At Bay in Laos
Things look bad in Laos. Xieng Khouang, an important centre, has been evacuated by the French Union forces and occupied by a Viet-Minh division. Other towns have fallen. To the Avest of Xieng Khouang its erstwhile defenders have joined hands with the troops from Sam Neua who have had a rough time extricating themselves through the mountains, apparently under some pressure; and it appears that the French intend to make a stand in the Plain of Janes, on which three more Viet-Minh divisions are converging from the north. With the onset of the rainy season the maintenance by air- supply of a fortified enclave in the Plain of Jarres will not be a simple matter; and there would in any case seem to be no particular reason why the invaders should not by-pass it. Their immediate objective is almost certainly Luang Prabang, the capital, which is already distantly threatened by an indepen- dent force descending on it from the north. They are also likely to move south against Vientiane, capture of which would give them control of two hundred miles of the Mekong Valley and direct access to Siam. The rebels' propaganda is doing its best to pass off their campaign as the response to Laotian national aspirations, and a " Free Laos " movement already exists over the border in Yunnan; if, therefore, the capital falls, subsequent political developments are likely to have an unsettling effect over a wide area of the South East Asian hinterland, and not least in North Siam. For the French a difficult situation has not been made easier by the King of Cambodia's statement, made to journalists in New York, that he and his kingdom could do with a wider measure of independence. The announcement by the Council of Ministers in Paris on Wednesday that certain new steps will now be taken to confirm the independence already granted to the Associated States of Indo-China within the French Union may represent an attempt to escape from that situation.
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