Move To Strengthen Laos Commission

Press, Volume C, Issue 29518, 20 May 1961, Page 11

Move To Strengthen Laos Commission

(N Z.P.A.-Reuter—-Copyright) GENEVA, May 19. The British and Soviet Foreign Ministers, Lord Home and Mr Gromyko, will meet urgently today to consider ways to strengthen the three-nation International Control Commission supervising the Laos cease-fire.

The Right-wing Vientiane Government delegation, which has been boycotting the 14-Power conference, claims violent fighting has been going on in Laos.

Lord Home and Mr Gromyko, co-chairmen of the four-day-old conference, have been asked by Canada’s External Affairs Minister (Mr Howard Green) to discuss providing more men and material for the commission, whose members are India, Canada and Poland. The conference is due to hold two sessions today. Mr Gromyko, who is lunching with the United States Secretary of State (Mr Rusk) will be chairman of the morning session.

The relatively technical dispute over whether the control commission had enough facilities and power to really police the truce masked a basic rift between the Communists and the West which threatened to undermine the conference, said the British United Press. Russia and other Communist countries contend the truce is being observed in Laos, and have resisted any

attempts to enlarge the control commission.

In addition, Mr Gromyko and the Chinese Foreign Minister (Marshal Chen Yi) have proposed additional veto powers over the commission’s actions by individual members of the group.

The United States claims that the commission is unable to really verify the cease-fire and will be totally inadequate for the task of policing any international agreement on Laos unless it is strengthened in manpower, equipment and authority. The decision to try to sort out the question of more facilities for the commission came at the end of yesterday’s debate, in which India swung behind the West in opposing Russian attempts to increase veto powers. The Indian Minister of Defence (Mr Krishna Menon) came out strongly against any suggestion of changing the composition of the control commission. Mr’ Menon said: “We believe that the commission has done its duties very effectively. “As long as it was allowed to function in Laos there was no civil war. Whatever impasse the country has reached has happened after the commission was made to leave Laos.”

Mr Menon said India felt the duties of the commission should be to patrol the perimeter of Laos to prevent infiltration of arms.

The Soviet draft proposals merited very careful study, he said.

“We must have no veto arrangement,” he said. He said that international economic aid to Laos must have no strings attached.

Mr Menon stressed that the current negotiations must be devoted “to Laos and Laos alone,” and said India, basing herself on the findings of the International Control Commission, considered that a cease-fire did in faot exist.

Suggestions that it was being violated did not come from official sources, he said.