1959.12 老挝

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Laos
DECEMBER 1959 ISSUE
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THROUGH the centuries, the landlocked kingdom of Laos has suffered from a surfeit of interfering neighbors. Cambodia, China, Vietnam, Siam, and Burma squeezed its borders, sacked its villages, and helped themselves to its territories. British colonialists once spilled across from the Shan states into the northwestern province of Haut Mekong. For sixty-one years the French controlled the country as a protectorate.


The latest threat to the sovereignty of Laos is not as new as last summer’s headlines suggested. It dates back to 1945 and is inspired and directed by Ho Chi-minh, the bearded Vietminh revolutionary who once served as an apprentice chef at the Carlton Hotel in London and is now the head of the Communist offensive in Southeast Asia. It made considerable headway in the last years of the French protectorate and between 1954 and 1958 was helped by Laotian apathy and a Western effort that failed to achieve its basic objectives.

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To a world accustomed to thinking of aggression in terms of bombs and blitzkrieg, the Communist campaign in Laos has often been unconventional and difficult to follow. But then, Laos is not a conventional country. About the size of the state of Kansas, with a population estimated in 1957 at something over a million and a half, Laos is a land of tangled mountains and turbulent rivers. Some 70,000 of its inhabitants live in Vientiane, the administrative capital, a village that lies on the banks of the River Mekong and that grew fat on American aid. Here, and in handfuls elsewhere, are perhaps a couple of hundred Laos with the education and background to perform modest administrative tasks.

For the past eighteen months there have been some signs that the government has begun to jell at the center, but basically the country is still a collection of unadministered village communities. Most of the Laos are scattered through the 9807 villages that cling precariously to the mountainsides or rise on stilts along the valleys. Many of the people even today think the world is flat. Many had never heard of their King; and, though they have been worked on for years by Communist cadres, they are unaware that they have become a critical part of the Cold War.


Desperate poverty
Spiritually, Laos is rich. Buddhism appeared in the fourteenth century and persists today as a gentle religion, a way of life that demands much of the people but also provides them with their limited cultural outlets and a large measure of their entertainment. Materially, the country is desperately poor. Though, for a time, in 1957 and 1958, television sets and automobiles figured in its list of exports, these were merely the symptoms of a vicious currency racket that has now been effectively stamped out.

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Apart from small quantities of tin, the principal legal exports consist of benzoin, a gum obtained from a jungle tree, which is in great demand for the manufacture of perfumes, and stick-lac, an insect residue found in other jungle trees and subsequently used in phonograph records. More important than these, but not listed officially, are opium poppies, which are grown on burned-off bushland by tribesmen and smuggled out of the country to enter into illicit international traffic as contraband.

Rice is the staple food, but primitive methods of cultivation, extremely low yields, lack of transportation, and poor distribution of the crop make it insufficient for the needs of the people. The mountain tribesmen fare worst of all. Their crops are raised in patches where they have slashed and burned the jungle. Lacking fertilizers and plows. they enrich the soil with the ashes and use sticks to bore holes in the ground, into which they drop the seeds of corn or dry paddy.

Almost everyone is ill, from malnutrition, malaria, tuberculosis, or skin and parasitical diseases. About half the children in the capital die before they reach the age of ten; in the villages, where medicines and hygiene are unknown, the mortality rate is even higher. Electricity is a luxury confined to a few towns, and industry is nonexistent. Villagers spin and weave their own cloth and supplement their meager crops with what they can secure by crossbow and fishing net.

In communications, also, Laos is a very backward land. It has a railway station but no trains or lines. It has 1800 miles of road, but most of this is impassable during the summer monsoon season. Plane travel to scattered airfields is possible the year round but always hazardous. The mighty Mekong, which rises in the eastern slopes of the Himalayas, provides a valuable waterway, but its shoals are treacherous and a succession of rapids bars the way to the sea. Radio functions effectively south of the central mountain range but fails to cope with the rugged peaks and foul weather of the north. There are approximately five hundred telephone subscribers; these are concentrated in four cities and receive little return for their money, since there is no long-distance service.

