In northern Laos, the United States also launched bombing attacks (Operation Barrel Roll) on North Vietnamese-Pathet Lao forces, in support of its Royal Lao Army (RLA) and Hmong allies. In this sector where most of the ground fighting of the Laotian Civil War took place, early in the war, Lao government forces launched a series of offensives, which generally were ineffective against the much more powerful North Vietnamese Army. In July 1966, the RLA formed a defensive perimeter along the Nam Bac Valley to protect Luang Prabang. In January 1968, a powerful North Vietnamese-Pathet Lao offensive gained control of the valley, driving away and inflicting heavy losses on Lao government forces. Thereafter, the RLA ceased to be a major player for much of the rest of the war, with the bulk of its forces remaining in static defensive positions in the populated areas of the lower Mekong region.
Instead, during much of the civil war, the ground fighting on the Lao government side was borne by paramilitary forces of the highland-dwelling ethnic minorities, particularly the Hmong “Secret Army” of the CIA. The Hmong irregulars were led by General Vang Pao, commander of Lao Military Region II in the northeast. General Vang Pao led an army of 30,000 Hmong fighters. Organized as a guerilla force, the Hmong operated in the highland ridges, launching ambushes and intelligence gathering operations on the communist forces in the plains below.
(Taken from Laotian Civil War – Wars of the 20th Century – Twenty Wars in Asia – Vol. 5)
War In large part, the Laotian Civil War can be viewed as a direct result of the events taking place in neighboring Vietnam, first during the First Indochina War (1946-1954) and later during the Vietnam War (1955-1975). In Vietnam during the First Indochina War, by the early 1950s, the French and Viet Minh forces had fought to a stalemate. In April 1953, to break the deadlock and also to over-extend the French forces, the Viet Minh, comprising some 40,000 fighters and supported by 2,000 Pathet Lao auxiliaries, invaded northeastern Laos, and seized control of most of the Houaphan Province and sections of Phongsali, Xiangkhoang, and Luang Prabang provinces. The offensive consisted of the Viet Minh leading the advance. Then when enemy defenses had nearly been broken, the Viet Minh would allow the Pathet Lao to move in and clear the remaining resistance. In this way, the Viet Minh hoped to conceal its involvement in Laos, and portray the war there as being undertaken by the Lao revolutionaries themselves. By April 1953, the Pathet Lao, together with the Viet Minh, occupied eastern Laos. Souphanouvong, the Pathet Lao leader, then set up his government in Houaphan Province.
In May 1954, French forces were defeated at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, forcing France to end its involvement in Indochina under the terms of the Geneva Accords, signed on July 21, 1954. In the Geneva Accords, French Indochina was dissolved, and Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos became independent states. Earlier in October 1953, France had also granted Laos full independence. The Geneva Accords also stipulated that Laos (and Cambodia) were to remain neutral in regional military issues. A peacekeeping force, the International Control Commission (ICC), comprising representatives from India, Poland, and Canada, was tasked with enforcing the Geneva Accords. One day earlier, July 20, 1954, the terms for peace in Laos, called the “Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities in Laos” was signed, which provided for a ceasefire, the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Laos (i.e. the French military and Viet Minh), and the assembling of Pathet Lao forces in Houaphan and Phongsali, in the meantime that a political settlement was being worked out. Subsequently, the Lao government and Pathet Lao formed a Joint Committee to negotiate the terms of the peace agreement.
From 1954-1956, the two sides met in a series of talks, and a major source of contention was for control of the provinces of Houaphan and Phongsali. The Lao government wanted these provinces reintegrated with Laos, while the Pathet Lao insisted that it retain exclusive administrative control over them. In August 1956, an agreement was reached which contained the following provisions: 1. Houaphan and Phongsali would be reintegrated to Laos; 2. a coalition government for Laos would be formed; 3. supplementary elections to the National Assembly would be held in May 1958; and 4. two battalions (1,500 soldiers) of the Pathet Lao would be integrated into the Lao Royal Army.
In November 1957, (the first) Lao coalition government was formed, and Souphanouvong and other Pathet Lao leaders were appointed to national-level positions. Also that month, Houaphan and Phongsali provinces were formally returned to Lao government control. Then in the May 1958 National Assembly elections, the Lao Patriotic Front (LPF), the Pathet Lao’s political party, won a surprising 13 of the 21 contested seats.
Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma believed that the best course for Laos was taking the middle road and forming an inclusive coalition government. However, by the second half of the 1950s, this neutralist approach was being undermined by the weight of regional and global power politics. The Cold War politics emerged in Asia, and the Soviet Union and the United States, as well as China, were vying for influence in Indochina.
