Word: laos
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...months on the Plaine des Jarres, headquarters of both the neutralist and Communist Pathet Lao armies, the Reds have been slowly squeezing their former neutralist allies in an effort to drive them off the grassy plateau. Defying last summer's 14-nation Geneva accords guaranteeing Laotian neutrality, the Pathet Lao is still reinforced by Communist Viet Minh cadres from North Viet Nam; to the north of the Plaine des Jarres, Red Chinese troops are building roads linking China with Red-controlled Laos itself. Slowly the Communists have been pinching off supplies to Neutralist Army Leader General Kong...
...rich or princely family. He made a lot of money as a merchant and investor, but in politics he was always a man of the left; though officially a member of Souvanna Phouma's neutralist party, his line was usually indistinguishable from that of the Communist Pathet Lao. Quinim was widely blamed for splitting the neutralist ranks and for fostering the resentments and dissensions that led to the February assassination of a neutralist colonel in the Plaine des Jarres...
...signed confession, Quinim's assassin, a lance corporal named Chy Kong, charged Quinim with trying to overthrow the government and bribing neutralist officers to defect to the Pathet Lao forces encamped in the Plaine des Jarres, where at week's end fighting broke out that caused 20 casualties. Asked if he agreed that Quinim had been proCommunist, Premier Souvanna Phouma replied simply: "He is dead. Peace to his soul...
There was, perhaps, cause for the President's casualness. For the U.S. has al ready given Laos quite a lot: $450 million since 1955, with precious little to show in return. Laos' Communist, neutralist and pro-Western factions, loosely stitched into a coalition government as a result of the Geneva agreement, are still at one another's throats. Communist troops from Viet Nam still prowl the country, in violation of the Geneva pact. Communist Pathet Lao troops still pillage and kill...
...neutralist officers wondered where the Reds would strike next. One recalled that a ranking Pathet Lao officer told him last fall that the Communists had plans for Kong Le's top four subordinates: "We are going to thoroughly liquidate all four of you." With Ketsana's death, there was one down and three...