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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Laos
Index
One of the first priorities for the LPDR was
restructuring
defense and security forces and improving effectiveness in
these
new roles. After the major Mekong River towns were
liberated,
soldiers were assigned police duties, although they lacked
the
necessary training. As the pace of political change
quickened and
the government became increasingly concerned about
security, the
public expressed dissatisfaction with heavy-handed
military
controls, Pathet Lao arrogance, and the excesses committed
by some
guerrillas.
The emphasis on discipline, training, and
reorganization
reflected the difficulties encountered by the former
Pathet Lao
cadre in converting from a guerrilla insurgency into a
national
security force. Men taught to think of urban-dwelling
lowland Lao
as their bitter enemies found it difficult at first to
treat them
as liberated brothers
(see Lowland Lao Society
, ch. 2).
Also, most
young Pathet Lao guerrillas brought in to keep order in
the Mekong
towns were members of upland minorities who had never
before been
confronted with the temptations of city life
(see Upland Lao Society
, ch. 2). Consequently, there were reports of
abuses such as
extortion and robbery by drunken Pathet Lao police
officers.
By the end of 1976, an effective police force had been
established. Its mission was simple: to maintain basic law
and
order and strictly enforce government policies, often with
little
regard for human rights. A police academy was established
at the
former United States-built police school at Ban Donnoun,
ten
kilometers east of Vientiane, where Vietnamese and Soviet
instructors began teaching Laotian cadres basic police
procedures.
The crime rate reportedly was very low.
The academy also trained a Laotian secret police
organization
similar to the Vietnamese internal security apparatus. The
secret
police were to provide internal security for the party and
to look
for dissidents within the population: those individuals
who
disagreed with the LPRP's pro-Vietnamese line and who
expressed
pro-Chinese or Laotian nationalist sentiments that could
be
construed as anti-Vietnamese. By late 1978, there were
reportedly
800 Vietnamese secret police in Laos engaged in military
and
civilian surveillance activities. By the late 1980s, their
presence
had been reduced to a few senior advisers.
Data as of July 1994
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