Word: laos
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Thus last week did the inexorable march of events sweep tiny Laos, to all intents and purposes, into the Communist camp on the heels of its neighbors in Indochina. So quickly had the Communist-led Pathet Lao consolidated their political and military power that even veteran observers of the sleepy, landlocked kingdom were surprised. "I thought they were going to draw it out," admitted a U.S. official. "But because of what happened in Cambodia and South Viet Nam, they saw no need to wait." Nonetheless, the end of the quarter-century war was typically Laotian. Another U.S. official described...
...collapse began at the start of this month, when the political and military strength of the pro-American rightists in Laos ebbed swiftly in the face of Pathet Lao pressure. At first, an official takeover by the Communists appeared imminent. Then the tempo slowed. The Cabinet patiently waited until its regular Wednesday meeting last week to respond to the resignations of two rightist ministers and two deputy ministers. Instead of insisting that the vacancies be filled by leftists, the Pathet Lao permitted Souvanna to name nominal rightists acceptable to the left. This at least maintains the facade of the year...
...Communists plainly have nothing to fear from the tame rightists in the Cabinet. Earlier in the week, Khamouane Boupha, a Pathet Lao general, had been named acting Defense Minister by Souvanna to replace the rightist Sisouk na Champassak, who had resigned. Boupha immediately issued orders grounding the air force, forbidding all troop movements and demanding declarations of loyalty to the new command from all military units...
Fleeing Officers. The Pathet Lao concern about possible resistance from rightist-led units was exaggerated. From the rightist-controlled area of Laos, military units proclaimed loyalty to the new commander. At the police academy, the units actually stripped then" rightist officers of power. Elsewhere, they deserted camps en masse rather than continue under rightists. In other places rightist officers simply disappeared, fleeing with their families in wooden ferries across the Mekong River into Thailand. Rightist politicians and many Chinese and Vietnamese businessmen also fled...
...Laos' de facto legislature has been the Joint National Political Council, headed by the dynamic titular head of the Pathet Lao, "Red Prince" Souphanouvong, 62, who is Souvanna's half brother. Leftists in the Vientiane government have been steadily tightening their control of key ministries (such as Information and Foreign Affairs) and have triggered disruptive strikes by teachers, police and municipal employees...