Word: laotians
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...relieved of their duties in Viet Nam, concentrated their power on Communist forces in Laos. The strikes were aimed at suspected concentrations of North Vietnamese troops. For their part, the North Vietnamese pulled troops off the Ho Chi Minh Trail and arranged them in offensive positions against the Royal Laotian Army. The most serious threat was to the junction of Thakhek, which was encircled by nine battalions of Communist troops...
There remains, moreover, the unanswered problem of the other wars in Southeast Asia. Last week the Laotian Premier, Prince Souvanna Phouma, predicted that fighting in his country would stop by mid-February. The Cambodian government announced a three-day cease-fire to give the Communists a chance to stop fighting if they wanted to. Cambodian President Lon Nol also made plans to participate in peace talks with the Khmer Rouge Communists and aides of deposed Prince Norodom Sihanouk. The prospects for a lasting peace in Laos and particularly in Cambodia, however, seemed at least as dubious as in South Viet...
...following selections are from Voices from the Plain of Jars. Life under an Air War,a collection of first hand accounts by Laotian peasants of American bombing raids near the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The book has been compiled by an American journalist. Fred Branfman and was published last year by Harper and Row. Perhaps it can help us to hear the American bombers overhead...
Laos was supposedly neutralized by the 1962 Geneva accords, but it is actually overrun by an antipasto of Asian troops. U.S.-supported mercenaries from Thailand and opium-growing Meo tribesmen from the northern hills help out the Royal Laotian Army. China has something like 20,000 troops in the country; they build roads while keeping a jealous eye on the North Vietnamese. Since 1952 Hanoi has had troops in Laos, which it used to describe as "deserters" and "volunteers." Now that it has the biggest single army in the country-65,000 troops-it does not acknowledge them...
...gripes? Only officers were allowed to have radios. And then there were Dai's Laotian allies, the Pathet Lao. "All they wanted in life was a wristwatch, then a motor scooter and other luxury items," he complained. "They weren't serious. The ones I saw were just fooling about. All the old hands said that the NVA did all the fighting and the Pathet Lao just sat around...