Word: lao
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Though in quick headline-reading terms the conclusion was disappointing to Laos and the West, the circumstantial evidence cited in the body of the U.N. report left little doubt where the blame lay in Laos. The committee examined captured North Viet Nam uniforms, rifles made in China and Czechoslovakia, hand grenades and medical supplies bearing Chinese lettering. Laotian witnesses testified that troops attacking them were identifiable as North Vietnamese not only by their green uniforms but by their language ("Mau! Mau!"-Quick! Quick!) and even by the common rice they ate (Laotians eat glutinous rice). Ten captured Pathet Lao rebels...
...Sins." All Laotians are careful to propitiate the phis (malignant and mystic spirits of the earth and sky) and nagas (dragon spirits who inhabit rivers), but the prevalent Lao tian faith is Buddhism, with its strong emphasis on harming no living creature. Some medical men attribute the lack of aggressiveness among Laotians to disease rather than Buddhism or innate gentleness. Malaria, yaws, gonorrhea and kwashiorkor (an often fatal protein deficiency) are common; an estimated 50% of Laotian children die in childbirth or infancy. But to all disasters of body or soul, pious Laotians murmur in the words...
Unhappy Mountaineers. These mountaineers-the Black Thai, the primitive Kha, the opium-growing Meo-have long disliked being ruled by the Lao of the south. A few among the wild hill people fight on the side of the Communist Pathet Lao; many more have a passive indifference toward the government...
...terrorist technique was becoming monotonously familiar: well-trained Communist bands from North Viet Nam came out of hiding after midnight to attack isolated Laotian army outposts, retiring before dawn to let Laotian Communist groups of the Pathet Lao continue the fighting in daylight. This device hardly deceived anyone-everyone knew that Laos' little war is sparked and sponsored by outsiders-but it kept up appearances...
...send them after the Reds. We have a saying in our country: 'When the hand is pierced by a thorn, use a thorn to remove it.' The people are our thorn-they alone can save Samneua." But in these two provinces (long occupied by the Pathet Lao), arming the villagers was in itself a risk: probably not half of the terrorized population of Samneua would remain loyal to the government once the Communists appeared...