Word: lao
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...highly honed 615,000 troops were not embracing. At dawn on Saturday, Feb. 17, Chinese forces, massed more than 300,000 strong north of Viet Nam in Yunnan and Kwangsi provinces, loosed a massive artillery barrage on key border positions. Hardest hit were Vietnamese concentrations around the cities of Lao Cai, Muong Khuong, Cao Bang, Lang Son and Mong Cai. The People's Liberation Army, untested in major formation warfare since it crossed the Yalu River in October 1950 to surprise and rout the U.N. forces in Korea, stormed across the border at 26 different points...
Sullivan was regarded as a Harrirnan protégé and as an expert on Southeast Asia. During his five-year assignment (1964-69) as Ambassador to Laos, he caught the eye of Henry Kissinger. As Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs from 1969 to 1973, Sullivan played a major role in the Viet Nam peace negotiations. But he also earned the enmity of antiwar activists, for he had directed the secret U.S. bombing of Pathet Lao targets in Laos. He later admitted withholding the truth about the raids from visiting members of Congress...
...thing that is most notably different about Laos today: there are fewer people. In proportion to the country's small population (roughly 3 million), the exodus has been staggeringly large. Since the spring of 1975, around 140,000 Laotians have fled to refugee camps in Thailand-in recent months, most of them by paying $150 to secure a nighttime passage on boats plying the Mekong River. Although Pathet Lao soldiers often shoot at those who attempt the crossing (four died in one incident two weeks ago), an estimated 2,500 to 4,000 people seek refuge in Thailand every...
...Vientiane, once flourishing centers of sin-like the notorious White Rose Café-have been closed down by the puritanical Pathet Lao government. On Rue Setthathirath more than half the shops are shuttered tightly, though not the Large Soviet cultural center on the corner. Rusting hulks of cars and trucks lie at the side of the roads leading out of the city. Even the front garden of the old Royal Palace has fallen into a state of near total disrepair-the King was sent to a reeducation camp...
Vientiane, nevertheless, still retains some traces of its old insouciance. The antique shops along Rue Samsenthai, mostly owned by Vietnamese, are still open. One shopkeeper, fortunate enough to hold a French passport, said that she was preparing to leave Laos soon, since the government had announced plans to take over her store. The large central market seemed adequately stocked with fresh vegetables, soap, cigarettes, pots and pans, cotton cloth and even finely wrought silver works -all still being sold by private merchants. While virtually all women obey a government order to wear the traditional Lao skirt, called the sin, some...