Interview with Khamphoui Sisavatdy, April 6, 2023

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Khamphoui Sisavatdy was interviewed on April 6, 2023 in Vancouver, Washington by Ian Baird. On February 2, 1936, Khamphoui was born in Taopoung Village, a small rural community in Khong District, Sithandone Province (now Champasak Province). He ordained as a Buddhist monk in 1956. Years later, he went to study in Pakse and Vientiane before continuing his studies in Bangkok, Thailand. He eventually graduated as a “Maha 9”, the highest level of Buddhist study, and a Bachelor of Arts in Education from the Buddhist University in Bangkok. Upon his return to Laos, he taught at the Buddhist Institute at Vat Ongtue Buddhist temple in Vientiane. He also founded the Lao Young Buddhist Movement. He eventually left the monkhood and later he married Thongsavanh Sananikone in Vientiane. From 1966 to 1967 he edited the bi-monthly magazine "Takoun Lao." Then, from 1967 and 1972, he edited "Lao Samay," a bi-monthly magazine, and "Lao Samay Daily News." In 1972, he was elected to be a member of the National Assembly in Laos, representing his home province of Sithandone. From 1974 to 1976, he taught Lao history at the Lao and Administrative Institute in Vientiane and Lao literature at the Pedagogical Institute at Dongdok Teaching College. In 1976, after the communist Pathet Lao took over Laos the previous year and established the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, he fled Laos and ended up in Nong Khai refugee camp, where he became active in anti-Lao PDR politics through an organization he cofounded, called Samakhitham (Justice for National Unity). However, in 1977, he was arrested with seven other refugees from Laos for illegally establishing a political party in a refugee camp. He was beaten by the police and detained for months. Finally, he was able to leave Thailand in 1978 and become a political refugee in the United States. He initially stayed in Amarillo, Texas, before moving to Denver, Colorado in 1979 to become the editor of a Lao-language newspaper he had established, "Attipatai Lao" (Lao Sovereignty). Later, he moved to Spokane, Washington. Attipatai Lao eventually joined with three other Lao political groups in the United States to create a new political organization, Lao Organizations in America (ULO). In 1986, he became a leading figure in a new political organization, called the Lao People’s National Liberation Front (LPNLF). He was also involved in the Movement for Democracy in Laos (MDL) in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In the 1990s, Khamphoui became involved with the organization Free Elections in Laos (FEL), which advocated for the adoption of a liberal democratic multi-party political system in Laos, as well as other organizations. In 1997, he was the President of the Royal Lao Conference in Seattle, held to organize the Council of Lao Representatives Abroad (Sapha Lao Noke). In 2003, he became the Prime Minister of the Royal Lao Government in Exile (RLGE), a position he continued to hold up to the time that he donated his collection in April 2023. As a Lao historian, he authored three Lao language books: "The Heroism of Chao Anouvong, 1767-1829" (1994), "Laos When Under the Control of Siam" (2000), and "Lao History and Biography of Chao Fa-Ngum the Great" (2002). He wrote many other research documents, letters, and opinion pieces over the years. He passed away on October 15, 2023. The interview was conducted in Lao.