Siho Lamphouthacoul

Siho Lanphouthacoul (ສີໂຫ ລຳພຸທທະກຸລ, 1934 – September 1966) was a Laotian paramilitary police officer.

He used his powers as the National Director of Coordination to build Laotian police forces into a national power.

In September 1953, Siho joined the French-led Lao National Army (French: Armée Nationale Laotiénne - ANL) as a member of its first reserve officer training class.

He became a protege of Phoumi Nosavan.

Siho served as Phoumi's aide during a year's training in France.

In 1958, Siho was selected by Phoumi as his intelligence officer as well as his aide.

Phoumi also appointed him as Director of National Coordination.

On 25 December 1959, General Phoumi ascended to control of the Kingdom of Laos.

Appointed as Director prior to the August 1960 coup by Kong Le, Siho gathered and trained two special battalions of paramilitary police during the latter part of 1960.

When his patron, General Phoumi Nosavan, seized power in December 1960, Siho's new battalions helped carry the day at the Battle of Vientiane.

Acquiring the National Police from the Ministry of the Interior, and co-opting local military police, Siho consolidated the Lao police into the Directorate of National Coordination.

During the April 1960 national elections, Captain Siho blatantly rigged election results in front of the CIA case officer Stuart Methven; Siho asked Methven's birth year, then wrote it in as a pro-government vote tally.

Captain Kong Le's coup later that year in August of that year seems not to have curtailed Siho's power; he raised two special counterinsurgency battalions within the Royal Lao Police (French: Police Royale Laotiénne - PRL), trained to military standards, Through Siho's influence, they were the first unit in the PRL and Royal Lao Armed Forces (French: Forces Armées du Royaume - FAR) to be completely armed with the U. S. automatic M-2 carbine.

However, the unit was reputedly corrupt in their police duties.

Siho conspired in Phoumi's return to power.

On 17 November 1960, while acting as Phoumi's intelligence officer, he contacted a U.S. Special Forces unit, Team Ipsen.

Four river gunboats of the Royal Lao Navy (French: Marine Royale Laotiénne - MRL) were blocking the Mekong River at Ban Sot to bar Phoumi's northward movement from Savannakhet.

On 19 November, Siho and Team Ipsen set up an ambush for the MRL gunboats.

However, before the boats could show up to spring it, Phoumi launched his counter-coup.

Siho and his special battalions were loaded onto MRL landing crafts in Savannakhet on 21 November to join the latest coup.

When Phoumi's forces finally reached the Laotian capital at Vientiane, Siho and his policemen led the attack.

On the final day of the Battle of Vientiane, December 16, Siho's police unit successfully captured the Royal Lao Air Force (RLAF) military runway at Wattay Airfield.

After Phoumi's coup succeeded, Siho consolidated the Royal Lao Army (RLA) military police and the PRL national police into his Directorate of National Coordination (DNC) Security Agency during March 1961.

His actions cost him police funding from the U.S.; however, the DNC were considered the most effective combat troops in the FAR.

The resulting 1st Special Mobile Group (French: Groupement Mobile Special 1 - GMS 1) was an airborne-qualified unit.

They were soon put to test, as in April 1961, when they were moved north to prevent Kong Le's Neutralist Armed Forces (French: Forces Armées Neutralistes - FAN) and the Pathet Lao communists from moving down from the Plain of Jars and recapturing Vientiane.

On 25 April, they were deployed on the southern bank of the Lik River (Lao language: Nam Lik), successfully blocking the only road available, Route 13.

Tiao Ekarath had led another of the countercoup units, Mobile Group B (French: Groupement Mobile B - GM B) in restoring Phoumi to power, and was a rival to Siho for Phoumi's favor.

On 10 May 1961, Tiao Ekarath's body was discovered in an abandoned vehicle near Wattay Airfield.

Attaining a strength of 6,500 men, the DNC would be Siho's instrument for his short-lived 18 April 1964 coup.

Having failed once in his attempt to take over the Kingdom of Laos, Siho sat out the 1965 Laotian coups.

Nevertheless, the Royal Lao Army would attack and dismantle the Directorate of Coordination on 3 February 1965, driving Siho into exile in Thailand.

In June 1966, he believed it safe to return to Laos and surrender.

Three months later, he was shot while trying to escape.

General Siho Lanphouthacoul was born on Khong Island, the French Protectorate of Laos.

He was of Chinese-Lao heritage.

His family served in the aristocratic household of the Abhay family.

The eldest son, Kouprasith Abhay, was eight years older than Siho, and they were reared together.

As a result, for unknown reasons, Siho grew up resenting Abhay.

Siho would come to be characterized as "rough", "tenacious", "vain", and subject to sudden outbursts of temper.