By PEGGY DENNIS

“A year ago — April, 1962
— the U.S. Marines landed
in Thailand, on alert to in-
vade Laos.

Recently the U.S. Seventh
Fleet has been sent to the
Gulf of Siam “as a symbol
of force,” to Laos, and “Ad-
ministration quarters would
not rule out the possibility
that Marines and Army troops
might again enter Thailand,”
reports the N.Y. Times (April
23).

A year ago the Marines
were there to reinforce the
rightist army of Gen. Phoumi
Novasan, on whom the US.
had placed its dollars to win,
to the tune of $3 million a
month. But Novasan was rout-
ed by the national liberation
army, Pathet Lao,:in unison
with the neutralist army of
Gen. Kong Le.

Only after this defeat did
the U.S. concede finally to
the establishment of a neut-
ralist, three-way coalition
government in Laos, and balk-
ed and stymied the negotia-
tions to achieve this.

U.S. MANOEUVRES

Fighting has broken out in
Laos ‘and, according to Wash-
ington, the U.S. Seventh Fleet
in the Gulf of Siam has be-
come the defender of neutral-
ism in Laos. For Washington
claims that the Pathet Lao
is fighting the neutralist army
of Kong Le.

There are those who charge
that Washington has been
working against the Geneva
accords ever since they were
_ forced upon an unwilling US.

The Christian Science Mon-
itor correspondent in Laos
(April 20) wrote “The Pathet
Lao has accused (neutralist)
Kong Le forces, but not Gen.
Kong Le personally as yet, of
collusion with Phoumi forces
(rightist, U.S.-sponsored) and
has charged that American
and Thai cadres are helping

them.”
The July agreement in the

14-nation Geneva conference
established a unified govern-
ment with neutralist Prince
Souvanna Phouma as prime
minister, and Pathet Lao
Prince Souphanovong and
rightist Phoumi Novasan as
deputy premiers. However,
each retained control of ma-
jor regions of the small state
(population,: two million).
NO REDUCTION YET

The Geneva agreement call-
ed for the reduction of the
- combined armies of 100,090

into a-unified force of 30,-

000, plus 6,000 police.
Souphanouvong accused the
U.S. (Viet Nam News Agency,
Rangoon, Pan. 19) of “‘contin-
uing to increase the military
strength of the rightest army,
and of concentrating person-
nel in Thailand as a jumping
off place to continue interfer-
ence in our country.”
An item in Time magazine
(Aug. 31, 1962) perhaps takes
on new significance in the
- light of the present Laotian

crisis. Time wrote then that
in the northern area held by
Pathet Lao (neutralist Souv-
anna holds the central region
and rightists Novasan, the
southern) ‘‘Meo tribesmen
who form pockets of resist-
ence in the mountains near
the Plains des Jars and along
the Laos-North Viet Nam bor-
der ... are U.S. supplied and
aavived.

“The tough Meo guerillas

. . . are dependent on air
_ drops for everything from —

Puy

food to ammunition. The U.S.
therefore faces an unpleasant
dilemma: the one useful force
it created in Laos is in danger
of being starved out unless
resupplied by parachute. But
Souvanna’s government has
repeatedly charged the U.S.
with air intrusions since the
cease-fire agreement.”

In January, Laos’ Minister .

of Information Phoumi Von-
goichit accused the U.S. (Viet
Nam News Agency, Feb. 2)
“of dropping arms and mili-
tary supplies to armed agents
in areas controlled by the Pa-
thet Lao which are loyal to
the neutralist government.”
NOT DENIED

He said the U.S. did not
deny this but had claimed the
Laotian government had giv-
en
“supplies to refugees.’’ Von-
goichit in his official note de-
clared, “The Laotian National
Union government never dis-
cussed the question of using
U.S. planes to supply so-call-
ed ‘refugees’.”

Nouhak Phoumsavan, a
spokesman of thePathet Lao
at the 14th anniversary of
that group (Viet Nam News
Agency, Jan. 20), accused the
U.S. with employing “two-
faced tactics.’ On the one
hand, he said, it “has pretend-
ed to support peace and neu-
trality.

On the other, it had practi-

‘cally refused to withdraw

U.S. and satellite country.
troops, sends armed agents on
harassing missions, and after
the three Lao parties conclud-
ed an agreement No. 21, to
unify the military and police
forces, the U.S. is particularly
active in helping the rightist
Savannakhet party frustrate
this accord.”

In an officiel government
statemert. “.pril 17, The Peo-
ple’s Republic of China charg:
ed, “large numbers of mili-
tary men and special agents.
of the U.S. and other SEATO
members, as well as soldiers
of the remnants of the Chiang

PRINCE SOUPHAN OUVONG
who leads Pathet Lao forces.

it permission to airlift’

Kei-shek gang, VE already
entered the area.’

In Moscow, the newspaper
Pravda (April 22) accused the
U.S. of having sabotaged the
1962 Geneva agreement and
(N.Y. Times, April 23) ‘“‘as-
serted that American subher-
sive activities had brought

about the ‘present highly dan-:
gerous developments,’ and ex-’

pressed concern about sugges-
tions of possible intervention
by :U.S. troops.”
HEAVILY COMMITTED
The U.S. is heavily commit-
ted in Laos, and has been
for over a decade. The Mans-
field report on Southeast Asia
to the Senate Foreign Affairs
Committee last month pointed
out, “In relation to the size
and nature of the country,
this (U.S.) aid effort (to Laos)
has been more intense than
anywhere else in the world.”
For Laos, like South Viet
Nam, is key to the U.S. foot-
hold in Southeast Asia. And,
as the N.Y. Times points out
(April 23), “Legally,
Communists were considered
to have nullified the Geneva

agreement, that action could
pave the way for Laos to re-

quest military support from
the West.”

