growers and their individual families.
Whereas foreign aid has accounted for over 40% of the annual national budget some years, 40% of that amount goes directly to the Pathet Lao government payroll. Determining how important the government views funding of education is difficult at best, for Laos ranked 168th Transparency International's 2007 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) out of 179 countries listed.
Let's see what UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon gets to see while in Laos. My guess is not much.
John Brown Photojournalist On LIGHTSTALKERS
My Mondo Library Photographs
My Photoshelter Archive Homepage
GAIA Photojournalism Collective
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