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The Pathet Lao (Lao: ປະເທດລາວ, romanized: Pa thēt Lāo, lit. 'Lao Nation' [1]), officially the Lao People's Liberation Army, was a communist political movement and organization in Laos, formed in the mid-20th century.
The Laotian Civil War was waged between the Communist Pathet Lao and the Royal Lao Government from 23 May 1959 to 2 December 1975. The Kingdom of Laos was a covert theater during the Vietnam War with both sides receiving heavy external support in a proxy war between the global Cold War superpowers.
The War in Northern Laos. Command for Air Force History. OCLC 232549943. Castle, Timothy N. (1993). At War in the Shadow of Vietnam: U.S. Military Aid to the Royal Lao Government 1955–1975. ISBN 0-231-07977-X. Conboy, Kenneth and James Morrison (1995). Shadow War: The CIA's Secret War in Laos. Paladin Press. ISBN 0-87364-825-0. Fall, Bernard ...
However, North Vietnam never withdrew from Laos and the Pathet Lao remained little more than a proxy army for Vietnamese interests. After the fall of South Vietnam to communist forces in April 1975, the Pathet Lao with the backing of North Vietnam were able to take total power with little resistance. On 2 December 1975, the king was forced to ...
North Vietnam supported the Pathet Lao to fight against the Kingdom of Laos between 1958 and 1959. Control over Laos allowed for the eventual construction of the Ho Chi Minh Trail that would serve as the main supply route for enhanced NLF (the National Liberation Front, the Viet Cong) and NVA (North Vietnamese Army) activities in the Republic of Vietnam.
The Vietnamese communists continued to support the Pathet Lao after the end of the Laotian Civil War and the establishment of the Lao People's Democratic Republic. [ 10 ] [ 5 ] [ 11 ] While severely depleted, the remnants of an early 1980s-era, and 1990s-era, Royalist insurgency has been kept alive by an occasionally active guerrilla force of ...
After a series of political and military machinations conducted by the U.S., the Pathet Lao, and the North Vietnamese in Laos that are described in the History of Laos since 1945, a Declaration on the Neutrality of Laos was signed in Geneva, Switzerland on 23 July 1962.
Between 1964 and 1973, the US dropped 2 million tons of bombs on Laos, nearly equal to the 2.1 million tons of bombs the US dropped on Europe and Asia during all of World War II, making Laos the most heavily bombed country in history relative to the size of its population; The New York Times notes this was "nearly a ton for every person in Laos".