Insurgency in Laos

Insurgency in Laos
	Part of the Third Indochina War
Date	2 December 1975 – Present (to a lesser extent since 2007)
Location	Southern Laos (royalists and rightists); Central and Northern Laos (Hmong rebels)
Belligerents
Lao PDR Lao People's Revolutionary Party; Supported by:; Vietnam Vietnam People's Army (alleged direct involvement & intervention); Soviet Union (until 1989)	Lao Resistance Movement; Hmong insurgents; Supported by:; Thailand (until 1990); United States (until 1990); Neo Hom (1981–2007); Royalists: Lao National Liberation Front; Royal Lao Democratic Government (1982); Supported by:; Royal Lao Government in Exile; China (until 1988); Khmer Rouge (until 1999) Democratic Kampuchea (until 1979); Party of Democratic Kampuchea (1981–1990); Rightists: United Front for the Liberation of Laos; Supported by:; Thailand (early to mid–1980s);
Casualties and losses
	Over 100,000 Hmong civilians killed; 300,000 displaced

The insurgency in Laos is a low-intensity conflict between the Laotian government on one side and former members of the Secret Army, Laotian royalists, and rebels from the Hmong and lowland Lao ethnic minorities on the other. These groups have faced reprisals from the Lao People's Army and Vietnam People's Army for their support of the United States-led, anti-communist military campaigns in Laos during the Laotian Civil War, which the insurgency is an extension of itself. The North Vietnamese invaded Laos in 1958 and supported the communist Pathet Lao. The Vietnamese communists continued to support the Pathet Lao after the end of the Laotian Civil War and the establishment of the Lao People's Democratic Republic. At least 100,000 Hmong civilians were killed as the result of Laotian governmental policies, in what has sometimes been referred to as the Hmong genocide.

While severely depleted, the remnants of an early 1980s-era, and 1990s-era, Royalist insurgency has been kept alive by an occasionally active guerrilla force of several thousand or so successors to that force. In June 2007, Vang Pao was arrested in the United States for an alleged plot to overthrow the Laotian communist government. His arrest led to an end of various attempts to overthrow the Laotian Government by the Hmong people, the royalists, and right-wing rebellions.

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