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In July of this year, these deficiencies in communications led to a state of affairs that could have occurred in almost no other country in Southeast Asia; Laos became a battleground, and for about two weeks no one in the government knew anything about it. On the night of July 17, Hanoi Radio, the voice of the Communist Vietminh in North Vietnam, announced that fighting was taking place in northern Laos. It blamed the Royal Lao government and accused it of having attacked the Pathet Lao, the Communistdirected armed forces.

The Hanoi report, which had been picked up in Taipeh and published in Saigon, was indignantly denied by the Royal Lao government. But Hanoi described the actions as becoming more widespread, and official Communist newspapers in North Vietnam began to denounce the “U.S. imperialists and their henchmen" for having “rekindled the civil war.” It was not until July 27, twelve days after the first attack, that the Lao Cabinet, meeting in emergency session, learned that its tepid war with the Communists had suddenly become hot.

The war itself was nothing new. On and off, there had been fighting for fourteen years, ever since Prince Souphanouvong, the viceroy’s younger brother, arrived from Ho Chi-minh’s headquarters in September, 1945, with ten young Vietminh officers, his Vietnamese wife, and experience in guerrilla warfare.

The Free Laos movement
Few inquired or worried about Souphanouvong’s political affiliations in those days, however. Prince Phetsarath, the viceroy, had proclaimed the independence of Laos and formed the Free Laos movement to resist the return of the French. Another brother, Prince Souvanna Phouma, rallied to the cause, and both welcomed Souphanouvong with open arms. The three brothers were all qualified engineers with French degrees. But whereas the two older brothers had returned to Laos after their training, Souphanouvong had moved to Vietnam. During World War II he joined the underground, led by Ho Chi-minh.

In the government established by Prince Phetsarath, Souphanouvong , became minister of foreign affairs and commander in chief. To buy guns and ammunition for Souphanouvong’s troops, Prince Souvanna Phouma stripped Vientiane’s pagodas of their gold leaf. He even dismantled the pump from the town water supply and sold it to a Thai village across the Mekong, leaving Vientiane, to this day, without running water.

But resistance to the return of the French was short-lived. The Free Laos movement was a revolution from the top, based on a tiny, Western-educated elite, and with little popular following. In a brief engagement near Vientiane on March 21, 1946, Souphanouvong was wounded, and the defeated soldiers retreated across the river into Thailand.

The French moved quickly with constitutional reforms. In 1949, a convention confirmed the authority of Laos within the French Union and gave the country greater liberty in the conduct of foreign relations, including the right to apply for membership in the United Nations. The Free Laos movement dissolved, and many of its members returned to Vientiane and to high office in government.

Souphanouvong, who had been expelled for advocating an alliance with the Communists, elected to continue the fight. From Bangkok he had organized a steady flow of recruits for training with the Vietminh, which was now fighting a fullscale war with the French. This time, instead of attempting to recruit in the towns, Souphanouvong concentrated on the villages, especially on the minorities, who account for almost half of the Laotian population. Kha tribesmen from the southern plateau, Black Thais from the valleys, and opium-smoking Maos from the mountains all rallied.

Leaving the simmering civil war that he and his agents had stirred up through the Laotian countryside, Souphanouvong and his principal followers transferred their headquarters to North Vietnam late in 1950. Here a Committee of Laotian Liberation was set up.

Communist infiltration
By 1953, Ho Chi-minh was ready for the next move. Two divisions of Vietminh “volunteers” invaded Laos and “liberated" two wild and sparsely populated northern provinces. From political schools in these provinces, mobile groups moved through the entire country to organize Pathet Lao cells and to spread antigovernment and anti-French propaganda. This long-range program took the Geneva Agreement and the end of the war in Indochina in its stride.

Though the fighting between the Royal Lao forces in the mountains and the Pathet Lao became sporadic and of insignificant proportions, Pathet Lao preparations for the ultimate assumption of power showed no signs of letting up. Nor did the Vietminh relax its hold. When Prince Souphanouvong met Royal Lao officials in Rangoon in 1955 to open unification discussions, he visited Hanoi on his way and reported back at the end of the conference. Frequently the Rangoon meetings were held up when he declared that he could not make decisions without consulting absent “colleagues.”


With the final agreement on unification in November, 1957, and the demobilization of 7500 Pathet Lao troops, the organization’s political front, the Neo Lao Hak Xat Party (Patriotic Front), moved overtly into the villages of central and southern Laos. Trained cadres first formed cells, and the cells split up to create groups of five to ten families, which met at regular intervals, usually once every four or five days. From these horizontal family organizations the Communists moved vertically, establishing fronts and women’s, youth, and farmers’ organizations.

