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It is a bit undue. We have all this info on the civil war page. There is no need for 4 detailed sentences on a brief historical overview page about Laos. This is far more than there is about other Civil War info |
Mattun0211 (talk | contribs) compromise? |
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In 1968 the North Vietnamese Army launched a multi-division attack to help the Pathet Lao to fight the Royal Lao Army. The attack resulted in the army largely demobilizing, leaving the conflict to irregular forces raised by the United States and Thailand.
Massive aerial bombardment against Pathet Lao and invading NVA [[communist]] forces was carried out by the United States to prevent the collapse of Laos' central government, the Royal Kingdom of Laos, and to prevent the use of the [[Ho Chi Minh Trail]] to attack U.S. forces in South Vietnam and the [[Republic of Vietnam]]. Laos is the most heavily bombed country, per capita, in the world. Laos was hit by an average of one B-52 bomb-load every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, between 1964 and 1973.<ref>{{cite news| url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/03/laos-cluster-bombs-uxo-deaths | work=The Guardian | location=London | title=Forty years on, Laos reaps bitter harvest of the secret war | first=Ian | last=MacKinnon | date=3 December 2008 | accessdate=7 May 2010}}</ref> Because it was particularly heavily affected by [[cluster bombs]] during this war, Laos was a strong advocate of the [[Convention on Cluster Munitions]] to ban the weapons and assist victims, and hosted the First Meeting of States Parties to the convention in November 2010.
In 1975 the [[Pathet Lao]], along with the [[Vietnam People's Army]] and backed by the [[Soviet Union]], overthrew the [[Kingdom of Laos|royalist Lao government]], forcing King [[Savang Vatthana]] to abdicate on 2 December 1975. He later died in captivity. Between 20,000 and 70,000 Laotians died during the Civil War.<ref>T. Lomperis, From People's War to People's Rule, (1996), estimates 35,000 total.</ref><ref>Eckhardt, William, in World Military and Social Expenditures 1987-88 (12th ed., 1987) by Ruth Leger Sivard.</ref><ref>Rummel, Rudolph J.: Death By Government (1994)</ref><ref>Obermeyer (2008), "Fifty years of violent war deaths from Vietnam to Bosnia", ''British Medical Journal''.</ref>
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