The Puritans

A key question: Who runs the land of a million elephants?

Three years ago, Communist Pathet Lao guerrillas emerged from their jungle hideouts and quietly but firmly seized power in the languid nation once known as "the land of a million elephants." Since then, the People's Democratic Republic of Laos has been off limits to most Western journalists. Among the handful of U.S. reporters who have been allowed to visit the country is TIME Hong Kong Correspondent Richard Bernstein. His report:

The thing that is most notably different about Laos today: there are fewer people. In proportion to the country's small population (roughly 3 million), the exodus has been staggeringly large. Since the spring of 1975, around 140,000 Laotians have fled to refugee camps in Thailand--in recent months, most of them by paying $150 to secure a nighttime passage on boats plying the Mekong River. Although Pathet Lao soldiers often shoot at those who attempt the crossing (four died in one incident two weeks ago), an estimated 2,500 to 4,000 people seek refuge in Thailand every month.

In Vientiane, once flourishing centers of sin--like the notorious White Rose Cafe--have been closed down by the puritanical Pathet Lao government. On Rue Setthathirath more than half the shops are shuttered tightly, though not the Large Soviet cultural center on the corner. Rusting hulks of cars and trucks lie at the side of the roads leading out of the city. Even the front garden of the old Royal Palace has fallen into a state of near total disrepair--the King was sent to a reeducation camp in 1977.

Vientiane, nevertheless, still retains some traces of its old insouciance. The antique shops along Rue Samsenthai, mostly owned by Vietnamese, are still open. One shopkeeper, fortunate enough to hold a French passport, said that she was preparing to leave Laos soon, since the government had announced plans to take over her store. The large central market seemed adequately stocked with fresh vegetables, soap, cigarettes, pots and pans, cotton cloth and even finely wrought silver works --all still being sold by private merchants. While virtually all women obey a government order to wear the traditional Lao skirt, called the sin, some top them with T shirts promoting ADIDAS or "U.C.L.A. BRUINS."

Despite the lingering tokens of prosperity in Vientiane, Laos as a whole is near bankruptcy. The country's foreign exchange earnings, mostly derived from exports of timber, tin and hydroelectric power, total no more than $15 million annually. In a normal year, the government has to spend that amount to buy the 50,000 tons of rice it needs to supplement Laos' lagging grain production. With practically no industry (except for small soap, match and textile plants), most manufactured articles, from fertilizer to earth-moving equipment, must be imported.

Laos' economic plight has been complicated by natural disasters. During the summer planting this year a severe drought caused a shortfall of roughly 100,000 tons of food grain--10% of the hoped-for harvest. When the rains finally came, the Mekong and Sedone rivers deluged 30% to 40% of the rice land in Champassak, Savannakhet and Khammouane provinces.

For the second time this year, the government has asked the United Nations and most countries having diplomatic relations with Vientiane for a relief donation. The U.S. has given 10,000 tons of rice and is considering a request for 20,000 tons more. There is no question that the relief is needed. Refugees report, however, that much of the rice ends up feeding not the Laotians but an estimated 40,000 Vietnamese troops scattered throughout the eastern half of the country and on the Cambodian border. The Vietnamese are encamped mainly because the Pathet Lao have been unable to eliminate strong pockets of armed resistance by both disaffected hill tribesmen and remnants of the old royalist army. There have been signs that Cambodian forces have cooperated with some resistance groups in fighting the Vietnamese. The Laotians and Cambodians make curious bedfellows: about all they agree on is that the only good Vietnamese is a dead Vietnamese.

The Vietnamese presence raises another question: Do the Pathet Lao really control the country? The Chinese, who are completing a long-term road-building project in the north of Laos, are entrenched in the areas bordering Yunnan province. The Russians maintain a low profile in Vientiane, but they have an estimated 1,500 advisers and technicians in Laos and exert enough influence that the Chinese have lately accused Laos of being, like Viet Nam, a Soviet puppet. The Pathet Lao have imprisoned many of the country's best-trained people in so-called re-education camps and have lost tens of thousands more to the exodus. Sums up one diplomat: "Without the Russians and the Vietnamese and the Chinese running things, the Pathet Lao wouldn't be able to do much at all."

Agriculture is crucial, and the government has dramatically stepped up its campaign to create farming cooperatives. One such coop, the Tha Ngon Agricultural Development Project, about 20 miles northeast of Vientiane, is an impressive integrated unit of "new towns" surrounded by large, well-tended rice fields; a huge fish pond is being dug out of the jungle by modem earth-moving equipment. Says Sombat Chounlamany, a ranking foreign ministry official in Vientiane: "We think that developing cooperatives as soon as possible is the best way of both transforming the means of production and increasing output. If we don't follow this policy, our bad economic situation will turn even worse."

Nonetheless, even government officials admit privately that there is substantial resistance to the coops. Farmers have slaughtered draft animals, for example, rather than donate them to collectives. Similarly, government efforts to purchase up to 30% of private farm production at low ofiicial prices have induced some farmers either to produce mainly for their own needs or sell exclusively on the black market. Although the country's long-range agricultural prospects are promising, Laos for the next few years will need all the help it can get from international aid agencies and its more prosperous Asian neighbors.

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