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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Laos
Index
There were thus two rival royal governments in Laos
from the
beginning of 1961, the Boun Oum-Phoumi Nosavan government
at
Vientiane and the Souvanna Phouma government at Khang
Khay. The
Pathet Lao, protected by the presence of thousands of
North
Vietnamese troops, constituted a third faction in what
became a
rightist-Neutralist-leftist division.
The idea of neutralism had been expressed by Kong Le in
his
earliest speeches in Vientiane, which described the goals
of his
coup d'état as stopping the fighting among the Laotians
and
enacting a policy of friendship with all foreign
countries,
especially Laos's neighbors. At Khang Khay, Soviet
diplomats
mingled with officials of missions from Beijing and Hanoi,
with
which relations had been established on May 5. Kong Le's
troops
readily adopted the unofficial name Neutralist Armed
Forces.
Souvanna Phouma seized the opportunity of having a
sizeable number
of adherents on hand at Khang Khay, including many Lao
students
returned from abroad, to form the Neutralist Party, (Lao
Pen Kang--
known as the Neutralists). He was confident the party
would outpoll
the Pathet Lao's LPF in a free election.
Although publicly deferring to Souvanna Phouma on
matters of
government policy, the Pathet Lao secretly extended their
influence
at the grassroots level, using their proven methods of
propaganda
and organization. In villages under their control, the
Pathet Lao
installed their own personnel alongside the existing
administration--for example, a khana muang
(liberated
district) alongside a chao muang (district chief),
a
khana seng (liberated subdistrict) alongside a
pho
tasseng (subdistrict chief), and a khana ban
(liberated
village) alongside a pho ban or nai ban
(village
chief). Access to the Pathet Lao-administered areas was
forbidden
to outsiders, even after the formation of the coalition
government.
A hierarchy of politico-military participation and
responsibility tied the villagers to a chain of command.
All
resources in villages under Pathet Lao control were
mobilized into
both a horizontal and a vertical structure that included
organizations of women, youth, and monks. Villagers were
easily
susceptible to Pathet Lao control, making a Pathet Lao
village a
world unto itself. Children acted as couriers and
lookouts; young
people joined the village self-defense units, the lowest
level of
guerrilla organization; adults acted as porters for the
regular
guerrilla units; and women made clothing, prepared food,
and looked
after the sick and wounded.
Data as of July 1994
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