History of the Lao PDR series (Battle to Protect the Country at the Area of Phaa Thi, Sam Nuea)

Linthong Phoumanivong is an experienced weaver from Phonsay Village, Sam Nuea District, Hua Phan Province, Laos. She is technically very skilled in the difficult traditional technique of discontinuous supplementary weft on silk. As a witness to the development of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic and the Second Indochina War, Linthong Phoumanivong has created a series of pictorial textiles narrating this history from her perspective.This textile illustrates an historic battle of the Second Indochina War, that of Phou Phaa Thi, fought by the United States Air Force (with Royal Thai Border Police and clandestine Hmong forces) against the Pathet Lao and the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN, or North Vietnamese forces). Phou Phaa Thi mountain was an important strategic site, where US forces had established a radar bombing control centre, with range over targets in North Vietnam and Laos. The textile reflects different sites on the mountainside, including the radar machine, that were significant in the course of the battle.