Nouhak Phoumsavanh

Who was Nouhak Phoumsavanh?

Nouhak Phoumsavanh or Phoumsavan was a longtime Pathet Lao revolutionary and communist party official who was President of Laos from 1992 to 1998.

Nouhak was born to a family of part-Vietnamese origin at Ban Phalouka in Mukdahan Province, Thailand in 1910, according to official sources, although his year of birth has also been given as 1914. He had Vietnamese wives. He married for the first time in 1933 and re-married in 1944. He was a founding member of the Lao revolutionary movement in 1945, and he became Chairman of the Lao Resistance Committee for the Eastern Region in 1949. In the Lao Resistance Government, he was named Minister of Finance in 1950. He participated in the founding congress of the Lao People's Party in 1955 and was elected as a member number 2 of its Central Committee.

Nouhak was subsequently the Secretary of the Lao People's Party cell in Vientiane, the capital, and was a member of the National Assembly in 1958. He was arrested in 1959 and spent a year in prison in Vientiane before escaping along with Souphanouvong. He was then Secretary of the party cell in Khangkhay and had important roles in the party during the 1960s and 1970s, while the Laotian Civil War was ongoing. He was elected to the Politburo at the LPRP's 2nd Congress in February 1972 and was assigned responsibility for economic affairs.