Few outside the Pathet Lao ever guessed how much these efforts had weakened the royal cause until May 21, 1958. That day, in a supplementary election designed to bring the rallied Pathet Lao within the democratic framework and to be a curtain raiser to the national elections, once scheduled for this year, Prince Souphanouvong topped the poll in Vientiane. The Patriotic Front won nine out of the twentyone seats, and its electoral ally, the Peace Front, four; the other eight were split among the divided conservative parties.

American aid
The new American ambassador, Horace H. Smith, a foreign service man with a wide background of Far Eastern experience, took stock and did not care for what he found. The United States had been picking up the bills for Laos since the end of the Indochina war in 1954. Fine new homes had sprung up on the outskirts of Vientiane; shops overflowed with consumer goods. Where once there had been two hundred to three hundred automobiles — the property, almost exclusively, of senior French officials — there were now several thousand, most of them owned by successful local businessmen and entrepreneurs.


At the same time, there was little evidence that American aid had had any real impact beyond the capital. A survey of sixteen villages in Vientiane province in 1956 showed that only two had even heard of American aid; there was little to indicate that its functions were more widely known in 1958. The army wore American uniforms and slung American carbines on their shoulders, but in fighting capacity they reflected little of the $4500 that each Laotian soldier cost the U.S. government.

Under the terms of the Geneva Agreement, military training had to be left to France, which was entitled to maintain a force of fifteen hundred officers and noncommissioned officers for this purpose, in addition to a garrison of 3500 at the modern air base at Seno in southern Laos. Faced with urgent problems in Algeria and desperately short of skilled military manpower, the French cut back the Seno garrison to a caretaker guard. They also withdrew their officers from Laotian tactical units and all but abandoned their training mission.

“As I saw the task, I had four main responsibilities: to help create a stable, pro-Western government, to break the currency racket, to start some sort of rural aid program, and to help make the army combatready,” Ambassador Smith says. “By the end of 1958 I knew I was on the way. I also knew the Communists would retaliate.”


The right wing unites
With firm assurances that the United States was behind them, right-wing political groups settled their differences, and into the office of Premier for the first time came fifty-five-year-old Phoui Sananikone, head of one of the main Laotian families. Behind him, and with representatives in the Cabinet, was the youthful and anxious Committee in the Defense of the National Interest, which, again with solemn assurances of American support, began to prepare for the showdown fight with the Communists.

The Royal Lao government started to take the steps required to put its house in order. Against strong opposition from among his own supporters, many of whom found their handsome profits suddenly cut off, Phoui Sananikone devalued the kip and ended the scandal in import licenses. He planned, and partly introduced, a program for rural reform. He negotiated with the United States for technicians who could patch some of the holes in the French military training. He declared unequivocally that Laos stood foursquare with the West; and, finally, on January 14, 1959, he sought and received for twelve months the special powers he needed to implement his program.

It is not a damning indictment of Phoui to remark that his efforts look better on paper than they do in reality. A few months of endeavor could not repair the neglect of years. There is, however, still no proper policy for the minorities. There is also widespread discontent and dissatisfaction among the Laos. The army remains an army in name only. It has neither professional competence at the top nor the knowledge of how to fight in the lower ranks. Time and again, its weaknesses appeared in action.

The Communists react
To Hanoi and Peking, the Phoui Sananikone government represented a dam in the path of the Communist stream. It had to be removed. The Polish, Indian, and Canadian Commission for Supervision and Control, which had adjourned sine die in July, 1958, after the supplementary election, had to be brought back. Coalition government, “true neutrality,” national elections this year, and then a Communist government directly subservient to Hanoi could be expected to follow in turn. These, and not a major shooting war, were the objectives of the limited summer offensive.

Now, with the United Nations in the picture, there is a breathing space, another chance to take stock. The prospects are not bright. With China and North Vietnam ready and able to respond to every challenge, it is clear that Laos cannot be isolated from Communist contamination. The military side is therefore vital; a trained and equipped Laotian Army is a minimum requirement if defeat is to be averted. To achieve victory, the Communists must be beaten in the villages.




