Kong Lae Calls For Giant Duel In Laos

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29385, 12 December 1960, Page 17

Kong Lae Calls For Giant Duel In Laos

VIENTIANE, December 11. Captain Kong Lae, the leader of the Laotian coup d’etat on August 9, whose troops recaptured Vientiane on Friday after an attempted pro-Western counter coup today appealed to Britain and Russia to provide means for the two sides in the Laotian dispute to shoot it out in a giant duel.

There was no immediate diplomatic reaction to the suggestion which Kong Dae broadcast over Vientiane Radio this morning. Kong Lae asked the two cochairmen of the 1954 Geneva agreement to arrange a neutral battleground in Laos where tne two sides could shoot it out. He said the two sides should be given an equal number of troops and ammunition. The idea, which struck most Vientiane residents as peculiar, did not get much support from the population. The main body of troops of the pro-Western revolutionary leader. General Phoumi Nosavan, was expected to arrive with tanks and artillery outside Vientiane today! coming from, the East, Army sources said. Reporters who today got through to the river-port of Tadeua, 12 miles down the Mekong from Vientiane, found reports of a buildup of General Phoumi’s forces there largely imaginary. They saw two tanks, gunboats moored at the -river’s edge and very few troops. Vientiane which has seen three different mUitary administrations in three days had a second calm night last night with only four shots in the early morning. Captain Kong Lae resumed full control of the Government on Friday after the departure of Prince Souvanna Phouma and six of his Ministers to Cambodia. Twenty National Assembly Deputies. who sought asylum in the Rightist-held Chinaimo Army garrison, four miles east of Vientiane, when Kong Lae recaptured the city, were yesterday reported to be heading towards southern Laos.

The 20 Deputies were expected to join the 22 already in southern Laos, which would give them a quorum of 30 to vote out Prince Souvanna Phouma’s Government and put in a new Government.

Political observers believed that the leftist Pathet Lao, headed by Prince Souvanna’s half-brother Prince Souphanouvong, will reply to the formation of the pro-Western Government in the south by forming a government of their own. This would result in the country being split into two. The Pathet Lao already control Sam Neua Province and have been threatening for the last month to take back Phongsaly Province, also in the north-east, which they held until 1957. Mr Quinim Pholsena, Minister for Information, was reported to have made a quick visit to Sam Neua yesterday to inform Prince Souphanouvong of the developments.