The Laotian Civil War (1953-1975) was an internal fight between the Communist Pathet Lao and the Royal Lao Government in which both the political rightists and leftists received heavy external support for a proxy war from the global Cold War superpowers.
The Kingdom of Laos was a covert theater of battle for the other belligerents during the Vietnam War. The Franco-Lao Treaty of 1953 gave Laos full independence but the following years were marked by a rivalry between the neutralists under Prince Souvanna Phouma, the right wing under Prince Boun Oum of Champassak, and the left-wing Lao Patriotic Front under Prince Souphanouvong and future Prime Minister Kaysone Phomvihane. A number of attempts were made to establish coalition governments, and a "tri-coalition" government was finally seated in Vientiane.
The fighting in Laos involved the North Vietnamese Army, American, Thai, and South Vietnamese forces directly and through irregular proxies in a battle for control over the Laotian Panhandle. The North Vietnamese Army occupied the area for use as the Ho Chi Minh Trail supply corridor and staging area for offensives into South Vietnam. There was a second major theater of action on and near the northern Plaine des Jarres.
The North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao emerged victorious in 1975, as part of the general communist victory in Indochina that year.
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Lee Anne
Sun, 19 Jul 2009 02:40:00 GM
For my generation and those younger than me (and maybe even some a little older), World . War. I is as remote as the . Civil War. , or even the Peloponnesian . War. , in how we regard historical events and their shelf life. ... about past wars (and the telling of . war. stories) are a meditation on the wars in ongoing, if those narratives from Khafji, . Laotian. jungles, Osan, Normandy and Burma, and, yes, even Ypres, while the very few are still living, tell us about our own Long . War. . ...
