Springtime on the Plain

For three years now, Laos has marked the advance of spring by nearly falling into the hands of the Communists. Last week was no exception.

Heavy fighting suddenly erupted on the Plain of Jars, and, as usual, the Communist Pathet Lao severely punished the neutralist army commanded by plucky little General Kong Le. Once again, it seemed like the end of what ever remained of Laotian neutrality, supposedly guaranteed by the Geneva agreement, which in 1962 had been solemnly signed by 14 nations, including Soviet Russia. And, once again, the Laotian government of neutralist Prince Souvanna Phouma seemed on the verge of toppling.

Actually, Souvanna's regime topples more often than it governs. It last fell last month when two rightist generals staged a bloodless coup in Vientiane.

After considerable palaver and eager intercession by the U.S., Russian and British ambassadors, Souvanna agreed to resume his premiership, backed by the rightists and his own neutralist battalions. The men of the Communist Pathet Lao, who hold the central and northern portions of the country, remained outside the government and were nourished by lengthy truck convoys lurching down dusty Route 7 from the North Viet Nam frontier.

Slashed Necklaces. There, several rightist battalions, known as Mobile Group 13, moved into position on the steep hillsides above Route 7. They stalled convoys with land mines and raked the trucks with bazooka fire. The Communist Pathet Lao, who have controlled a large part of the Plain of Jars since last year, decided to fight their way through. Moving behind a mortar barrage, the Pathet Lao swept through the mountain villages of the anti-Communist Meo tribesmen and closed in on the rightist roadblocks, driving before them hundreds of hapless Meo refugees. Meo men and women carry their wealth with them in the form of silver necklaces; as the Pathet Lao shot them down, soldiers would whip out knives and slash free the silver necklaces from the dead and dying Meos.

Neutralist General Kong Le launched a counterattack against the Pathet Lao but was unable to dislodge them from the hills above Mobile Group 13's escape route. With the help of several defecting neutralist battalions, the Reds smashed their way through Kong Le's headquarters at Muong Phanh, and turned to head for the Mekong River. A courageous but often inept commander, Kong Le fell back with his battered troops to Ban Na, on the southwestern edge of the plain. He managed to salvage ten tanks, but lost nine armored cars and four antiaircraft guns. All week long, small parties of neutralist troops made their way back through the hills to rejoin their commander. They reported that the Pathet Lao were aided by up to five battalions of North Vietnamese regulars. Kong Le announced: "From now on, I will support all who are against Communism." The fact that Kong Le and his men were still fighting at all seemed remarkable to U.S. observers, since they have sometimes gone for as long as a year without pay.

Pointed Cameras. Prince Souvanna sent a telegram to his half brother, Prince Souphanouvong, leader of the Pathet Lao, warning him that the Communists "must accept full responsibility for these violations of the Geneva accord." U.S. Ambassador Leonard Unger said, "This is worse than the piecemeal nibbling process that the Communists have been engaged in for the past ten years--it is a substantial bite." The first U.S. reaction was odd and somewhat embarrassing: Washington asked Britain and France, which maintain diplomatic relations with Peking, to try to persuade Red China to halt the Communist attacks in Laos. It was a clear indication that it is Red China, and no longer the Soviet Union, which controls Red moves in the area, but predictably the U.S. plea got nowhere.

Next there was talk of sending U.S. Marines to Thailand (which itself moved troops to the Laotian border) as a sobering threat to the Reds. This had worked once before when President Kennedy tried it in 1962, but that gesture had little permanent effect because the U.S. pulled the troops out again after six weeks. Washington still considered repeating the Marine maneuver and possibly leaving the force in

Thailand more or less permanently this time. But for the present the only tangible U.S. reaction came in the form of jets that whooshed low over the Plain of Jars; they aimed only cameras at the Red positions, but the U.S. was obviously trying to make the point that if it really wanted to get tough, it could just as easily aim bombs. The U.S. has reportedly been flying such reconnaissance missions on and off for two years. The beleaguered Meo refugees cheered as they saw the planes, and Pathet Lao gunners blazed away, scoring a few hits but more misses.

Invitation to Talk. Possibly because of the warning overflight, or because of the need to regroup--or simply because Laos is Laos--the Red advance toward the Mekong slowed to a halt. Just like last year and the year before, the Communists had grabbed more ground in Laos and inflicted more defeats on their opponents. Now they were probably willing to talk for a while before resuming the battle.

There were certainly plenty of invitations to talk. France proposed another international conference to guarantee the neutrality of Laos. The U.S. rejected the suggestion because, as Dean Rusk pointed out, guarantees for Laotian neutrality already exist--they simply need to be kept. More important, the U.S. is sure that such a conference would quickly branch out from Laos to a proposal for neutrality throughout all of Indo-China, notably including Viet Nam. The French consider this the only solution, since they have decided that the U.S. cannot win the Vietnamese war. Quite a few Americans are beginning to agree. Washington no longer objects to neutrality in Southeast Asia (or elsewhere) on principle, but believes that it cannot work. With Red China looming over the horizon, an attempt to neutralize the area regardless of international guarantees might simply turn the entire region into one big Laos. As government propaganda in Saigon posters puts it: "Red Plan--First Neutralize, Then Communize."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.