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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Laos
Index
Relations with the United States suffered some of the
same
cutbacks as those experienced by Vietnam and Cambodia
after the
United States withdrawal from Indochina in 1973, but there
were
important differences. After 1975 Laos provided the United
States
the only official window to its former enemy states in
Indochina.
The United States was also willing to treat all departing
Laotians
as political refugees entitled to asylum, with hopes that
third
countries might eventually accept them for resettlement.
And, in
spite of the full economic and diplomatic embargo imposed
by the
United States on Vietnam and Cambodia in 1975, United
States
diplomatic relations with Laos facilitated such occasional
humanitarian aid projects as food and prosthetics. In this
manner,
the door to full diplomatic relations was kept ajar.
Diplomatic relations with the United States were never
broken,
even though the United States Agency for International
Development
(AID) and the United States Information Agency (USIA) both
withdrew, under harassment, and diplomatic representation
in
Vientiane and in Washington was reduced to the level of
chargé
d'affaires, with a limit of twelve persons and no military
attachés. Relations eventually were reciprocally restored
to the
ambassadorial level in the summer of 1992.
A tentative agreement to allow United States Peace
Corps
personnel in Laos fell through in the spring of 1992. The
admission
of Peace Corps workers was initially approved but then
rejected by
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Apparently some party
leaders
feared that the volunteers might have a subversive impact
on the
Laotians, especially if deployed outside Vientiane. As of
1993, a
country agreement was on the table, and the Peace Corps
remained
interested in sending volunteers but was waiting for Laos
to
initiate a program.
Other United States agencies run small programs in
Laos. In
1992 AID made a US$1.3 million grant for a prosthetics
project.
Because AID does not have an office in Laos, the program
is
administered from AID's office in Bangkok. The United
States
Information Service, the overseas branch office of the
USIA,
reopened a one-officer post in Vientiane in October 1992.
The post
concentrates on supporting English-language teaching
activities and
publications, press activities, and cultural and
educational
exchanges. Two Laotian Fulbright grantees were in the
United States
in 1993.
Since the establishment of the LPDR, Laos and the
United States
have cooperated in varying degrees on two major issues of
high
priority to the United States. One is the search for
information on
the more than 500 United States servicemen listed as
missing in
action (MIA) in Laos
(see
The Origins of the Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Question
, ch. 1;
Relations with the United States
, ch. 5). This problem has proved to be a
surprisingly
durable issue, which delayed an otherwise uncomplicated
and
mutually beneficial rapprochement between the two states.
Starting
in 1985, Laos treated the MIA issue seriously enough to
undertake
joint searches of known wartime crash sites of United
States
aircraft. However, the United States Senate Select
Committee on
Prisoner of War/MIA Affairs concluded in January 1993
that: "The
current leaders of Laos, who are the successors to the
Pathet Lao
forces that contended for power during the war, almost
certainly
have some information concerning missing Americans that
they have
not yet shared." Further cooperation brightened the
atmosphere of
Laos-United States relations, even though a full
accounting of
United States military personnel lost in the Laos theater
of war
can probably never be achieved.
The second long-standing issue is the production and
export of
opium. In April 1993, Laos received a national interest
certification on the issue of cooperation in
counternarcotics
activities. Opium traffic out of Laos is a tangible
irritant to
relations, however, particularly because of the suspicion
that
high-ranking Laotian officials, especially those in the
military,
are involved in protecting the trade. The United States
Drug
Enforcement Administration worked with the LPDR to
maintain Laos's
eligibility--despite its opium trade--as a potential
United States
aid recipient. In 1990 an economic aid project worth
US$8.7 million
was provided to help the hill tribes that grow poppies
turn to
substitute crops. Thus, the legal barriers to expanding
Laos-United
States consultation and commerce were essentially removed.
Yet
most-favored-nation treatment for imports such as coffee
from Laos
might conceivably have to await the full release of the
last of the
political prisoners held in the mountainous eastern
provinces since
1975.
An irritant in Laos-United States relations was the
United
States charge in 1981 that Laos had engaged in aerial
spraying with
deadly toxins--yellow rain--against Hmong villages. The
United
States government adopted the position that chemical
weapons were
used in Laos in the late 1970s through 1983. Such reports
lost
credibility after 1984, however, when the United States
stationed
scientific personnel in Bangkok to test any incoming
evidence,
which never appeared.
Data as of July 1994
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