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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Laos
Index
In foreign and domestic affairs, the atmosphere changed
in the
summer of 1958. Souvanna Phouma announced that with the
holding of
elections the RLG had fulfilled the political obligations
it had
assumed at Geneva, and the ICC adjourned sine die. Phoui,
less
scrupulous about preserving Laos's neutrality than his
predecessor,
angered Beijing and Hanoi by admitting diplomats from
Taipei and
Saigon. China and North Vietnam, already upset by the
departure of
the ICC, which they had seen as a restraining influence,
protested.
The United States worked out an agreement with France that
reduced
the role of the French military mission and enlarged that
of the
PEO, which embarked on a major strengthening of its staff
and
functions.
The occupation by North Vietnamese security forces in
December
1958 of several villages in Xépôn District near the
Demilitarized
Zone (DMZ) between North Vietnam and South Vietnam was an
ominous
development. The RLG immediately protested the flying of
the North
Vietnamese flag on Laotian territory. Hanoi claimed the
villages
had historically been part of Vietnam. With regard to
precedent,
this was a decidedly modest claim; nonetheless, it
represented a
unilateral reinterpretation of the French map used by the
Truong
Gia Armistice Commission in the summer of 1954 to draw the
DMZ,
and, backed by force of arms, constituted nothing less
than
aggression. Phoui received extraordinary powers from the
National
Assembly to deal with the crisis. But the failure to
regain their
lost territory rankled the Laotian nationalists, who were
hoping
for a greater degree of United States support.
One of Washington's major preoccupations was the danger
that
the Royal Lao Army would integrate the Pathet Lao troops
without
the safeguard of "screening and reindoctrinating" them.
The embassy
was instructed to tell the government that it would be
difficult to
obtain congressional approval of aid to Laos with
communists in the
Royal Lao Army. Before the final integration of 1,500
Pathet Lao
troops (two battalions) into the Royal Lao Army could take
place as
planned in May 1959, the Pathet Lao used a quibble about
officer
ranks to delay the final ceremony. As monsoon rains swept
over the
Plain of Jars one night, one of the two battalions slipped
away,
followed soon after by the other, near Louangphrabang. The
event
signaled a resumption of hostilities. In July Phoui's
government,
after protracted cabinet deliberations, ordered the arrest
of the
LPF deputies in Vientiane--Souphanouvong, Nouhak, Phoumi
Vongvichit, Phoun Sipaseut, Sithon Kommadan, Singkapo, and
others.
Tiao Souk Vongsak evaded arrest.
Fighting broke out all along the border with North
Vietnam.
North Vietnamese regular army units participated in
attacks on July
28-31, 1959. These operations established a pattern of
North
Vietnamese forces leading the attack on a strong point,
then
falling back and letting the Pathet Lao remain in place
once
resistance to the advance had been broken. The tactic had
the
advantage of concealing from view the North Vietnamese
presence.
Rumors of North Vietnamese in the vicinity often had a
terrifying
effect, however. Among the men who heard such rumors in
the
mountains of Houaphan Province that summer was a young
Royal Lao
Army captain named Kong Le. Kong Le had two companies of
the Second
Paratroop Battalion out on patrol almost on the North
Vietnamese
border. When they returned to Xam Nua without encountering
the
enemy, they found that the garrison had decamped, leaving
the town
undefended.
Direct North Vietnamese involvement in Laos began
taking
another form wherein aggression was difficult to prove.
Two months
after the 1954 Geneva Conference on Indochina, the North
Vietnamese
established a small support group known as Group 100, on
the Thanh
Hoa-Houaphan border at Ban Namèo. This unit provided
logistical and
other support to Pathet Lao forces. In view of the
reversion to a
fighting strategy, the North Vietnamese and Lao parties
decided to
establish an upgraded unit. The new unit, known as Group
959,
headquartered at Na Kai, just inside the Houaphan border,
began
operating in September 1959. Its establishment coincided
with a
major effort to expand the hitherto small Pathet Lao
forces.
According to an official history published after the war,
its
mission was "serving as specialists for the Military
Commission and
Supreme Command of the Lao People's Liberation Army, and
organizing
the supplying of Vietnamese matériel to the Laotian
revolution and
directly commanding the Vietnamese volunteer units
operating in Xam
Nua, Xiangkhoang, and Viangchan." These actions were in
violation
of the obligation Ho Chi Minh's government had assumed as
a
participant in the 1954 Geneva Conference to refrain from
any
interference in the internal affairs of Laos.
The Vietnamese party's strategy was by now decided with
regard
to South Vietnam. At the same time, the party outlined a
role for
the LPP that was supportive of North Vietnam, in addition
to the
LPP's role as leader of the revolution in Laos. Hanoi's
southern
strategy opened the first tracks through the extremely
rugged
terrain of Xépôn district in mid-1959 of what was to
become the Ho
Chi Minh Trail.
Phetsarath and Sisavang Vong, viceroy and king, died
within two
weeks of each other in October 1959. Sisavang Vong reigned
over
Laos for fifty-four turbulent years as a man of honor,
and, after
his death, his memory was so venerated that when the
communists
came to power in Vientiane they left his statue standing.
His
successor, Savang Vatthana, lacked both his father's hold
on his
people and Phetsarath's charisma. A deeply fatalistic man
who
foresaw he would be the last king of Laos, Savang Vatthana
remained
uncrowned for the rest of his reign because a propitious
date for
the coronation ceremony could not be found.
Data as of July 1994
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