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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Laos
Index
On March 27, 1975, North Vietnamese-Pathet Lao forces
launched
a strong attack against Vang Pao's Hmong defenders. The
attackers
rapidly captured the Sala Phou Khoun road junction and
then drove
south along Route 13 as far as Muang Kasi. Souvanna
Phouma, wishing
to avoid bloodshed, ordered Vang Pao only to defend
himself and
refused to allow air strikes in his support. The Pathet
Lao singled
out the Hmong as enemies to be shown no quarter. Pathet
Lao
radiobroadcasts spoke of "wiping out" these special forces
who had
stood in their way for fifteen years.
Realizing that the Hmong were being abandoned and the
penalty
they faced if left to the mercy of the Pathet Lao, Vang
Pao
requested evacuation for his soldiers and their families
to safe
haven in Thailand. The CIA station at Udon Thani offered
to
evacuate families of key officers. Vang Pao requested an
airlift
for 5,000. Facing an ultimatum, Vang Pao and twelve Hmong
leaders
signed a treaty on May 10 reminding the United States of
the
pledges made to them and agreeing to leave Laos and never
return.
In the next days a motley collection of planes piloted by
United
States volunteers, Hmong, and Lao flew out a few hundred
Hmong.
Vang Pao himself left on May 14, eluding the T-28s at
Vientiane.
Meanwhile, a campaign of intimidation against rightist
members
of the PGNU and military officers gathered momentum in
Vientiane.
Operating under the umbrella of a coalition of twenty-one
"organizations standing for peace and national concord," a
standard
communist tactic, the demonstrators used inflation and
other
popular grievances to mobilize support for the
eighteen-point
program of the National Political Consultative Council.
Souvanna
Phouma tried at first to ban the demonstrations but later
gave in
and sided with their aims. The May Day holiday provided
the pretext
for the largest demonstration to date, followed a week
later by a
demonstration against the rightist army and police.
Demonstrators
occupied the compound of the United States aid mission,
forcing
termination of the aid program. Four rightist ministers,
including
the defense minister, Sisouk na Champasak, fled. Another
minister,
Boun Om, was assassinated in the capital.
Elsewhere, takeovers of government offices and
orchestrated
demonstrations led to the entry of Pathet Lao troops into
Pakxé,
Savannakhét, Thakhek, and other towns during May "to
secure their
defense." People's revolutionary committees surfaced to
seize
administrative power from the remnants of the RLG.
Officials and
military officers who chose not to flee were summoned to
"seminars." On August 23, the Pathet Lao completed its
seizure of
local power with the takeover of the Vientiane city
administration
by a revolutionary committee. The Pathet Lao announced
that
military units had requested Pathet Lao "advisers,"
thereby
facilitating the integration of the army.
Throughout this time, the elite communist leaders who
were
making the decisions remained out of sight. Kaysone
Phomvihan, in
a speech in Vieng Xay on October 12, declared that "the
revolution
will speed up." Simultaneously, the National Political
Consultative
Council established new screening procedures for
candidates for
election that effectively eliminated all those who had not
supported the LPF. Suddenly, in the last week of November,
the NPCC
convened in Xam Nua. Also in November, elections were held
in the
"new zone," the former RLG zone. Eligible voters were
required to
vote for a list of candidates whose names were distributed
the
evening before. Candidates were local party
administrators, whose
identities had been kept secret up to then. On November
28,
demonstrators demanded the dissolution of the PGNU and the
National
Political Consultative Council as inappropriate to the
situation.
The next day, Souvanna Phouma and Souphanouvong flew to
Louangphrabang and persuaded the king to abdicate.
Data as of July 1994
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