The Vang Tao Incident was a baffling episode broadcast live on Thai television, on July 3, 2000 a group of armed insurgents and mercenaries attacked a Lao customs outpost at the southern border town of Vang Tao. The raiders, as they came to be described, were easily routed leaving six of their own dead and 27 were arrested by Thai authorities, of those 11 were Thai nationals.

The attack followed a series of bombings in Vientiane attributed to Hmong rebels and coincided with a month-long lobbying visit by Prince Sauryavong Savang and Crown Prince Soulivong Savang to the United States. Some Analysts concluded that the raid was likely a demonstration to gain financial and political support from Laotians abroad. There is a possibility that the military attack on the Communist government was financed by a California based group called the United Lao Nation Resistance for Democracy in Laos.

External links

• The Exiled Lao Royal Family and the Vangtao Incident (http://d.thanadabouth.online.fr/VangTao.htm)
• BANDITS OR REBELS? Hmong Resistance in the New Lao State (http://www.atrax.net.au/userdir/yeulee/Topical/bandis%20or%20rebels.html)
• Laos' Tourist Campaign Fizzles Bombings in capital, bandits in countryside keep visitors away (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/12/27/MN78240.DTL) by Los Angeles Times
• Laos Comes Under Attack (http://www.ffrd.org/interchange/vol10iss1-2/fiftytwo.html)
• Rebels Threaten Communists in Laos (http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~kongsab/news.htm)