老挝
1959年12月号
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几个世纪以来，老挝这个内陆王国一直遭受着邻国的干扰。柬埔寨、中国、越南、暹罗和缅甸挤占了老挝的边界，洗劫了老挝的村庄，并帮助自己获得了领土。英国殖民主义者曾经从掸邦蔓延到西北部的上湄公河省。六十一年来，法国人作为保护国控制了这个国家。


对老挝主权的最新威胁并不像去年夏天的头条新闻所说的那样新。它可以追溯到1945年，并受到胡志明的启发和指挥，这位满脸胡子的越共革命家曾经在伦敦卡尔顿酒店担任过学徒厨师，现在是共产党在东南亚攻势的首脑。它在法国保护国的最后几年取得了相当大的进展，在1954年至1958年期间，由于老挝的冷漠和西方的努力未能实现其基本目标而得到了帮助。

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对于一个习惯于用炸弹和闪电战来思考侵略问题的世界来说，共产党在老挝的运动往往是非常规的，而且很难遵循。但是，老挝并不是一个常规国家。老挝的面积与堪萨斯州差不多，1957年的人口估计超过150万，是一片山脉纠结、河流湍急的土地。老挝约有7万居民生活在行政首都万象，这是一个位于湄公河畔的村庄，依靠美国的援助而发展壮大。在这里，以及在其他地方，也许有几百名受过教育和有背景的老挝人，可以执行适度的行政任务。

在过去的18个月里，有一些迹象表明政府已经开始在中心地带团结起来，但基本上这个国家仍然是一个未经管理的村庄社区的集合。老挝的大部分地区分散在9807个村庄中，这些村庄岌岌可危地依附在山坡上，或沿着山谷高跷而起。许多人甚至在今天还认为世界是平的。许多人从未听说过他们的国王；而且，尽管他们多年来一直在为共产党的干部工作，但他们不知道他们已经成为冷战的一个关键部分。


绝望的贫困
在精神上，老挝是丰富的。佛教出现于十四世纪，作为一种温和的宗教持续至今，这种生活方式对人民的要求很高，但也为他们提供了有限的文化渠道和很大程度上的娱乐。从物质上讲，这个国家是非常贫穷的。尽管在1957年和1958年，电视机和汽车曾一度出现在其出口清单上，但这些只是恶性货币敲诈的症状，现在已经被有效地杜绝了。

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除了少量的锡之外，主要的合法出口产品包括安息香，一种从丛林树木中获得的树胶，在制造香水方面有很大的需求，以及stick-lac，一种在其他丛林树木中发现的昆虫残留物，随后被用于留声机唱片。比这些更重要但未被正式列出的是罂粟，它由部落成员在烧毁的灌木丛中种植，并作为违禁品偷运出国，进入非法的国际运输。

大米是主食，但原始的种植方法、极低的产量、缺乏运输工具以及作物分配不均，使得大米无法满足人们的需求。山区部落居民的情况最差。他们的作物是在砍伐和烧毁丛林的地方成片种植的。由于缺乏肥料和犁，他们用灰烬充实土壤，用棍子在地上打洞，把玉米或干稻谷的种子扔进去。

几乎每个人都在生病，因为营养不良、疟疾、肺结核或皮肤病和寄生虫病。首都约有一半的儿童在10岁前死亡；在不知道药品和卫生的村庄，死亡率甚至更高。电力是仅限于少数城镇的奢侈品，而工业则不存在。村民们自己纺纱织布，用弓箭和渔网获得的东西来补充他们微薄的作物。

在通信方面，老挝也是一个非常落后的国家。它有一个火车站，但没有火车或线路。它有1800英里的公路，但其中大部分在夏季季风季节无法通行。一年四季都可以乘坐飞机前往分散的机场，但总是很危险。发源于喜马拉雅山东坡的强大的湄公河提供了一条宝贵的水路，但它的浅滩很危险，一连串的激流阻碍了通往海洋的道路。在中部山脉以南的地区，无线电的功能非常有效，但却无法应对北部崎岖的山峰和恶劣的天气。大约有500个电话用户；这些用户集中在四个城市，由于没有长途服务，他们的钱很少得到回报。

