I Little Slave: A Prison Memoir from Communist Laos - Softcover

Bounsang Khamkeo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1597660078 ISBN 13: 9781597660075

Publisher: Eastern Washington University Press, 2006

Synopsis

Raised in the hierarchical society of traditional Laos, Bounsang Khamkeo earned his doctorate in political science in France and returned home in 1973 to a country in political chaos in the wake of the Vietnam War. He worked for the government until 1981 before being imprisoned by the communist Pathet Lao government after running afoul of a politically ambitious boss. I Little Slave is the account of his seven-year struggle in prison to stay alive and keep sane in spite of harsh physical privation and endless psychological abuse. Khamkeo's story is a moving and important one at a time when political oppression and crimes against human rights are on the rise throughout the world.

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Review

"Bounsang Khamkeo has given us all a tremendous gift: an extraordinary story of the power of the human spirit to overcome almost unimaginable odds." "This memoir of the Laotian death camps is the first full account of the Pathet Lao's secret jungle prisons . . . a jolting reminder of the atrocities that states rush to commit once fanaticism--political or religious--rips off the precious shackles of human decency."

About the Author

BOUNSANG KHAMKEO grew up in Laos but left at the age of seventeen to study in France. Thirteen years later, in 1973, he returned to his homeland, having recently completed a doctorate in political science at the University of Toulouse. Eager to help his country recover from the devastation of the Vietnam War years, he joined the staff of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he continued to be employed after the Pathet Lao seized power in December 1975. In 1977 he was assigned to work with the Interim Mekong Committee, an intergovernmental organization devoted to regional development, and in the fall of 1978 was appointed the executive secretary of the Lao National Mekong Committee. He was arrested on the evening of June 1, 1981, at the home of the president of the Lao Mekong, with whom he had argued in the course of a business meeting. He was subsequently accused of entirely fictitious crimes and spent the next seven years, three months, and four days as a political prisoner. In September 1988 the Laotian government chose to release Khamkeo from prison, and he was able to return to his family in Vientiane. His safety was by no means guaranteed, however, and in March 1989 he, his wife, and their two daughters fled Laos. After spending two months in Thailand, they emigrated to the United States, where Khamkeo was reunited with his two sons, who had left Laos prior to his release. Today, he works as a behavioral health counselor at Oregon Health and Science University, in Portland. He lives with his wife, Vieng, in Vancouver, Washington. It was after leaving Laos that Bounsang Khamkeo began to work on the present volume. Deep in my soul, he writes, I had come to understand that if someone witnesses a great wrong and fails to speak out, he loses his place as a righteous man. And so I found my reason to survive and the purpose for my existence: to bear witness.

About this edition

• Publisher: Eastern Washington University Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1597660078
• ISBN 13: 9781597660075
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432