PEACE MOVES IN LAOS

Press, Volume C, Issue 29502, 2 May 1961, Page 13

PEACE MOVES IN LAOS

Both Sides Speak Of Armistice IN .Z.P.A ■•Reuter—Copyright) LONDON, May 1. Both sides in the Laos fighting are putting out peace feelers today, as intense diplomatic activity continues in New Delhi, Washington, and other world capitals to end the civil war. Both the Right-wing Government and the Communistbacked rebels said yesterday they would make attempts to meet today for armistice talks, but whether their emissaries will make contact is still in doubt. Prince Souvanna Phouma, the neutralist former Prime Minister now in rebel territory, proposed a meeting near Vang Vieng, a rebel-held town in central Laos.

The Vientiane Government, which sent an officer out on the Vientiane-Luang Prabang road on Saturday under a white flag in an unsuccessful attempt to make contact with the rebels, is to try again today

The three-nation International Commission on Laos today announced unanimous agreement in a report to Britain and Russia setting out the commission's tasks and functions once a ceasefire is agreed in Laos.

The commission, consisting of India, Canada, and Poland, said it was standing by for further instructions.

The commission had prepared a draft report before recessing on Saturday afternoon which, it is believed, suggested that Britain and the Soviet Union, as co-chairmen of the 1954 Geneva conference ending the Indo-China war. should authorise the commission to go to Laos as soon as a cease-fire was agreed

The commission said it was expected that its report would be in London and Moscow some time today. An official communique said: “The commission now stands ready to carry out any instructions” from Britain and Russia, who reconvened the three-nation group last week. Speculation in U.S.

President Kennedy will confer with his top advisers about Laos again today amid increasing speculation that the United States will soon publicly react to the continued absence of a cease-fire there.

After a National Security Council meeting on Saturday, it was decided to retain 6000 United States troops who were due to have left for Europe to take part in a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation exercise.

Usually reliable sources said the men had been kept there because of a wish to have “Are brigade” units and aircraft in the United States in view of the situation in Laos. Speculation in Washington about the United States’ possible next move in the crisis ran along two principal lines

One was that the President would call for some form of allied intervention in Laos, perhaps by the Asian members of the South-East Asia Treaty Organisation, of which Australia and New Zealand are members. The other was that he would seek further diplomatic methods of halting the deterioration of the situation in Laos, possibly by some action in the United Nations The United States chief delegate to the United Nations, Mr Adlai Stevenson, said last night that he would attend today’s meeting. Security Council

The Associated Press said there had been indications that the United States was trying to overcome British and French resistance to calling a meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Laos.

A diploma-tic source said that if there was no ceasefire by Tuesday, the United States probably would ask for a Security Council meeting and propose that the council call for a cease-fire. He said the United States was working through Washington embassies to line up Security Council members for a meeting. Diplomatic sources had reported previously that Britain and France were against a Security Council meeting. The President apparently postponed a decision about Laos over the week-end in order to allow Britain more time in its- talks with the Soviet Union in Moscow to try to bring about an effective cease-fire in Laos.

Press Comment New York’s two leading newspapers today discussed the stage at which the United States must intervene in Laos—what the “HeraldTibune” described as the "point of no return.” An editorial in the “New York Times" said: “As the United States had given ample evidence of its desire for a peaceful, compromise solution in Laos. .*. . there should be, by now, no illusion about the fatefulness of the decision that faces the Kennedy AdmmfstrwSon."

"The sending of United States and other SE.AT.O forces to Laos might well be answered by the advance into Laos of large North V etnamMe and Chinese Communist armies. Confliet on a global scale might soon develop between the Communist and free world nations. ‘The alternatives to United States intervention also seen almost as calamitious. . A Laos under Communtst domination, no matter how this came about, would put neighbouring anti - Communist

South Vietnam and Thailand under heavy, perhaps eventually irresistible. Com. munist pressures.

States or 5.E.A.T.0., will be undertaken is not known But there must be some point of no return—and it is clear it is rapidly being approached. “The Reds know this. It explains why they have stalled peace talks rather than merely shrugging them off and continuing the war. But both fraud and open defiance entail grave risks for the Reds in Laos They cannot know, as they delay, whether it is just the clock that is ticking away the fateful seconds—or a time bomb Their only way to win assurance of peace is to stop the fighting now.” it said. The “New York Times” reported today that the Kennedy Administration had decided to increase by 41 million dollars the amount of military aid to be made available to South Vietnam in the financial year beginning on July 1. The newspaper said in a Washington dispatch that the additional money, almost all of which would be spent on military supplies, will about double the amount of military aid the United States has been providing annually to South Vietnam.

“An appeal to the United Nations over Laos, now con. templated by the United States, must contribute towards halting rebel military advances, but the eventual Communist domination of Laos through political means remains the most likely prospect.

“Meanwhile, it is essential that non Communist Laotians and the free countries of South-east Asia realise the gravity of the threat that faces them and the necessity to give the strongest support to efforts being made to save Laos from communism." it said.

The “Herald - Tribune” said: “The Soviet Government and its Asian paatners in crime have been perpetrating a grisly fraud in Laos. Whether they have come to the end of the game they have been playing with the lives and liberties of the Laotian people remains to be seen, already they have run up a heavy bill of deaths and deceits. “At what moment direct intervention, by the United