The Originals

From Legacies of War

During the U.S. bombing on Laos (1964-1973), an American educational adviser Fred Branfman and his Laotian colleague Bouangeun Luangpraseuth collected illustrations and narratives from Laotian refugees. Etched in pencil, pens, crayons and markers, these accounts are raw and stark, reflecting the crude events that shaped the reality of these victims’ lives. Only a small circle of individuals knew of the existence of these original drawings.

The drawings and narratives represent those who endured an air war campaign perpetuated in secrecy. Drawn primarily in pencil, pens, crayons and markers, they are raw and stark, reflecting the crude events that shaped their reality. The authenticity of the narration and drawings emphasize the illustrators, not as artists or writers, but ordinary villagers who bore witness to a devastating event.

Each of the illustrations demonstrate the violence of warfare. However, the images of blood and death are contradicted by the memories of the scenic and peaceful village life these survivors once lived. Scenes show farmers tending to their rice fields, monks praying at the temple, women going to the market and children playing in the schoolyard. The drawings reveal that these memories of their simple and peaceful life are abruptly halted as they become tarnished with violence, death and loss. They capture the very moments when their lives and society were forever altered. The illustrations and narratives are accompanied by historical photos, maps and other relevant documents to give context to the decade-long bombings.

A most unlikely connection led to the reemergence of the over 40-year old drawings. The “recovery” of these illustrations is a story in itself. As told by Channapha Khamvongsa, Legacies of War’s Founder:

“I was working at the Ford Foundation in the fall of 2003, when I went to Washington D.C. for a meeting with one of Ford’s grantees, the Institute for Policy Studies. In attendance was John Cavanagh, the Executive Director. John asked me what the origin of my name was. When I told him it was Laotian, he immediately exclaimed, “It’s really terrible what happened in the Plain of Jars!” Of course, I was shocked. After all, it seemed most Americans didn’t even know where Laos was, let alone, the specific region of Xieng Khoang, one of the most heavily bombed provinces. So, I inquired furthered about his familiarity with the secret U.S. bombings in Laos.

As it turns out, John had worked alongside Fred Branfman in the 1970s at the Indochina Resource Center, a policy think-tank working to stop the bombings in Southeast Asia. When the office closed down, John was cleaning out the office and came across the illustrations. With a sense that the drawings were important, he decided to hold on to them. As John and I came to this remarkable connection, John told me that he had some illustrations drawn by survivors of the U.S. bombings.”

These historical documents had been sitting in John Cavanagh’s D.C. office for the last quarter-century! And in a remarkable twist of fate, John met a Laotian-American decades after the war and in a context far from the Vietnam War-era. In spring 2004, John turned over the illustrations to Channapha, with the hopes that she would, “do something with them.” And hence, began Legacies of War.

Image 1

My village stood on the edge of the road from Xieng Khouang to the Plain of Jars. There were rice fields next to the road. The first time the airplanes bombed the road but didn’t bomb my village. At that time my life was filled with pleasure and happiness. With great happiness because the mountains and forests were beautiful through nature: land, water and climate suitable for we rice farmers. And there were many homes together in our one village. But that dream did not last long. Because the airplanes came bombing my rice field until the bomb craters made farming impossible. And the village was hit and burned. And some relatives who were working in their fields without shelter came running out to the road to return to the village, but the airplanes saw and shot them – killing the farmers in a heart-rending manner. We heard their screams, but we couldn’t go to help them. When the airplanes left we went to look but they had already died.

Image 2

In My Former Life As It Happened in the Past in Xieng Khouang

1. My village used to have hills and forests and houses along the side of the rice fields. Everyone had rice fields and buffalo and cows. We earned our livelihoods with happy hearts. We always helped each other to build the progress of our upland and lowland rice fields, with cooperation. But then came the airplanes to strike. To strike at our houses until they were completely lost. Until we had no place to stay. And we were afraid. Because the planes came almost every day without exception. It was as if we were in jail. We couldn’t go anywhere. All we could do was sit in the mouths of the holes.
2. And still there were people who were killed. In the forest and in the rice fields. Every single day. Every day at least once you heard of someone being killed. They would die and then we would put them in a box in order to take them to be burned in the forest.
3. In part three. We couldn’t put them in boxes anymore, just take them and put them into a hole because we had no more wood. We just dug a hole in the foot of the hill and buried them.This is what I think about the people who died in this region. They died like animals die in the forest. Because they went to shoot everyday without exception. Therefore, we were afraid and didn’t have enough courage to do right. Someone died and we just took him and dumped him and ran back very fast. Some people were not even buried. They were just dumped in a box.

Image 3

In the war there were many things. Xieng Khouang was a place of beauty and the sky and weather was cold and good. Bequeathed on our lives. And earning a livelihood, was not difficult on account of the plentiful rice land. By this we made ricefields to get rice for our livelihood all the days. But then came the time of 1965. Then the airplanes started to come and destroy. Every day and night it was impossible to sleep. This led us to run into the forest into the holes. But there was still a kind like poison to make you drunk. This kind made us most afraid. And there were many kinds which I cannot draw. Of this one I have made an example for you to see.

