Afraid to Hurt

THERE is no better way, on paper, of ending the civil war in Laos than by bringing an all-party coalition government into being in Vientiane. This was what the signatories to the 1962 Geneva accord had sought to achieve. Yet the record shows that the promise of peace and neutrality that appeared reasonable in 1962 proved barren in subsequent years. Instead of reunification of the Laotian Army, which the Geneva accord envisaged, the division in the armed forces has hardened and instead of neutrality there is open alien intervention on both sides. What prospect then of any new effort at coalition- making succeeding?