More ominously for neutral Laos, the North Vietnamese Army (formerly the Viet Minh militia) continued to occupy the border regions in northeast Laos, in violation of the 1954 Peace Accords. In September 1954, the North Vietnamese formed Group 100, which was tasked by the Hanoi government to train and arm the Pathet Lao. The Pathet Lao continued to be mobilized in the northeast frontier, despite the agreement with the government that two battalions of Pathet Lao troops would be integrated into the Lao Royal Army.
North Vietnam viewed its continued occupation of Laos in strategic terms, since by December 1956, the Hanoi government began to realize that its reunification with South Vietnam was becoming unlikely. North Vietnam therefore agreed to support the Viet Cong, a guerilla militia that had began an insurgency war in South Vietnam. By the terms of the 1954 Geneva Accords, North Vietnamese forces were not allowed to remain in Laos.
United States involvement in Indochina began in December 1950 when the U.S. government provided military support to France in the Indochina War. By then, the Indochina War had turned from a purely colonial war to an emerging Cold War conflict. Then after France’s defeat and withdrawal from Indochina in 1954, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower was determined to establish an American military presence in the region to prevent Southeast Asia from falling to the Domino Theory, a concept that conjectured that one Southeast Asian country after another would fall to communism, like a row of dominoes.
The 1954 Geneva Accords had allowed the French to maintain a small military presence in Laos to provide training to the Lao military. The United States considered this effort insufficient to totally defend the country from a communist take-over. The Geneva Accords guaranteed Laos’ non-aligned status and also barred foreign powers from establishing military bases in Laos. The United States circumvented these stipulations by forming (in December 1955) the Programs Evaluation Office (PEO). The PEO was a covert military mission disguised as a civilian aid agency. It was tasked with arming, training, and funding the Lao Royal Army, as well as other local anti-communist forces, including the Hmong and other mountain tribes.
Lao right-wing politicians also were beneficiaries of U.S. support. The PEO, based in Vientiane, was administered by U.S. military officers who wore civilian clothes and had their names deleted from the Department of Defense personnel rosters in order to conceal U.S. direct involvement in Laos. During the course of the war, the U.S. government supplied Laos with large military and financial aid, and even paid the full cost of the Laotian military’s budgetary requirements, including the salaries of Lao officers and soldiers.
The large influx of U.S. funds led to corruption, particularly in the Lao military’s top echelons. As well, it produced high inflation that brought negative consequences to the Lao general population.
Events in the late 1950s would lead to a resumption of the Laotian conflict. In August 1958, the Lao National Assembly ousted Souvanna Phouma as Prime Minister in a vote of no confidence. In his place, the right-wing pro-U.S. government under new Prime Minister Phoui Sananikone returned to power (he previously had served in this position in 1950-1951). Phoui reversed the agreements made by his neutralist predecessor. In December 1958, after suspending the constitution, Phoui suppressed the Pathet Lao, and purged Pathet Lao supporters from government office, and jailed Pathet Lao leaders, including Souphanouvong. Subsequently, Souphanouvong and his deputies escaped from prison and returned to the rebel strongholds in the hinterlands of the Laotian northeast. The two Pathet Lao battalions designated for integration with the Royal Lao Army also slipped away and rejoined the main rebel forces in the jungles. As a result, the (first) Lao coalition government broke down.
More crucially, in January 1959, North Vietnam gave its full military support to the Viet Cong in South Vietnam and made plans to construct a supply route (later known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail) across southeastern Laos. One month earlier (December 1958), North Vietnamese forces seized sections of Xepon District in southeastern Laos. In May 1959, North Vietnam formed Group 559 to construct the Ho Chi Minh Trail to South Vietnam.
In July 1959, hostilities restarted between Lao government forces and the Pathet Lao, with fighting centered in eastern Laos. The North Vietnamese Army led the fighting for the Pathet Lao, defeating the Lao Army and then allowing the Pathet Lao to occupy the captured areas. In this way, North Vietnamese-Pathet Lao territories widened. North Vietnamese/Pathet Lao bases in the northeast were used as a springboard to attack government forces, while rebel bases in the southeast were part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail network. In September 1959, North Vietnam replaced Group 100 with Group 959, which it also tasked with arming and training the Pathet Lao.
