SEA games made LPDR to sell lands to Viet and China
dekfangkhong
Cedric Arnold for the International Herald Tribune
Traffic on the road in front of the athletes' village for the SEA
games in Vientiane, Laos. Construction was funded by Vietnam.
By THOMAS FULLER
Published: October 5, 2009
VIENTIANE, LAOS — Lillehammer, Albertville, Lake Placid. Major sports
events have a way of putting obscure places on the map. This was the
hope harbored by Laos’s Communist leaders when they offered Vientiane,
the capital, as the host of the Southeast Asian Games this December.
But so far the greatest legacy of the games is a record deficit that
has forced the country to seek emergency loans and strike secretive
deals that give away large swaths of land.
The SEA Games, as the biennial sporting event is known, are no
Olympics. Participation is limited to 11 Southeast Asian countries,
and the games this year include local favorites such as pétanque,
dragon boat racing and the martial art wushu, in addition to a roster
of more globally appreciated sports: soccer, track and field events,
tennis and volleyball.
Accommodating more than 3,000 athletes and many more spectators is
nonetheless an ambitious undertaking for a country where the majority
of the people are either rice farmers or mountain-dwelling tribal
groups. The World Bank, a major creditor to Laos, says a surge in
borrowing caused both by the effects of the global economic crisis and
costs related to the games has become a “major concern.” The
government appears to be in the hock to China to the tune of about
$100 million after a rare public uproar forced the leadership to back
down on its plan to give China prime real estate in exchange for
construction of a stadium complex. The stadiums are nearly finished,
but the Laotian government is declining to say how it is going to pay
for them.
Laos has turned to other neighbors for both workers and much-needed
cash.
Thailand has spent more than $2 million to build a kick-boxing stadium
and fix up a second one. Brunei’s government chipped in $1.7 million
to construct another sports complex. A Vietnamese real estate company
built the Athletes Village. Japan and South Korea helped with other
games-related projects.
The state media, meanwhile, recently reported that the government
scraped together $800,000 to spruce up the city with a beautification
program.
“It’s a Lao version of a stimulus package,” said Patchamuthu
Illangovan, country manager for the World Bank in Laos.
The government is tight-lipped about the overall cost of the games.
“I have no idea about the budget,” said Southanom Inthavong, the
president of the country’s Aquatic Federation who also serves as the
international communications liaison for the games. He referred the
question to another official who ignored repeated requests for an
interview channeled through the Foreign Ministry.
Dependent on tourism, mining and forestry, the country’s revenues have
dropped over the past year because of the poor international economic
climate. But Mr. Inthavong says the games will go ahead as scheduled.
“Of course the economy has hit us quite hard,” he said. “But it
shouldn’t be a problem for the games. We have many friends.”
Among those friends are Vietnam and China, neighbors to the east and
north both jockeying for access to Laos’s forests, arable land,
hydropower possibilities and other natural resources.
Partly because games-related financial dealings have become
controversial, the Laotian government has kept details of arrangements
with those countries secret. But some details are leaking out.
At the inauguration of the Athletes Village in early September,
officials from Laos and Vietnam gave speeches praising the historical
friendship and cooperation between the two countries. They announced
that a $19 million dormitory complex was financed by a no-interest
loan and a $4 million outright grant from Vietnam.
But a more complete picture emerged in an interview with Somvang
Vongvilay, the director of the construction company that built the
dormitories. As part of the deal, he said, the Laotian government gave
a Vietnamese real estate company, Hoang Quan, 10,000 hectares, or
about 25,000 acres, in southeastern Laos to plant rubber trees. The
tract of land is nearly double the area of Manhattan.