GWR
01-02-08, 08:08 PM
The abduction of a Laotian eco-tourism entrepreneur who had an American partner highlights the tension between the country's need to sustain economic growth and the ruling communist party's increasing resentment of foreigners. High-rolling Chinese gamblers are the exception to the official xenophobia. - Bertil Lintner (Feb 1, '08)
Feb 2, 2008
Fear of foreigners in Laos
By Bertil Lintner
LUANG PRABANG, Laos - It is has been one year since Sompawn Khantisouk was abducted by men believed to be local police officers. The whereabouts of the entrepreneur, the owner and manager of a small eco-tourism lodge in northern Laos, are still unknown - indeed, no one other than his abductors even knows if he is still alive.
Many at the time assumed he was taken away as punishment for trying to mobilize local villagers in the area against Chinese-sponsored rubber plantation projects. Now it seems more likely that Sompawn was victim to a new and pressing dilemma facing one of the world's last remaining communist-ruled countries: how to balance rapid market-driven economic growth with the strict social controls that the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party has kept in place since it assumed power in 1975.
Sompawn ran the famous Boat-Landing resort, which is mentioned in most foreign guide books to Laos and had won several awards for its contribution to environmentally sound sustainable tourism. Eco-tourism promotion is even listed as one of the Lao government's five main development priorities, along with hydroelectric power, construction materials, agriculture and mining.
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Bertil Lintner is a former correspondent with the Far Eastern Economic Review, for which he wrote frequently on Lao politics and economics. He is currently a writer with Asia-Pacific Media Services.
Link to full article:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/JB02Ae01.html
Feb 2, 2008
Fear of foreigners in Laos
By Bertil Lintner
LUANG PRABANG, Laos - It is has been one year since Sompawn Khantisouk was abducted by men believed to be local police officers. The whereabouts of the entrepreneur, the owner and manager of a small eco-tourism lodge in northern Laos, are still unknown - indeed, no one other than his abductors even knows if he is still alive.
Many at the time assumed he was taken away as punishment for trying to mobilize local villagers in the area against Chinese-sponsored rubber plantation projects. Now it seems more likely that Sompawn was victim to a new and pressing dilemma facing one of the world's last remaining communist-ruled countries: how to balance rapid market-driven economic growth with the strict social controls that the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party has kept in place since it assumed power in 1975.
Sompawn ran the famous Boat-Landing resort, which is mentioned in most foreign guide books to Laos and had won several awards for its contribution to environmentally sound sustainable tourism. Eco-tourism promotion is even listed as one of the Lao government's five main development priorities, along with hydroelectric power, construction materials, agriculture and mining.
..........
Bertil Lintner is a former correspondent with the Far Eastern Economic Review, for which he wrote frequently on Lao politics and economics. He is currently a writer with Asia-Pacific Media Services.
Link to full article:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/JB02Ae01.html