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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Laos
Index
After the elections, Souvanna Phouma signaled a renewed
effort
at negotiations, when, presenting his new government to
the
National Assembly on March 20, 1956, he called the
settlement of
the Pathet Lao problem "the gravest and most urgent"
question
before the country. He opened negotiations in Vientiane in
August;
the Pathet Lao were represented by Souphanouvong. Two
joint
declarations issued shortly thereafter by the delegations
pledged
agreement on a foreign policy of peaceful coexistence, a
new ceasefire in the two northern provinces, exercise of democratic
freedoms, authorization for the Pathet Lao's political
party to
operate, procedures for the RLG's administration in the
two
provinces, integration of Pathet Lao units into the Royal
Lao Army,
the formation of two mixed commissions to work out the
abovementioned details, the holding of supplementary elections
to an
enlarged National Assembly, and the establishment of a
coalition
government. In preparation for engaging in the politics of
the
kingdom, the Pathet Lao had formed an organization--to act
as a
front--the Neo Lao Hak Xat
(Lao Patriotic Front LPF--see Glossary)
in January 1956, with an innocuous-sounding platform.
Souphanouvong
and the other Pathet Lao delegates took the oath of
allegiance to
the king in the presence of Souvanna Phouma and Kou Abhay,
president of the King's Council. This round of
negotiations
concluded in a further series of agreements covering a
cease-fire,
implementation of a policy of peace and neutrality, and
measures
guaranteeing civic rights and nondiscrimination against
Pathet Lao
followers.
In late August, Souvanna Phouma visited Beijing and
Hanoi,
where he was warmly received. Far from committing Laos to
the
communist bloc as the United States Department of State
feared,
these visits formed part of Souvanna Phouma's strategy to
neutralize the danger to Laotian independence posed by the
Pathet
Lao. It was obvious to him that communism held little
appeal to the
inhabitants of Laos. Although there were communists among
the
leaders of the Pathet Lao--and Souvanna Phouma refused to
believe
his half-brother was one of them--the communists depended
on the
exercise, or at least the threat, of armed force to carry
out their
"revolution." Souvanna Phouma's strategy was intended to
separate
the nationalists from the communists in the Pathet Lao. He
warned
the Pathet Lao's foreign backers that if they provided
sanctuary to
armed resistance groups--once the Pathet Lao had been
reintegrated
into the kingdom's political life--they would be going
back on
their pledges of noninterference.
At the same time, however, Souvanna Phouma's ideas for
safeguarding Laotian independence differed radically from
Dulles's.
Dulles viewed the Pathet Lao as unacceptable coalition
partners; in
his view they were all simply communists rather than a
front
comprising a number of nationalists. The United States
ambassador
in Vientiane, J. Graham Parsons, informed Souvanna Phouma
that
Washington was implacably opposed to a coalition
government. The
United States remained unmollified by a secret protocol
attached to
a November 2, 1956, agreement on a neutral foreign policy
that
proscribed the establishment of diplomatic relations with
North
Vietnam and China in the immediate future. On November 22,
Parsons
was instructed to inform the prime minister that the
United States
was unable to respond favorably to his appeal for support.
Negotiations with the Pathet Lao resumed in February
1957 but
were interrupted when Souvanna Phouma resigned in May over
an
unfavorable vote in the National Assembly. In the interim,
Phetsarath had been persuaded to return from Thailand.
Unbowed by
age, but no longer keen on a role for himself in politics,
he
returned in March and took up residence in Louangphrabang
where, in
a gesture of royal reconciliation, he made his obeisance
to the
king and received back his old title of viceroy.
Data as of July 1994
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