Word: phouma
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...former French colony, Laos drifted into independence after World War II, under the custody of a fractious royal family. The two chief rivals: Prince Souvanna Phouma, who became Premier, and his half brother, Prince Souphanouvong, who became a follower of North Viet Nam's Ho Chi Minh and headed the guerrilla Pathet Lao. Fighting between their forces continued fitfully for years, and the war in neighboring Viet Nam turned dreamy little Laos into a strategic battleground, a Communist sanctuary and supply route between North and South...
...reportedly has urged the government of Premier Souvanna Phouma not to accede to any new demands from the Communist Pathet Lao and to seek a cease-fire based on the same principles as the Paris peace settlement for Viet...
...Kissinger flew into Vientiane, Laos, cease-fire negotiations between Premier Souvanna Phouma and the Communist-dominated Pathet Lao were already well advanced. The chief difficulty has been the Communist insistence that any military truce be coupled with political concessions. A similar position had hampered the set tlement in Viet Nam until Hanoi finally agreed to separate those issues. If a similar deal can be struck in Laos - and Kissinger was pressing for it - a ceasefire could come as early as this week. In anticipation of that, the Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese troops made last-minute pushes to grab more...
...Communists did in fact show a new flexibility. They abruptly reversed their longstanding refusal to deal with military and political matters separately. Communist spokesmen suggested that Premier Prince Souvanna Phouma was overoptimistic in his prediction that a cease-fire in Laos would come within 15 days of one in South Viet Nam, but they agreed that a truce would come soon. Lending a helping hand, the Soviet Union offered to fly negotiators between the capital of Vientiane and the Communist stronghold of Samneua, about 200 miles away...
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...