Lao general expects little

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32525, 8 February 1971, Page 13

Lao general expects little

(By HENRY KAMM. of th? New York Times News Service, through N.Z.P.A.)

DONG HEN (Laos), Feb. 7. The commander of Laotian combat troops in the centre of the panhandle of Laos said at his beleagured forward command post that he did not expect to be able to hold out under mounting North Vietnamese pressure.

But the officer, BrigadierGeneral Nouphet Deoheueng said on Friday that nobody had told him that less than 100 miles eastward a large force of American and South Vietnamese troops was driving the enemy in his direction. His meagrely-equipped, rag-tag forces have received no reinforcements from Vientiane and no tactical support from the United States Air Force.

The general said that on Friday he received a tonguelashing from a major commanding a decimated battalion in an exposed position a few miles to the east. The major had three wounded men to be evacuated.

“Do you want my wounded to die?’’ the major screamed over the field telephone. “I can’t make helicopters,” General Nouphet replied.

He said that he would send a truck as far as the trail went and stretcher bearers would make their way to the position in three hours. Luckily, the only airworthy helicopter in this critical region that reaches from'the Ho Chi Minh trail to the Mekong River arrived carrying reporters, and it was dispatched to fetch the wounded.

Meanwhile, a company trooped out of the base camp in single file to occupy a defensive position on the enemy’s long route of approach. Like most companies of the Royal Lao Army, it was about half-strength, numbering 40 men. General Nouphet acknowledged that many of his soldiers were in their early teens.

Speaking of the loss of the nearby base at Muong Phelane on January 26, he said: “Of the 40 dead more than half were 15 or 16 years old. They are the soldiers who stay wherever you put them

because they don’t know when to run away. The deserters are the older ones. The young ones stay in their foxholes and die there.” The general’s laugh was derisive, as he added sardonically: "Maybe in three years, or maybe earlier, there will be only women in Laos. . . .”

r The oldest of General Nou- • phet’s 10 children is a 15- . year-old infantry corporal • now holding a desk job. The helicopter returned > bringing one dead soldier and ■ two wounded men. The bat- • talion commander sent word ■ that the wounded having i been evacuated, his troops would resume their with-

drawal to positions that they hoped to hold overnight. General Nouphet said that he would not attack the town of Muong Phelane even if he could because many civilians remained behind when he withdrew his troops. For the same reason, he said, he did not want the United States Air Force to bomb there. He added: “Every time the Americans are called in to bomb, they destroy friends and not enemies.”

A district chief from a village three miles to the south came to ask for arms for the villagers who wanted to defend themselves. The general said he had none.

The general said that as far as Laos was concerned the war seemed nearly lost because the North Vietnamese now controlled about twothirds of the country and there was no place in which to seek refuge. He said that he was fighting against the North Vietnamese invaders to protect his native soil and villages but not for the Americans. “If we came under the Communists, we would no longer be killed by the Communists,” General Nouphet said. But he added that if all of Laos were conquered by the Communists all of the country might be subjected to American bombing. The general said that he thought the Americans were preferable to North Vietnamese but he did not want them to intervene in Laos. He added: “If all the Americans were in Hanoi, the war would be over.” But unless the United States afforded to Laos aid as full as it afforded to South Vietnam, the general suggested that it might be better for Laos to reach a pact with the Communists.

“We don’t want to be Communists but we don’t want to be dead,” General Nouphet said. “Whoever wins, Laos will remain Laos.” A wounded boy in uniform was evacuated to Savannakhet on the helicopter’s last trip. He was about 15 years old. The colonel back at headquarters was angry when told that Muong Phelane was not about to be recaptured. “Of course we are recapturing it,” he said.