Word: laotians
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...their own fashion, Laotians last week gave a red-carpet welcome to the fact-finding subcommittee sent by the U.N. Security Council to determine formally whether Laos is a victim of foreign Communist aggression. There were no military bands, no spotless guard of honor, no protocol-wise assemblage of local diplomats. Instead, hundreds of lissome girls wearing flowing silk scarves and brilliant sarongs trimmed with gold appeared at the airport bearing silver bowls of flowers. It was the traditional Laotian "welcome in beauty," which requires that the wisest and most beautiful girls of a village greet an important stranger...
...Laos. The chairman of the U.N. party, Japan's Shinichi Shibusawa, promised that the subcommittee would "go wherever it had to"-thus quashing earlier reports that the investigators would not stir out of Vientiane into the mysterious northern jungles where the Communist attacks are concentrated. And a Laotian government spokesman proudly announced the capture of six or seven enemy soldiers alleged to be North Vietnamese regulars. But, under questioning, Laotian officials conceded that at least some of the prisoners were Vietnamese deserters who may never have been involved in the Laotian fighting...
Under the terms of the 1954 Geneva agreement. France was allowed to main tain 5,000 troops in Laos, was entrusted with the training of the Royal Laotian Army. fact, the French promptly cut their Laotian garrison to fewer than a thousand men, showed so little interest in their training mission that many of the Laotian army's 25,000 men are still incompetent to handle anything heav ier than a submachine...
...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...
...join the sweaty, sociable circle was Pundit Joe Alsop Jr., who arrived with a copy of Thucydides under one arm, sped off to an air-conditioned room in the residence of U.S. Ambassador Horace H. Smith. Columnist Alsop stealthily cabled what he thought was a scoop on the Laotian appeal to the United Nations. Trouble was that the reporter pool at the Constellation had filed the same story the day before...