For sheer brazen hypocrisy the palm must go the US secretary of State, Mr. Christian Herter who told the NATO Ministers’ conference that the US was all for the abiding neutrality of Laos. If the US Government were really so serious about it, surely the way to ensure the neutrality of Laos was to support the neutralist Premier. Prince Souvanna Phouma, whom it has virtually thrown to the wolves? Mr. Herter went to so far as to suggest that the suspension of US aid to Laos was at the request of the latter. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The fact is that the US Government insisted upon making the continuance of aid conditional upon a compromise between the Phouma Government and the rightist rebels led by General Nosavan and Prince Boun Oum and the immediate cessation of truce talks between the Government and the Pathet Laos. This was to be followed by an all-out war against the the Pathet Laos. In the result the US succeeded in literally driving Prince Souvanna Phouma into the arms of the left-wing rebels and even to seek aid from “other sources.” In the last few weeks events in Laos have taken a dramatic turn. The neutralist Premier has fled the country and sought asylum in Cambodia while Vientiane has become the site of a bitter battle. The fact that Captain Kong Lae has received some aid from the Soviet Union does not render his stand any the less “neutral”. He has just done the only thing open for him to do in the face of the rightist advance with the aid of US arms supplied by Bangkok which has made no serious efforts to conceal either the role of the SEATO or that of the US in the present situation. And the US has exposed itself to charges of partisanship by recognising the Government of the rightist rebels in an almost indecent haste. This has provoked both China and North Vietnam to sound threatening warnings to Washington. At the moment there is no telling when Laos will be turned into a theatre of hot war between the principle contenders in the cold war.
The only way to prevent this danger is to reconvene the International Supervisory Commissions for Laos as Shri Nehru suggested the other day.
18th December 1960.
