ABSTRACT
In a country in which the media remained tightly controlled and almost nothing was said in public about its secretive and autocratic government other than ocial statements, the crash of a military aeroplane near the Plain of Jars in north-western Laos on 17 May 2014 led to a signicant shake-up of the political order of this land-locked, poverty-stricken place. In part, such a shake-up was a logical consequence of four of the fteen Laos Politburo members on board being killed when the Antonov AN74TK-300 crashed on descent to an army commemoration ceremony in Laos’ north-eastern Xieng Khouang Province.
