Kou Voravong
The political crisis caused by his assassination, barely two months after the Geneva Agreements which prepared to restore peace in Indochina, contributed to bring down the current neutralist government (pro-French) which was replaced by a progressive one (pro-American) in extremely tense atmosphere of the Cold War between Russia and the United States. From 1955 indeed, the political history of this small landlocked country fell trapped inexorably in the ideological confrontation between the capitalist United States and the communist Soviet Union, annihilating any hope of national unification.
Kou Voravong
Kou Voravong grew up in Savannakhet and pursued a primary education there. He obtained the « certificat d'études primaires complémentaire indochinois » - Certificate of Indochinese Additional Primary Studies - (CEPCI) in 1930, went afterward to Vientiane and began his first-secondary-school year at the Collège Auguste Pavie. But because of a conflict which opposed him to French Colonial administration, his adopted father was sentenced to prison that same year. As reaction to this situation, Kou Voravong left school and returned to Savannakhet. As an out-of-school teenager, he practiced sports, especially soccer.