Clearing the Plain

Last fall, in a surprising reversal of form, Laotian troops backed by heavy American air support swept Communist forces off the strategically located Plain of Jars in north-central Laos. It was the first time in five years that the government had controlled the area. Last week the pro-Communist Pathet Lao and their North Vietnamese allies launched a long-awaited attempt to regain the plain.

As expected, Communist forces, including 16,000 of the 50,000 North Vietnamese troops in Laos, quickly overran several government outposts and moved down onto the plain. In Vientiane, few observers believed the area could be held. Anticipating defeat, the government ordered the evacuation of nearly 15,000 Laotians from two airstrips on the plain to more secure locations near Vientiane. TIME Correspondent David Greenway was on the last refugee flight. His report:

All day long the big silver planes roared in over the Plain of Jars and touched down in a rooster tail of dust on the dirt strip at Lat Sen. There were Air America Caribous, C-123s and two four-engined C-130s borrowed from U.S. Air Force bases in Thailand. On some, their markings were painted over in an attempt to maintain the fiction that there is no U.S. military involvement in Laos. The engines never stopped. As doors opened, Laotian and American officials herded refugees aboard, many clutching terrified children as they leaned into the blast of the prop wash.

Communist Canteens. The refugees were mostly old men and women and small children in ragged clothes. There were few young adults; most of them are in the hills with the Pathet Lao. The refugees' eyes bore the blank, stoic look I have seen so often in the faces of peasants dispossessed by the Indo-China War, and relics of that war were everywhere. Many refugees carried standard North Vietnamese army canteens.

The final flight carried out the last 26 refugees. In 1960 the plain had supported about 150,000 people. Now after a decade of constant if relatively low-level fighting, there are no civilians left. Lat Sen's houses are empty. Abandoned dogs, forming into packs, fight over the last few scraps of food.

At Vientiane's Wattay Airport, the refugees were met by Laotian government officials, loaded onto trucks and taken to reception centers. After processing, they were trucked to riverside villages, where hastily built bamboo-and-straw buildings awaited them. There seemed to be enough food but not much else. Even so, they seemed happy to be away from the guns; some of them had been living in caves on and off for two years to escape frequent bombing and shelling. As one old woman summed it up: "It was terrible. First one side came and then the other side, and they took our children."

Bombing Zone. The chief reason for the mass removal apparently was to turn the Plain of Jars into a free bombing zone for U.S. aircraft--and the bombs are falling now. Though neither Vientiane nor Washington entertains much hope of keeping the plain out of Communist hands, they evidently plan to exact a heavy price from its incoming tenants.

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