Jungle Trickery

While its Communist neighbors, Red China and North Viet Nam, hurled threats by radio, tiny Laos last week tried desperately to set its house in order. Tough, grizzled General Ouane Rattinkoun, 34, veteran of jungle battles against the French, Chinese, North Viet Nam Reds, and the home-grown Communists of the Pathet Lao, was ordered to solve by force a problem that had not yielded to nearly two years of diplomacy. His task: to integrate into the 25,000 man Royal Laotian army two Communist battalions.

Valley Exit. The integration had been promised in the November 1957 agreement between the government and the rebel Pathet Lao, who then controlled two of the nation's northern provinces under the leadership of Prince Souphanouvong, pro-Red cousin of the King of Laos. "I signed the agreement," said the prince. "I guarantee it will be respected. If the Pathet Lao battalions don't respect the agreement, I no longer consider them friends." To the Laotian government and the army, integration meant that the Communist troops would be parceled out in small numbers among the other troops; to the Red commanders, it meant that their battalions would be made royal but remain intact, always ready for action against the government.

Neither side would budge. One Red battalion was encamped in a small valley called Xieng Ngeun, twelve miles from the ancient capital city of Luang Prabang, and the only exit from the valley was guarded by two Royal Laotian battalions and a detachment of paratroopers. The other was stationed on the wide Plaine des Jarres in north Laos, surrounded by four heavily armed loyal battalions. The Royal Laos handed ultimatums to the Reds, giving them the choice of surrendering their arms and being integrated, or being wiped out; food supplies were cut off. At Xieng Ngeun, his hungry men on the edge of mutiny, the Red commander capitulated, marched out of the valley at the head of his unarmed troops. When he was searched, the Red leader angrily cried that it was an "un-Buddhist" action. It was also a valuable one, for on his person was found a letter from Red Prince Souphanouvong ordering him not to accept integration until after the next general election.

Told of the surrender at Xieng Ngeun, the Red battalion on the Plaine des Jarres promised its own answer at noon the next day. The loyal troops surrounding them gave their future brothers-in-arms food and water, fraternized openly. Vigilance relaxed. And when the loyal troops awoke next morning, they found the Reds had decamped during the night, taking their women and children with them.

Jungle Search. General Ouane came storming up to the Plaine des Jarres. ordered paratroops dropped to block the four escape routes to the North Viet Nam border, where Communist Ho Chi Minh was eager to welcome his fleeing comrades from Laos. The stumbling flight of the Reds was halted by armed peasants loyal to the government, who fired on them. The pursuing royal troops closed in, and General Ouane demanded surrender by dawn.

There was no reply and, at sunrise, the attack began. But soon after, word came in from the rebels that they wanted to talk. General Ouane jumped into a light Beaver reconnaissance plane and circled the area, hedgehopping as low as the pilot dared. Said the general: "Finally I spotted my advance patrols through the thick jungle foliage. I flew over them with wings waggling until they halted and I was able to radio that the advance should stop. They were only a few hundred yards from the Communists. If I had arrived a few minutes later, it would have meant the beginning of civil war."

At week's end, as all Laos celebrated the annual fertility festival with phallic symbols, copulating puppets, and men dancing in the streets in women's clothes, the Communist military threat to the state seemed to be disintegrating. Troops from the first Red battalion had been scattered piecemeal throughout the army; Red Prince Souphanouvong languished under house arrest; the battalion of the Plaine des Jarres was on the point of surrender. Was the Red threat over? Said a government spokesman: "Who knows? They've lied so many times before."

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