Laos: Progress Amid the Potholes

Things are looking up in Laos.

In the streets of Vientiane, flooded after the monsoon rains, endless lines of cars and scooters splash through crowds of small boys swimming in the potholes. Planes land and take off on schedule at the city’s busy airport, despite the fact that its six clocks have all stopped. A small factory puffs contentedly away near Luangprabang, distilling opium into heroin. Although only 15% of the population uses money and the country is almost entirely dependent on U.S. aid ($56 million in the past year), business is booming, and there has been a modicum of economic progress. Some high ways have been resurfaced, villages modernized, food production boosted, and plans are afoot for an ambitious hydroelectric project.

Common Cause. What’s more, Prince Souvanna Phouma’s government, officially neutralist but leaning toward the West, is beginning to show signs of political stability. Although the Communist Pathet Lao technically holds four seats in Souvanna’s Cabinet, the Reds walked out on him two years ago, and refuse to come back. And ever since the banishment of troublemaking Rightist General Phoumi Nosavan, who was exiled in February after his third at tempted coup, the sailing has been even smoother. Other right-wing leaders have made common cause with Souvanna, and rightist troops often join General Kong Le’s neutralist army in drives against the Pathet Lao.

With Phoumi out of the way, the bickering among non-Communist politicians also died down. The fairest parliamentary elections in Laotian history went off without incident in July. Only 25% of the incumbents got themselves reelected, but the government won such an overwhelming victory that when the new Parliament met it gave Souvanna a rousing vote of confidence, with only four abstentions.

The Pathet Lao boycotted the elec tions. Lacking the substantial flow of men and arms that North Viet Nam has had to divert to the Viet Cong next door, isolated by its refusal to take part in the government, driven back by gov ernment armies it once could lick, the Pathet Lao now controls far less land and 600,000 fewer Laotians than it did in 1962. Last week came yet another setback. The Defense Ministry reported that the Royal Laotian army had killed 80 Communist troops in a battle north of the Plain of Jars.

Young Reformers. One important reason for hope is the emergence of a new generation of reformers in Laotian politics. Calling themselves Les Jeunes Nationalistes, they are mostly professional men who are loyal to Souvanna and who worry about such things as education, health and corruption in gov ernment. Apparently, other Laotians are equally concerned, for the Young Nationalists won twelve of the 16 races they entered in the July elections. Their leader, 37-year-old Finance Minister Sisouk Na Champassak, practices what he preaches. “I have fired the entire customs department,” he announced shortly after he took office, adding sardonically, “It may have reduced corruption there by 30%.”

Encouraging as it all seems, no one pretends that the fate of Laos lies entirely in Laotian hands. Escalation of the war in South Viet Nam has forced Peking and Hanoi to put Laos on the back burner, and as long as the war goes on, nothing the Laotians do can amount to much more than a political holding action. “Events in South Viet Nam will decide everything,” says Premier Souvanna. Adds Finance Minister Sisouk: “For the Americans to pull out of Southeast Asia would not only be a tragedy but a disaster.”