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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Laos
Index
Following the destruction of Vientiane, Laotian affairs
were
dominated militarily by Siam, although the Vietnamese also
involved
themselves over the mountains
(see Developments in the Nineteenth Century
, ch. 1). It was not until 1884, when France
guaranteed
Annam the integrity of its territorial domain, that
Siamese
hegemony over the left bank of the Mekong encountered a
new
challenge. Using Annam's claims to Laotian territories as
a
diplomatic pretext, France forced Siam to renounce all
claims to
territory east of the Mekong and even to islands in the
river by
successive treaties between 1893 and 1907.
To preserve order in the new administrative structure
and to
reinforce their security forces, which up to the twentieth
century
consisted largely of Vietnamese militia, the French formed
local
Laotian police and military constabulary units and
provided them
with some modern weapons, equipment, and rudimentary
training. The
Laotian units, whose salaries were paid for by the royal
house of
Louangphrabang (Luang Prabang), pledged allegiance to the
monarchy,
establishing a military tradition that ended only in 1975.
Between 1901 and 1907, France's colonial forces in Laos
directed their attention to putting down a group of
southern
mountain Mon-Khmer rebels who had become angered over
France's
suppressing their customary slave-trading activities.
Bandits from
China's Yunnan Province also kept the colonial army
occupied in the
north between 1914 and 1916. The army's final major
action--from
1919 to 1921--was led by Pa Chai against the Hmong, who
were
conducting raids on the Lao and other groups in Houaphan
and
Xiangkhoang provinces with the aim of expelling the French
and
establishing an independent Hmong kingdom.
The first entirely Laotian military unit was formed by
the
French in 1941 and was known as the First Battalion of
Chasseurs
Laotiens (light infantry). It was used for internal
security and
did not see action until after the Japanese coup de
force of
March 9, 1945, when Japan occupied Laos. The unit then
went into
the mountains, supplied and commanded by Free French
agents who had
received special jungle training in camps in India and who
had
parachuted into Laos beginning in December 1944 with the
aim of
creating a resistance network.
Meanwhile, taking advantage of the temporary absence of
French
authority in the towns, the
Lao Issara (Free Laos--see Glossary)
government armed itself to defend the Laotian independence
it
claimed on behalf of the people
(see World War II and After
, ch.
1). For the most part, effective components of the Lao
Issara armed
forces consisted of Vietnamese residents of the towns of
Laos, who
either had received weapons given them by the surrendering
Japanese
troops--sold by the Chinese Nationalist soldiers who
occupied
northern Laos under the 1945 Potsdam Conference
agreements--or
looted from French arsenals. In the Battle of Thakhek
(Khammouan)
in March 1946 that decided the issue of sovereignty in
Laos in
favor of the French, the Lao Issara used mortars and light
machine
guns against French armored vehicles and planes. One of
the main
preoccupations of the members of the Lao Issara government
exiled
in Bangkok between 1946 and 1949 was to procure weapons to
fight
back against the French.
French efforts to train and expand the Royal Lao Army
continued
during the First Indochina War (1946-54), by which time
Laos had a
standing army of 15,000 troops
(see The Coming of Independence
, ch. 1).
The French knew the lightly equipped Royal Lao Army
was not in
a position to defend Laos against
Viet Minh (see Glossary)
regular
forces formed by General Vo Nguyen Giap. To counter Viet
Minh
invasions of Laos in 1953 and 1954, the French Union High
Command
diverted regular colonial units from the Democratic
Republic of
Vietnam (North Vietnam) into Laos; Giap exploited this
weakness to
disperse French Union forces. The French originally picked
Dien
Bien Phu as the site of a major strong point because it
blocked a
main invasion route into Laos, which they felt they had to
defend
at all cost in order to preserve their credibility with
the king of
Louangphrabang, who sought France's protection. Some of
the most
effective fighters against the Viet Minh were Hmong from
Xiangkhoang whom the French recruited and formed into
guerrilla
units; one of these units, under a sergeant named Vang
Pao, was on
the march to Dien Bien Phu when the garrison fell in May
1954.
Under the terms of the armistice signed at the Geneva
Conference on Indochina on July 20, 1954, by the French
Union High
Command and the Viet Minh, all Viet Minh troops had to
withdraw
from Laos within 120 days. Laos was prohibited from having
foreign
military bases or personnel on its soil and from joining
any
military alliance. The agreements provided for the
regrouping of Pathet Lao
(Lao Nation--see Glossary)
guerrillas in the
provinces
of Houaphan and Phôngsali and their integration into the
Royal Lao
Army. The Pathet Lao, however, taking advantage of their
easy
access across the border to North Vietnam, immediately
began to
expand their guerrilla army, the first unit of which, the
Latsavong
detachment, had been formed in 1949 by Kaysone Phomvihan.
Data as of July 1994
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