It could well be this is what
the shooting is all about, with
the U.S. Seventh Fleet posing
as defenders of neutralism in
Laos today.

“The commitment of the
U.S. is the most direct and
deepest in Southeast Asia,”
admits the Mansfield report.
Washington, in fact, helped
finance France’s imperialist
war in Indo-China. It invested
over $1 billion in that war.
But the French lost that war.
And the U.S. stepped into the
breach.

Since 1950 the U.S. has
spent $5 billion in that area,
bolstering up with money and
arms the anti-liberation ar-
mies and governments in
South Viet Nam, Laos, South
Korea and other new, small
states.

Since 1954, Washington has
gone all out in its support to
Ngo Dinh Diem in South Viet
Nam, for example. Today the
Senate’s Mansfield report ad-
mits, “Substantially the same
difficulties remain, if indeed,
they have not been compound-
ed,” and that “by 1961, it was
apparent that the prospects
for a total collapse (U.S.-Di-
em) in South Viet Nam had
begun to come dangerously
close.”

And =e of
Dean Rusk (N.Y. Times, April
23) reiterated the West “‘could
not expect a quick victory” in
South Viet Nam.
UNDECLARED WAR

For the fact remains that
despite American aircraft, ar-
mored amphibious cars, nox-
ious chemicals, napalm
bombs, rockets, police dogs
and 12,000 military men, two-

_ thirds of the country and one-

half of the population in Santh
Viet Nam are under the lead-
ership of the national libera-
tion Viet Cong forces.

“When you visit South Viet
Nam,” writes Peter Worthing-
ton, who covered the war for
The Telegram of Toronto (The
Nation, March 2), “you are

' quickly forced to the con-
“clusion that,

incredible as it
may seem, America is involv-
ed in an undeclared but all-
out war to save the unpopular
South Vietnamese  govern-

ment from an ae over-—

throw.”

i the:

State

What's behind shooting in Laos?

Worthington writes that the
U.S. is spending $1 million a
day to fight the war and that
“the South Vietnamese army
has been equipped to ‘the
point where it is now one of
the most modern in the free
world; it has equipment that
hasn’t yet been distributed to
the American forces.”

“~~ N.Y. Times correspondent

in South Viet Nam, David
Halberstam (April 1) wrote
“In this region the Saigon
government at the best. con-

trols a few of the larger cities .

and little else.”

Describing the area called
Cai Nuoc, from where he
wrote, Halberstam described,
“the peasants paid taxes to
the Viet Cong, their children
went to a Viet Cong school,
many of the people had Viet
Cong regulars in their famil-
ies . . . But the government

(U.S. puppet,
wanted control of Cai Nuoc —

The Times dispatch the
reported on how “‘three time
in the last six months Saigon
launched. operations in th
area,’ and when it took th
region over, it herded the
peasants into the concentra
tion camps called “strategic
hamlets.” Halberstam : ends
“Tt did so knowing the loca
people were hardly the stuff
of which anti- Communist
strongholds are built.” 7

It is not without cause that —
the Mansfield report warns |
that Washington’s involve- |
ment in South Viet Nam, as —
in all Southeast Asia, has_
brought our country to the
point where the war there i
being “‘converted into an Am
erican war, to be fought pri
marily with American lives.”

reported in a recent issue.

“By the hundreds of t

Early warning signals of the impending

explosion of teenagers in search of jobs can ~

be seen in the growing number of 14-19-
year-olds entering the pekatian work force
in summertime,

> "000
ie ~ 860 - So far, the rise is subsiding each
decd September hecause the teenagers are

still going back
to school,

~ 100 —

je

tele] SES.
Wo SF AS
Be sag
When the trouble comes it will be big

% — the number of — deciding
: + 50 —to look for jobs . .

The coming crisis
in unemployment

Canada now has an unemployment rate twice
what it was six or seven years ago, the Financial Post

But the worst is PRDAG Wy yet to come, says FP.
ousands,
of the post war baby boom are about to descend on the
labor market in search of jobs.”

The chart below, reproduced from the Post, shows:
the proportions of the crisis that looms ahead.

because even now there’s a hold-back in

» work force
-12—

= 8

the teenage products

The eventual influx will be immense — the
teenage population will have increased by
450,000 between 1961 and 1966,

5,000 annual average
1935-55

a ;

This is a growth in the teenage

population nearly 18 times that —~

of the annual average teenage ie
increases 1935-55.

+ « and one of the reasons is the fact
that a good teenage job is a hard
thing to find.

oy

Q — Unemployment among teenagers is now
double the altCanadian average.

To scale down existing unemployment
and cope with the teenage influx, the
g — Canadian economy will have to produce
at least 175,000 saa a year
__ Until 1966

% work force unemployed

i ey ; od

tf we only create as many new jobs in
next four years as in last four (500,000)
unemployment will be 8°,

Hf we can create 800,000 new jobs
unemployment will be down to 4%

oe ar eer ee

ba - economy into sharply faster growth,
“1,800 — GNP
eS per capita

1,600 —
ae %
aww

~ 1,500 % \
i i | i J

— This makes urgent policies eee to stimulate the

i
60 62

—

When ina per capita growth is not
advancing smoothly, unemployment
stays te high.

w
1400 San
a a i