Laos: Waiting for Red China

In Laos’ off-and-on-again civil war, Premier Boun Oum and his anti-Communist government talked of victory last week and rushed construction of a concrete and steel war memorial in the capital city of Vientiane. Closing in from north and south, government troops finally cleared a dusty, 150-mile slash of road that serves as the country’s major north-south highway between Vientiane and Luangprabang.

Both the talk and the war monument were premature. The Communist-led rebels still held most of north central Laos, and the road into their lair was studded with land mines, freshly imported from Red China. Though Boun Oum’s generals predicted all-out victory “within a week,” most foreign observers on the scene predicted a negotiated truce. Late last week King Savang Vatthana, an easygoing monarch who prefers to remain above politics, reluctantly left his palm-fringed home town of Luangprabang, flew to Vientiane to convene his council of ministers. Purpose: to see if he could devise some sort of coalition government that the Pathet Lao rebels, and their Communist allies abroad, would be willing to strike a deal with.

The obvious man to include was ex-Premier Prince Souvanna Phouma, who was put in office by the rebels last August and chased to exile in Cambodia by the army in December. But the King detests Prince Souvanna, who is his distant cousin. Fortnight ago, a Russian Ilyushin 14 slipped into the Cambodian capital of Pnompenh bearing a rebel delegation that tried to talk Souvanna into returning to Laos to head up a rump government in the rebel-held sector. Souvanna cautiously refused to budge.

Souvanna was obviously stalling, hoping that the big powers would eventually negotiate a solution in Laos that could bring him back as a compromise Premier. He had already announced a long-term philosophy that he called “neutrality in neutralism.” Red China, explained Souvanna, will “eventually” take over all of Southeast Asia. “But for the next 30 years, China needs peace to build up her agriculture and industry. China wants to be surrounded by neutral nations. In 30 years she won’t be interested in neutrality any more. Why don’t we enjoy this respite?”