LAOS: Trouble in the Hills

Last year’s Geneva settlement was supposed to end the fighting in the three Indo-Chinese countries, but for one of them, sleepy, remote Laos,* it did nothing at all.

Under Geneva’s terms, the Laotian Communists, who called themselves the Pathet Lao and numbered at the time a mere 1,500 or so, were required to withdraw to two provinces, Phongsaly in the north, wedged between Red China and Dienbienphu, and Samneua in the northeast. Inexplicably, Geneva did not require the Pathet Lao, as it did the Communists in South Viet Nam, to get out or disband. The Pathet Lao thereupon laid claim to all of the two provinces, even though their claim violated their own recognition of Laos’ aging (70) King Sisavang Vong, now in the 52nd year of his reign, and Geneva’s assurance of his sovereignty.

News travels slowly inside Laos, and much of it never gets out. Not long ago the King and his ministers still believed that the Pathet Lao were merely misguided nationalists. But since Geneva, the Pathet Lao forces have quadrupled in strength. They are led by Prince Souphanouvong, a French-educated member of the Laos royal family, who has a son studying in Moscow and a Vietnamese wife who was formerly Communist Ho Chi Minh’s secretary.

Using U.S.-built weapons presumably captured at Dienbienphu, Prince Souphanouvong’s forces have for months been harassing royal Laotian outposts. A fortnight ago the Pathet Lao, some 3,000 strong, attacked the royal army’s 600-man garrison at Muong Peun, which lies between 8,000-ft. peaks in a bowl-shaped valley reminiscent of Dienbienphu.

It was two days before news of the attack reached the King. When it did, the royal Laotian general staff dispatched an airborne battalion, the army’s entire mobile reserve. As red-bereted Laotian paratroopers floated down on Muong Peun, the Communists withdrew to encircling positions, apparently intending to attack again at a more propitious moment.

The sleepy government of Laos stirred itself to anger. Prime Minister Katay Sasorith issued a white paper denouncing the Pathet Lao’s belligerence and blasting the International Control Commission (India, Poland and Canada) for its ineffectuality in keeping tabs on Communists movements and Viet Minh infiltration. Having issued the white paper, Prime Minister Katay called it a day, and repaired, as is his wont, to the Pam Pam, the capital’s only nightclub, where he watched the dancing girls and discussed with friends the chances of a long rainy season. Laos’ best hope to keep the Communists from marching.

* Laos (pop. 1,500,000) has no railroads, no newspapers, 100 miles of paved roads, one Western-trained civilian doctor and one bank, which is less than a year old.