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今年7月，通信方面的这些缺陷导致了一种几乎不可能发生在东南亚其他国家的状态；老挝成了一个战场，而在大约两周的时间里，政府中没有人对此有所了解。7月17日晚，北越共产党越民的喉舌--河内电台宣布老挝北部正在发生战斗。它指责老挝王国政府，并指责它攻击了共产党领导的武装力量--老挝爱国者。

河内的报告在台北得到，并在西贡发表，老挝皇家政府愤然否认。但河内描述的行动越来越广泛，北越的官方共产主义报纸开始谴责 "美帝国主义和他们的走狗"，因为他们 "重新点燃了内战"。直到7月27日，即第一次袭击后的12天，老挝内阁在召开紧急会议时才得知，它与共产党的不温不火的战争突然变得火热起来。

这场战争本身并不新鲜。自从总督的弟弟Souphanouvong亲王于1945年9月从胡志明的总部来到这里，带着10名年轻的越共军官、他的越南妻子和游击战的经验，已经断断续续打了14年。

自由老挝运动
然而，在那些日子里，很少有人询问或担心Souphanouvong的政治派别。总督Phetsarath亲王曾宣布老挝独立，并成立了自由老挝运动，以抵制法国人的回归。另一个兄弟，苏万纳-普马王子，也支持这一事业，两人都张开双臂欢迎苏凡诺夫。这三兄弟都是拥有法国学位的合格工程师。但是，两个哥哥在完成培训后回到了老挝，而苏法努冯却搬到了越南。第二次世界大战期间，他加入了胡志明领导的地下组织。

在佩萨拉王子建立的政府中，苏法努冯成为外交部长和总司令。为了给苏凡诺冯的部队购买枪支弹药，苏凡纳-普玛亲王剥掉了万象的佛塔的金箔。他甚至拆除了镇上的供水泵，将其卖给了湄公河对岸的一个泰国村庄，使得万象至今仍没有自来水。

但对法国人回归的抵抗是短暂的。自由老挝运动是一场来自高层的革命，它以极少数受过西方教育的精英为基础，没有什么民众追随。1946年3月21日，在万象附近的一次短暂交战中，苏法努冯受伤，战败的士兵们渡河撤退到泰国。

法国人迅速进行了宪法改革。1949年，一项公约确认了老挝在法国联盟内的权力，并给予该国在处理对外关系方面更大的自由，包括申请加入联合国的权利。自由老挝运动解散了，许多成员回到了万象并在政府中担任高级职务。

曾因主张与共产党结盟而被开除的苏法努翁选择继续战斗。他从曼谷组织了源源不断的新兵参加越共的训练，而越共现在正与法国人进行着全面的战争。这一次，苏发努冯没有试图在城镇征兵，而是集中在村庄，特别是占老挝人口近一半的少数民族。南部高原的卡族人、山谷中的黑泰族人和山区吸食鸦片的毛族人都聚集在一起。

离开他和他的代理人在老挝农村挑起的沸腾的内战，苏法努冯和他的主要追随者在1950年底将他们的总部转移到了北越。在这里成立了一个老挝解放委员会。

共产主义的渗透
到1953年，胡志明已经为下一步行动做好准备。两个师的越共 "志愿者 "入侵老挝，"解放 "了两个荒凉的、人烟稀少的北部省份。从这些省份的政治学校出发，流动小组在全国范围内组织爱国者小组，传播反政府和反法国的宣传。这一长期计划以《日内瓦协议》和印度支那战争的结束为契机，大步前进。

尽管老挝王家军队在山区与爱国者之间的战斗变得零星而微不足道，但爱国者为最终夺取政权所做的准备没有任何松懈的迹象。越共也没有放松对它的控制。1955年，苏发努冯亲王在仰光会见老挝皇家官员，开始讨论统一问题，他在途中访问了河内，并在会议结束后作了汇报。仰光会议经常被搁置，因为他宣称不与缺席的 "同事 "协商就不能做出决定。


随着1957年11月关于统一的最终协议的达成，以及7500名老挝爱国者部队的复员，该组织的政治阵线--新老鹤发党（爱国阵线）公然进入老挝中部和南部的村庄。训练有素的干部首先组成了小组，小组分裂成五至十个家庭，定期开会，通常每四或五天开会一次。共产党人从这些横向的家庭组织中纵向发展，建立战线和妇女、青年和农民组织。

