Why Laos Matters BRIDGEHEAD AGAINST ASIAN COMMUNISM

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28980, 22 August 1959, Page 12

Why Laos Matters BRIDGEHEAD AGAINST ASIAN COMMUNISM

[MICHAEL FIELD,

a “Dailv Telegraph" correspondent recently jj-.... »>» nrrnflict in this remote Asian king-

1 • t discusses the conflict in tnis remote Asian mnyreturned from and Communiet ambition.} (Reprinted by Arrangement)

LONDON, August 10.—Laos is hardly a household word in Britain. Since my return last week from South-east Asia I have been asked many times why events in this little-known country are now headline news. I made the first of several visits to Laos three years ago. There seemed, then, to be some hope that the civil war between the Government and the rebels, a legacy of the Indo-China war, would soon be over. But, today, a settlement laboriously worked out over nearly two years, under . the nervous eyes of the American, British and French Governments and much influenced by the Indian chairman of the International Control Commission, seems to have been ineffective. Troops of the rebel Pathet Lao (literally “the Lao State") are again in conflict with Government forces and they seem to be making a determined effort to resume control of the.northernmost provinces of Sam Neua and Ptiong Saly and to re-establish a quasi-Communist administration. Laos is only just a, country in the modern sense. It has a king, his Majesty Sisavang Vong, who has sat on his throne in the rustic city of Luang Prabang since 1904 — longer than any monarch ruling elsewhere to-day. It has a State religion—Theravada Buddhism — practised devoutly by a large number of its small widely-spread population of about two million. But while there is a genuine Lao personality, distinguishable from that of their cousins the Thais in Siam and the Shans in Burma, there are an uncounted number of racial minorities who can claim to be Laotians. One such minority, the Black Thais (called thus from their picturesque, sombre dress), is reported to be involved in the “rebellion" near the North Vietnam frontier. Informal Entry Laos is unlike other States in that it is easy to enter. Visas, a recent innovation, have still more recently been subject to a fee. In 1957 I tried in vain to interest an immigration official at Vattay airfield, Vientiane, in my proper documentation. While Western advisers have “improved” this situation now, there is still no customs inspection of passengers’ luggage. If you enter Laos from Siam by the new American-donated ferry across the Mekong river at NongKhai you are untroubled by formalities on the Laotian side. If the sentry is awake, he will probably smile at you and wave you on; like the Thais of Siam, the Laotians are great smilers. Life is usually mildly amusing to them at all times, sometftnes hilariously funny, especially when red-faced perspiring foreigners come to show them how they should run their affairs. Laos is a country without railways, with few and mostly very poor roads. It is dotted here and there with airstrips on which some of the most dangerously decrepit aircraft flying to-day make,landings. always hazardous, to often fatal. While aging Dakotas ferry citizens, their livestock, and chattels between the principal population centres, other less reputable flights ensure that Laos's most successful cash crop, opium, finds its way to world markets. Jeeps and army trucks can struggle over the abominable roads which link Vientaine with Luang Prabang to the north and the southern towns of Thakkek (site of a tin-extraction industry set up by the French), Pakse, Savannakhet and the French military base of Seno, where the lonely Tri-colour still flies in a glory bequeathed to it by the Geneva agreement. For journeys farther afield in the jungle-covered hills where no aircraft can land, elephants are best Fortunately there is no shortage of them in Laos which is traditionally known as the “land of the • million elephants.” A French business friend told me that a few weeks ago, to get an onier in a place 70 miles from Vientaine, he had to make a twoday journey by canoe up the Mekong river, followed by two days on elephant back. Vientaine itself, while fast acquiring celebrity as a capital city, is the size of a small market town. Foreign aid has brought a garish wealth to Laotian businessmen and their Chinese and Vietnamese associates. Bullock carts of many fanciful designs and of an antiquity that suggest the day the wheel was invented jostle in the narrow streets with latest Western cars. French Links Live On Gentle and friendly, the peoples of Laos have rarely been left to undisturbed enjoyment of their modest ways. During the European middle ages they were often undef the rule of the Khmers of presentday Cambodia. The tiny kingdoms of which Laos was formed came under Siamese suzerainty before the French, in 1893, united the country under the throne of Luang Prabang. drew the present frontiers, pushed back the Siamese across the Mekong, and set up a protectorate to cushion their Fareastern empire in Indochina against the British in Burma. The French used to look on Laos as a Shangri-la where officials and less rapacious colonists could live in almost Arcadian conditions. Laotian women, with their elegant coiffures—a sleek bun drawn to one side of the head—and their chic, slim, gold-hemmed skirts, are renowned in South-east Asia for their grace and beauty. Many were the French soldiers and administrators who founded families there. Today, Laos is a sovereign State, a member of the United Nations. Largely without resentment towards the French, who did little to develop the country, it has never left the French community. Today, France is still making a great effort to maintain her political apd cultural influence there, and Ministries and schools abound in experts from Paris. But to-day the French have, in Laos as elsewhere, a none too welcome competitor for influence in the United States. Since Geneva both Britain and America have established diplomatic missions in Vientiane. The Office of Works has recently replaced the unique structure known affectionately as “the cricket pavilion,” formerly occupied by Her Britannic Majesty’s Ambassador, with a more substantial building of British design.