Image 4

In the past as it happened in the region of our village. We are refugees who have fled from the region of Xieng Khouang to come here because there we were always afraid and didn’t have any homes. All we saw was the fire of the firebombs. Every (where?) One day I saw the planes come and I ran out with my child. But I ran out and my child’s skin was hit. I took him and ran for the forest but before we reached it. There were some people who tried to take their belongings and run out of the houses with their children. But the houses were old and big. They were hit by the airplanes and burned and we were not courageous enough to go get any more belongings. After that day I always stayed in the holes in the forest. I didn’t have any house at all. I just made a very small shelter in which to stay. Written with the truthfulness of what I saw.

Image 5

There was one rice farmer who was 48 years old. He was born in the region of Xieng Khouang in the same village as I. This old man had no children, he only had a wife. And he earned his living as a rice farmer. He had a house and cows and buffalo. One day there was a plane which came and dropped bombs on his house, but he was not at home. After that he went to look for a hole in the morning and he was shot by an airplane and died. There was a villager who saw him die. He called for his wife to go look. The wife of the man went and she cried. She was most sorry about this. She thought of her husband until she finally became sick. But we took good care of the old woman.

In the year 1968, the lives of the population in Xieng Khouang, before, had goodness. And we built progress of good kind. And we helped each other to transplant and to harvest the rice in the ricefields with happiness. But then came the time of change and until it caused the people to go into the forests in the hills. We had to live in the holes and as our houses. We couldn’t go out to see the daylight. We had to stay in the forest as our home. One day the planes bombed the rice field of my village. And there was a young man about 19 years of age who was hit.

Image 6

In my village there was one place in the hills which gave the people a place to hide from anyone in the sky. But death did not flee us for long. Until it was hit by the airplanes shooting so that people died in the hole. There was no one who survived. They all burned and died. Only once in my life did I see many people die in hole like this.

Because the airplanes mistakenly thought that it was a hole of the soldiers. So, they shoot it up. But there weren’t any soldiers who died. Only village people. Then in the days after that people went to dig out the bodies and recover the belongings which were of value. Everything was in the hole. The people who went to dig were afraid, but they had to do it. Because their own families and children and wives, and parents were in the hole.

There was one man who ran for the holes when he heard the sound of a plane but before he reached the hole he was shot by the plane and died outside the hole. His wife ran up but his heart had already given out and he had died. All that could be seen was blood coming out around his mouth. His bloody head didn’t hide that day. And there was one old woman who ran up. She asked if anyone had seen her child. But all she saw was dead people Her heart was fearful. She was afraid that her child had died already. She just stood there crying until she couldn’t any longer. Truly there were people who died. Every, every day. They died because of the airplanes. 

Image 7

In the earlier times of my village, we had good fortune and there was nothing to cause us fear or danger in the lives of the Laotian rice farmer. In our region like in other regions the same. But in 1965, the airplanes began to come drop bombs on the people of Xieng Khouang. Until it caused deaths and injuries to the people. As in this picture, there were people who died in the holes. There were many people who couldn’t get out. All that could be seen were heads, and legs, and hands only. Then there was a man who went to dig them out because his child and wife were buried inside.

Image 8

Before in the life of the rice farmers in the area of xxx, the village of my birth, there were wide fields and good earth and cool weather and mountains and forests, together in the life of the rice farmers of my village.

This led to the building of progress and rice fields and harvests. In the first year of the airplanes we still went to thresh rice in the rice field. But the airplanes came and dropped bombs of napalm, burning our rice. It caused us to have no rice to eat. And in the holes in the forest still we had no rice to eat.

Image 9

This picture is a drawing of the airplanes shooting the town of Phonesavan. In the year 1969, the month of July, around Wednesday the 13th there were F105 airplanes which attacked my village from 6 p.m. for one hour. These airplanes flew around in the sky passing back and forth. At one time there was an I.R. 19 which dropped a smoke bomb down on the village in order to mark the place for further bombing. Then the F105 warplanes strafed and dropped rockets and 150 kg. bombs on the village and the people without stopping.

So, the people’s houses burned and were completely destroyed. The people in the village were hit by bombs and killed, together with more than thirty who were wounded. Because these airplanes dropped bombs on the village without stopping, the people had no place to go to escape the battle. They had never before experienced anything like this. It caused parents to be taken in death from their children. And children from their parents in great numbers, causing the people’s tears to flow. Because the airplanes had dropped bombs on the rice fields and rice paddies of the people, the people saw that they could not withstand these hardships, so they fled into the forest and the jungle or different streams and caves.

We saw that it wouldn’t pass over so we took ourselves and fled to the side of the government of Prince Souvanna Phouma, the Prime Minister. Because the war was most severe, we had to hurry from our homes,

Images courtesy Legacies of War.

To see all images from The Originals, please visit: https://www.legaciesofwar.org/the-originals