Word: laotians
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Among others sent to the camps: Khong Khetsakhorn, a machinery operator whose crime was to have worked on USAID construction projects, and Ut Philaphan-deth, a scion of an important Laotian business family, who was accused of harboring "a nest of spies...
...only prisoners known to have walked away from Phong Saly are five of a group of 15 Thai nationals released from Laotian jails last month as a gesture of reconciliation. They tell a grim tale of forced labor, undernourishment and disease. Said one: "We were so thin, so hungry that we even tried to roast toads. We pleaded for medicine, but the doctor wouldn't give us any. We thought we would die." Others told of three prisoners thrown into tiger cages for having killed and eaten a guard's dog; one Thai claimed that disease had killed...
...armed convoys. South of Vientiane, Pathet Lao patrols, supported by the air force's nine T-28 fighter-bombers, manage to keep Highway 13 and Route 8 open during the day, but the Meo have full control after dark. In the south, at least 1,500 Royal Laotian army veterans and disgruntled peasants are carrying on another guerrilla war. "Our rural population is almost completely behind the rebels," one Vientiane resident told DeVoss. "People hide rice from the government and offer it to the rebels. Villagers celebrate when one of their young heads for the hills to fight...
...morale of the Pathet Lao forces has been hurt by the failing Laotian economy. Some government troops are so desperately poor that they have sold their uniforms for money to buy food. In an implicit confession of weakness, the Pathet Lao leaders have sought outside help from what is grandly called the "International Liberation Army." The number of Soviet advisers in Laos has risen to 1,200 (Moscow is eager to maintain an influence in Laos to prevent it from falling into Peking's orbit) and Viet Nam's forces increased to about 40,000 troops. In early...
...just like a play on a stage," mourned one young Lao last week. "It's democratic in the Pathet Lao way, not our way. But it is useless to resist." In fact, despite the regime's direct impact on their lives, the 3 million Laotians remain among the world's most apolitical people. The Pathet Lao is neither as ruthless as Cambodia's Khmer Rouge nor as disciplined as the Vietnamese. In gradually seizing control of the country since mid-April, the Communists have managed to stay popular with their subjects by emphasizing such mass themes...