Meanwhile in Vientiane, the Lao government’s political troubles continued. In December 1959, General Phoumi, the ultra-right wing Defense Minister, overthrew the Phoui government. But General Phoumi’s attempts to influence the new king, Sisivang Vatthana (who succeeded to the throne after King Sisivang Vong’s death in October 1959), failed when western diplomats, intervened, and prevailed upon the monarch not to appoint General Phoumi as Prime Minister. Instead, Prince Somsanit was named Prime Minister. However, General Phoumi, who remained as Defense Minister, held the real power in the Lao government
Then in August 1960, Lao Army Captain Kong Le, dismayed by the resumption of the war, seized control of Vientiane to depose the government. Among Kong Le’s stated aims for the coup were to end the civil war and restore Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma and his neutralist government to power. With the coup gaining strong popular support, the National Assembly ousted the Somsanit government and restored the neutralist Souvanna Phouma as Prime Minister.
The political neutralists then offered reconciliation to the rightists, and on August 31, 1960, a new government was formed with neutralist Souvanna Phouma (still) as Prime Minister and right-wing general Phoumi as deputy Prime Minister. The United States was skeptical, however, as the earlier neutralist-led coalition government had included the communist Pathet Lao. Thailand, a U.S. ally, also was alarmed at the neutralists’ return to power. The Thai government thus imposed a trade blockade of Laos, causing food shortages, inflationary prices, and financial hardships to the Lao economy.
Then when in October 1960, neutralist Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma entered into negotiations with the Pathet Lao, General Phoumi broke off with the neutralist government and joined forces with right-wing Prince Boun Oum in southern Laos, forming the anti-communist “Revolutionary Committee”. The United States and Thailand immediately switched their support to this right-wing movement.
Meanwhile, the neutralist Lao government and communist Pathet Lao also reached an agreement, but now deprived of U.S. military support, they began receiving weapons and supplies from the Soviet Union. By this time, the Royal Lao Army was divided, with most units siding with the rightists and some units supporting the neutralists. In November 1960, with substantial U.S. and Thai support, right-wing General Phoumi launched his offensive. In the decisive Battle of Vientiane in mid-December 1960, rightist forces defeated Kong Le’s neutralists, forcing the neutralists to withdraw to the strategic Plain of Jars (Figure 14), located 400 kilometers northeast of the capital. One month earlier (November 1960), the Lao National Assembly ousted neutralist Prime Minister Souvanna Phouma from office and named rightist Prince Boun Oum as the new Prime Minister (although General Phoumi continued to hold the real power). But Souvanna Phouma, who had fled to Cambodia a few days before the Battle of Vientiane, remained defiant, insisting that he was the legitimate Prime Minister of Laos.
Following these events, fighting increased. More Vietnamese troops joined the fighting, which allowed the Pathet Lao to extend its areas of control. The United States increased its support to the Boun Oum-Phoumi rightist government, and also began sending military supplies to its “Secret Army”, the 30,000-strong anti-communist Hmong guerillas, who gradually took over much of the fighting in northeastern Laos. A Central Intelligence Agency-owned airline, “Air America”, operating disguised as a civilian private enterprise, delivered weapons and supplies to remote Hmong outposts deep inside communist-held territory.
In 1961, newly elected U.S. President John F. Kennedy dramatically reversed his predecessor’s hard-line position on Laos. Initially, President Kennedy had studied his options, and even considered sending combat troops to southern Laos, including nuclear weapons. But following the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba (April 1961), President Kennedy called for a negotiated settlement in Laos, which was welcomed by the Soviet Union and China.
In Laos, the local warring sides initially were opposed to negotiations. However, in May 1961, peace talks opened in Geneva, Switzerland, with the three sides of the conflict represented by the “three princes”: rightist Prince Boun Oum, neutralist Prince Souvanna Phouma, and leftist Prince Souphanouvong. The Geneva negotiations, which lasted over a year (May 1961-July 1962), produced a settlement, the “International Agreement on the Neutrality of Laos”, commonly called the 1962 Geneva Accords, where the major powers (United States, Soviet Union, China, France, and Britain) as well as Laos’ neighbors (North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, and Burma) agreed to respect the neutrality of Laos.
In June 1962, the three rival Lao factions also reached an internal settlement: the second Lao coalition government was formed, which consisted of neutralists, rightists, and leftists. Neutralist Souvanna Phouma was named Prime Minister, and rightist General Phoumi and leftist Souphanouvong were appointed as co-deputy Prime Ministers.
But once again, regional events, particularly the now raging Vietnam War, put great pressure on the already fragile neutrality of Laos and the Lao coalition government. By 1963 in South Vietnam, the Viet Cong had gained the upper hand. In the following years, the Viet Cong would nearly bring down the government of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem. North Vietnam, pursuing its objective of reuniting the two halves of Vietnam, increased military support to the Viet Cong via the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which made its occupation of southeastern Laos absolutely necessary. In turn, the United States secretly provided military assistance to the Lao Royal Army and the anti-communist Hmong paramilitary, through a new covert agency, the “Requirements Office” of the U.S. Embassy in Vientiane.