INTERNATIONAL
platoons he has collected together may
still not prove a match for the formidable
army led by Mrs Indira Gandhi. Mr
Charan Singh has already achieved a
virtual merger with the anti-Gandhi Con-
gress party, roped in the dissident Social-
ists and the Moslem League, and reached
an electoral understanding with the unit-
ed front of leftist parties. He seems well
on his way to forging an alliance with the
regional parties of Punjab, Tamil Nadu,
Kerala and possibly Kashmir. Although
his personal following is limited to north-
ern India, his electoral combination has
acquired a nationwide character, and it
could yet prove to be the dominant force
in eastern and southern India.
Ideologically, this combination makes
no sense at all. Mr Charan Singh is an
unabashed champion of the land-owning
farmer, and has little love for socialism,
let alone communism. As a Hindi linguis-
tic chauvinist, he has always been regard-
ed with suspicion by the regicn al rties
in non-Hindi-speaking areas. His combi-
nation may have much electoral value,
48
but it hardly looks like a future govern-
ment, and many of the parties in it may
break away once the election is over.
The fact that so many diverse interests
have banded together in it highlights the
present isolation both of Mrs Gandhi and
of the Janata faction led by Mr Jagjivan
Ram. Mrs Gandhi's authoritarian streak
has repelled even the most opportunistic
regional parties, who know full well her
reluctance to share power with anybody.
The strongest party in Tamil Nadu, al-
though an old ally of hers, is now part of
Mr Charan Singh's coalition. Even the
(pro-Moscow) Communist party of India,
which hung on to her skirts for a decade,
has now let go and joined hands with the
Marxists, with which it had been at log-
gerheads since the Sino-Soviet split in the
1960s. Now that these two parties have
forged a united front along with minor
socialist groups they are well placed to
sweep the polls in West Bengal and
K rala and to make inroads in Assam.
Despite all this however, Mrs Gandhi still
shows much confidence.
Copyright 1979, The Economist Newspaper Limited
News
Laos
After boat people,
the hill people
FROM A CORRESPONDENT IN BANGKOK
The hospital was full, so they placed her
on a concrete slab outside the front door.
She was pathetically thin, her body rav-
aged by dysentery and starvation. The
hospital attendant said she would be dead
in a few days. This 10-year-old girl was
one of the Hmong hill-tribe people from
Laos who have fled to neighbouring Thai-
land. At the refugee camp where she
lay—in the Thai province of Loei, 300
miles north-east of Bangkok—more than
37,000 of her people wait to be resettled.
Thousands more linger in other Thai
camps.
The Hmong say that the communist
Pathet Lao government of Laos, and the
occupying Vietnamese forces which sup-
port it, launch constant ground and artil-
lery assaults against their mountain hold-
outs, including the use of poison gas. The
aim of this pressure, they say, is to drive
the strongly anti-communist Hmong from
the country.
The plan seems to be succeeding. From
their cramped quarters in Loei, Hmong
spokesmen talk of their people's plight in
Laos: they have few weapons and too
little ammunition and, worst, are desper-
ately short of food. They say that the
communist harassment is so severe that
they cannot even grow subsistence crops.
The choice many of them have made—to
flee to Thailand—often means a south-
ward trek of between one and three
months. But even that escape route
seems to be closing. Thailand already has
something like 200,000 Indochinese refu-
gees, a large part of them from Laos, and
may shut its doors to new arrivals.
In one incident, which the refugees
fear could point to a new Thai govern-
ment policy, a group of nearly 200
Hmong got as far as a Laotian island on
the Mekong river, the border between
much of Laos and north-eastern Thai-
land. Their pleas for permission to cross
the 400 yards of brown water to the Thai
shore were rejected by Thai soldiers, who
fired their rifles into the water to make
sure the Hmong understood. On July
31st, three days after the group had
reached the island, the Pathet Lao landed
and forced them to return to the Laotian
mainland.
The authorities in Bangkok deny that
refugees from Laos are refused permis-
sion to enter Thailand and claim that
local officials were responsible for the
Mekong island incident. But, if the Thai
government does refuse to take any more
THE ECONOMIST SEPTEMBER 1, 1979
Death in the afternoon
I
4'.
p
4
“Your purpose is not to negotiate with the criminals and their leaders. They must be
crushed.” So spoke Ayatollah Khomeini on Tuesday as he despatched one of his
religious henchmen to Kurdistan, and appeared to shatter the hope that there might
yet be a peaceful settlement between the Iranian regime and the Iranian Kurds who
are demanding a limited form of autonomy. A few hours earlier negotiations had
appeared to be leading to a formal ceasef ire; the government is still talking as if there
were one. Reports have it that 500 people have been killed in the Kurdish province
over the past two weeks. So far 68 Kurds, including the two above preserved in ice
blocks, have reportedly been executed.
J
Document Reference: ECON-1 979-0901 Date: 01 -09-1 979
