Word: pathetically
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Three years ago, Communist Pathet Lao guerrillas emerged from their jungle hideouts and quietly but firmly seized power in the languid nation once known as "the land of a million elephants." Since then, the People's Democratic Republic of Laos has been off limits to most Western journalists. Among the handful of U.S. reporters who have been allowed to visit the country is TIME Hong Kong Correspondent Richard Bernstein. His report...
...small population (roughly 3 million), the exodus has been staggeringly large. Since the spring of 1975, around 140,000 Laotians have fled to refugee camps in Thailand-in recent months, most of them by paying $150 to secure a nighttime passage on boats plying the Mekong River. Although Pathet Lao soldiers often shoot at those who attempt the crossing (four died in one incident two weeks ago), an estimated 2,500 to 4,000 people seek refuge in Thailand every month...
Some of them escape across the 450-mile border between Kampuchea (Cambodia) and Thailand, which is dotted with spikes holding the sun-bleached skulls of would-be refugees who were shot down by Khmer Rouge frontier guards. With considerably greater ease, others manage to evade the purgatory of Pathet Lao rule by crossing the Mekong River, the poorly guarded frontier between Laos and Thailand. From Viet Nam, thousands of refugees -the so-called boat people-have sailed to Thailand or Malaysia in overcrowded junks. An equal number have died in the attempt...
Those who wind up in Phong Saly are accused of specific crimes, although the charges may be as vague as being a "spy" or a "reactionary." Since Pathet Lao soldiers have been given blanket permission to charge just about anyone and no trials are necessary, many Laotians have been banished to Phong Saly for little reason...
...Pathet Lao's plans for Phong Saly appear to be patterned on what the Vietnamese Communists euphemistically call a "new economic zone," a remote area where primitive agriculture can absorb a large population of political exiles who are there to stay. Inmates in other parts of the Lao gulag may also be sinking some unwanted permanent roots. Many who were shipped off to re-education centers two years ago are still there, and some prisoners' wives have been warned to pack up and join their husbands if they ever want to see them again. The Pathet...