REBEL PUSH INTO LAOS

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27036, 11 May 1953, Page 9

REBEL PUSH INTO LAOS

Battle “Given Up For Time Being” (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 10 p.m.) PARIS, May 9. The Communist-led Vietminh rebels in Indo-China have given up the battle for Laos for the time being, a spokesman for the Indo-China Ministry said today. Most of the Vietminh forces which had swept deep into Laos and were within 12 miles of the Royal capital of Luang Prabang are withdrawing towards the north, according to latest reports.

The spokesman said the Vietminh units sighted near Luang Prabang, and others besieging the French stronghold in the plam of Jars, have “disappeared,” but there is no definite news yet about the columns which struck out towards Paksen, on the Mekong river, on the Laos-Siam border. French quarters believe military necessity had driven the Vietminh commander to pull back his forces which had lost their defensive punch after a 300-kilometre advance through most difficult terrain.

King Sisavang Nong, the ageing King of Laos, who refused to leave his palace when Vietminh troops were a few miles away, has agreed to go to Paris for medical treatment. The King, who is crippled by rheumatism and gout, will go to France by ship from Saigon on May 28.

General H. C. Navarre, Chief of Staff to Marshal Alphonse Juin, the land commander in Central Europe, has been named Commander-in-Chief of the French and Vietnamese forces in Indo-China, replacing General Raoul Salan. General Navarre is to take up his post shortly. Senator William Knowland, chairman of the Senate Republican policy committee, said that General James Van Fleet should go to Indo-China at the head of a United States military mission to train native anti-Communist troops, according to a Washington message. General Van Fleet, a former Allied ground commander in Korea, trained the Greek Army for its campaign against the Communist guerrillas inside the country. Move for U.N. Discussion

France has assured the Vietnam that the three associated states of IndoChina will be consulted before any move is made to bring the Vietminh invasion of Laos to the United Nations, says another message from Paris. Sources close to the French Government said an appeal to the United Nations was out of the question for the time being. The Cabinet was expected to review the question again today.

Two of the six American flying boxcars sent to help in the Laos war dropped 10 tons of supplies to the French stronghold on the plain of Jars, a report from Hanoi says. American pilots, accompanied by a French military navigator and radio men, were making a test flight ovep unfamiliar territory. Tomorrow planes which can carry 10 tons each will make flights. The French Cabinet, in an effort to reduce the 1953 budget deficit, decided last night to cut expenditure on defence, including Indo-China, by £31,000,000.