在1958年5月21日之前，爱国者以外的人很少猜到这些努力在多大程度上削弱了皇家事业。那天，在一次补充选举中，苏发努冯亲王在万象的投票中名列前茅，该选举旨在将团结起来的老挝爱国者纳入民主框架内，并成为全国选举的幕后推手，而全国选举曾定于今年举行。爱国阵线赢得了21个席位中的9个，其选举盟友和平阵线赢得了4个；其他8个席位被分裂的保守派政党瓜分。

美国援助
新任美国大使霍勒斯-史密斯（Horace H. Smith）是一位具有广泛的远东经验背景的外交人员，他对所发现的情况进行了评估，但并不关心。自1954年印度支那战争结束后，美国一直在为老挝买单。在万象的郊区，漂亮的新房子拔地而起；商店里充斥着消费品。曾经有两三百辆汽车--几乎完全是法国高级官员的财产--现在有几千辆，其中大部分为当地成功的商人和企业家所拥有。


同时，几乎没有证据表明美国的援助对首都以外的地区有任何真正的影响。1956年对万象省16个村庄的调查显示，只有两个村庄听说过美国援助；1958年，几乎没有证据表明美国援助的功能被更广泛地了解。军队穿着美国制服，肩上扛着美国卡宾枪，但在战斗力方面，他们几乎没有反映出每个老挝士兵花费了美国政府4500美元。

根据《日内瓦协议》的条款，军事训练必须留给法国，法国有权为此目的维持一支由1500名军官和军士组成的部队，此外还有3500名驻军在老挝南部的现代化空军基地。面对阿尔及利亚的紧急问题和极度缺乏熟练的军事人员，法国人将塞诺的驻军缩减为一支看守部队。他们还从老挝的战术部队中撤回了他们的军官，并且几乎放弃了他们的训练任务。

"史密斯大使说："在我看来，我有四个主要责任：帮助建立一个稳定的、亲西方的政府，打破货币讹诈，开始某种农村援助计划，并帮助军队做好战斗准备。"到1958年底，我知道我已经在路上了。我也知道共产党会进行报复。"


右翼团结起来
有了美国在背后支持他们的坚定保证，右翼政治团体解决了他们的分歧，55岁的Phoui Sananikone首次进入总理办公室，他是老挝主要家族之一的首脑。在他身后，在内阁中有代表的是年轻而焦虑的捍卫国家利益委员会，该委员会在美国支持的庄严保证下，开始为与共产党的决战做准备。

老挝王国政府开始采取必要的措施，使其内部秩序井然。在他自己的支持者的强烈反对下，许多人发现他们丰厚的利润突然被切断了，Poui Sananikone使基普贬值并结束了进口许可证的丑闻。他计划并部分实施了一项农村改革计划。他与美国谈判，以获得能够修补法国军事训练中一些漏洞的技术人员。他毫不含糊地宣布老挝与西方国家站在一起；最后，在1959年1月14日，他寻求并获得了实施其计划所需的12个月的特别权力。

说他的努力在纸面上看起来比实际情况要好，这并不是对普伊的指责。几个月的努力并不能弥补多年来的忽视。然而，对少数民族仍然没有适当的政策。老挝人中也普遍存在着不满和不满意的情绪。军队仍然是一支名存实亡的军队。它既没有高层的专业能力，也没有下层的战斗知识。一次又一次，它的弱点出现在行动中。

共产党的反应
对河内和北京来说，普伊-萨纳尼科内政府是共产主义道路上的一个水坝。它必须被清除。波兰、印度和加拿大监督和控制委员会在补充选举后于1958年7月无限期休会，必须重新开始。联合政府、"真正的中立"、今年的全国大选，然后是直接听命于河内的共产党政府，可以预期这些都会依次出现。这些，而不是一场大规模的枪战，是有限的夏季攻势的目标。

现在，随着联合国的加入，有了一个喘息的空间，有了另一个评估的机会。前景并不光明。由于中国和北越已经准备好并能够应对每一个挑战，显然，老挝不可能孤立于共产主义的污染。因此，军事方面至关重要；如果要避免失败，一支训练有素、装备精良的老挝军队是最低要求。为了取得胜利，必须在村庄里击败共产党人。