By Kalinga Seneviratne
VIENTIANE, Laos | 15 July 2024 (IDN) — Laos, the land-locked country of 7.5 million people, with scenic mountainous terrain, traversed by the Mekong River that flows through both Vientiane and the UNESCO World Heritage Buddhist city of Luang Prabang, and home to many remote hill tribes is now in the crest of a tourism boom spurred by the Chinese-built 414 km long high-speed railway network.
This is a far cry from what the Americans did to them over a half-century ago, when Laos became one of the most heavily bombed countries in the world, during the Vietnam War.
Between 1964 and 1973 a secret CIA-led operation to cut supplies to the Vietcong resulted in two million tons of ordinance being dropped on…
