Word: phong
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Nowhere is this more evident than in Phong Saly province, a remote region that juts into southern China. There, the Pa thet Lao have set up prison camps for "enemies of the state" that seem like something out of Solzhenitsyn: their heavy log walls are covered with barbed wire and bordered with sharp bamboo stakes; beyond, there is nothing but dense jungle and forbidding mountains. "You can try to escape," the guards taunt their charges, "but we'll have you back here within seven days...
...regime's figures do not include 12,000 unfortunates who have been packed off to Phong Saly. There, no pretense at re-education is made. As one high Pathet Lao official told Australian Journalist John Everingham, who himself spent eight days in a Lao prison last year, "No one ever returns...
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...
...Hanoi with material that they have presumably relayed home and to the West. In recent days, the P.R.G. has stopped picture-taking of troops and street scenes, arresting and later releasing an offending Japanese cameraman, and has reduced its own news flow to a minimum. Only Giai Phong (Liberation), the P.R.G.'s daily newspaper, carries press reports, but they are usually three or four days old and consist of official statements and orders. In exasperation, a delegation of Western reporters, representing 120 correspondents from 13 countries, last week sent a letter of protest over the difficulties in gathering...
...paper also claimed that 24 generals, including two former Defense Ministers, 500 colonels and 1,000 majors had registered with the authorities as ordered. There was no indication that they were under arrest; Giai Phong simply announced that even those who had committed "crimes against the people" would be pardoned-presumably after a suitable period of reeducation. Only those who resisted the new regime would be dealt with harshly...