MONGABAY.COM
Mongabay.com seeks to raise interest in and appreciation of wild lands and wildlife, while examining the impact of emerging trends in climate, technology, economics, and finance on conservation and development (more)
WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
|
|
Laos
Index
The Soviet airlift, which continued despite United
States
protests to Moscow, transformed the Plain of Jars into a
vast armed
camp, fully resupplying Kong Le. For the first time, the
Pathet Lao
were equipped with heavy weapons allowing them to play a
major role
in their military alliance with Kong Le's troops in
support of
Souvanna Phouma's government. There was, moreover, another
and more
important factor: the commitment of significant numbers of
North
Vietnamese troops to the fighting, exactly what Souvanna
Phouma and
Brown had feared. Kong Le requested four battalions of
North
Vietnamese troops on January 7. Two of these linked up
with his
forces on Route 7 and down Route 13. The third was engaged
in
military action at Tha Thom, a key defense point south of
the Plain
of Jars. The fourth took up position north of the plain.
In Xiangkhoang, the Hmong once again blew up the
bridges on
Route 7 in a desperate effort to interfere with North
Vietnamese
truck convoys rolling westward. The Royal Lao Army had
been quietly
supplying arms to the Hmong since at least March 1957 to
enable
them to resist the Pathet Lao, but the North Vietnamese
influx
created a sudden need for arms far in excess of what the
Laotians
could supply, even with the help of Thailand. The Hmong,
under
their military leader Vang Pao, had taken up positions in
the
mountains surrounding the Plain of Jars and asked to talk
to United
States officials. Vang Pao requested quick delivery of
arms, but
United States officials were concerned that the Hmong
would not
fight, and the arms might fall into communist hands. Vang
Pao said
all 7,000 volunteers would fight, but they needed the arms
in three
days or they would have to fall back to less exposed
positions.
United States airdrops of arms from stocks in Okinawa
began three
days later, signaling the beginning of a heroic Hmong
resistance.
Data as of July 1994
|
|