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.
Kou Voravong
But the country was immersed in a civil war, itself within the context of the Cold War. In 1963, when his uncle the General Sarit Thanarat died, he lost Thailand's Government support, while on the other side, the United States opted for direct military intervention policy. At the end of January 1965, after several "disobediences" to the American military advisory, and following a coup against his government, whose instigator was General Kouprasith Abhay, Phoumi Nosavan was forced to go into exile in Thailand with his followers and relatives. The statue of Kou Voravong had not been erected and still waiting in the reserve of Fine Arts Department in Bangkok during nearly 30 years.