The Americans have poured In economic aid with more generosity than prudence—as a recent undignified inquiry in Washington has revealed. The corruption caused by the too-rich far* of American aid infected apparently not only less scrupulous Laotian politicians, but even some Americans. * Reasons for Sapport But not the most harrowing of reports from Vientiane about misuse of American aid could justify a suspension of Western support for Laos. Its geographical position alone—locked between Chink, North and South Vietnam, Burma, Cambodia and Siam— make it an obvious strategic position in the heart of South-east Asia. Should Laos crumble under military pressure from North Vietnam or China, or should the Vientiane Government succumb to subversion. the western flank of South Vietnam, an • anti-Communist bridgehead maintained at great expense by the United States, would be turned. Communist forces would be on the northern frontier of neutral Cambodia and their guns would dominate the Mekong frontier of Siam. Malaya Burma, and India itself would be one step nearer to direct threat. Hostilities in Laos are dangerous for world peace because members of South-east Asia Treaty are bound to answer any call for assistance by the Royal Gwernment. This call, is, for the present. I think, unlikely to come. Vulnerable as Laos is, it has a tough little army which is capable of dealing with any small-scale trouble within the country—even if it is fomented by North Vietnam with specially-trained cadres. At the moment, too. Laos has a Government which knows its own mind. The Premier, Mr Phoui Sananikone has refused to be intimidated. No definite proof has ever come to light of a connexion between Prince Souphannouvong and his supporters and the Communists in North Vietnam or China. But Souphannouvong himself, a handsome and intelligent man who has often discussed his country’s affairs quite frankly with me and other correspondents, is thought to be only a popular figurehead for a secret Communist party built up in Hanoi of a few Laotians, tribal minorities, and Vietnamese. Familiar Move The crafty eye of Ho Chi Minh, the Stalinist fanatic who still presides over the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, has inevitably fallen covetously on primitive Laos which is separated from his territory by a frontier only faintly delineated in a mountainous zone peopled on both sides by tribes innocent of modern politics. But neither he nor his advisers—be they in Moscow or Peking—are likely at this moment to wish to sweep aside their own fiction that the trouble in Laos is a spontaneour rebellion provoked by American militarism. The present trouble loqks like a familiar Communist move. While Mr Khruschev embraces Mr Eisenhower and everything in the European garden seems lovely, a few shots fjred and lives lost in the jungles of Laos will serve to keep the West on tenterhooks. It is therefore unlikely that the “rebels” will push too hard. They may hope that Mr Phoui Sananikone will be obliged to ask for the return of the International Cdntrol Commission, whose Polish member, Mr Wolkowiak, was, one year ago, unceremoniously re-t fused admission for the very unLaotian reason that he had -no visa. But the rebels will not, I think, go so far as to oblige the Royal Government to call on Siam and other S.E.A.T.O. Powers for military assistance. Such a move might mean another Korea—and it is surely inconceivable that Moscow or Peking would go to that length.