India ambassador recalls wartime support for Laos

India played an important role in helping the Lao people to liberate themselves from the yoke of colonialism 34 years ago, India Ambassador to Laos, Mr. Suresh K.Goel, said on February 11, 2009.

Liberation paved the way for the Lao people’s Revolutionary Party to take power from the monarchy on December 2, 1975, and establish the Lao People’s Democratic Republic.

Mr. Goel was speaking at a seminar on India’s Look East Policy at the Institute of Foreign Affairs in Vientiane as part of activities to celebrate the 60^th anniversary of India’s National Day on January 26, 2009.

January 26 is the day India’s constitution came into force and it became an impendent sovereign state after decades of British rule.

Mr. Goel said India, as Chair of the International Commission for Supervision and Control (ICSC) in Indochina during the Indochina War, played an important role in promoting national liberation and independence movements, and the safeguarding of newly acquired sovereignty.

He expressed India’s appreciation that the Lao Government remembered the role India had played during the war.

“We are happy that Laos remembers with gratitude India’s role as Chirman of the ICSC,” he told the audience.

Mr. Goel said the strong relations between Laos and India were based on profound historical foundations.

He said the first Indian prime minister to visit Laos was Mr. Pandit Nehrl in 1954, which was later reciprocated when president Souphanouvong visited India in 1975. President Choummaly Sayasone visited India in 2008.

Mr. Goel said India considered ASEAN member countries as economic development partners in the effort to establish Asia as one integrated regional market.

“Coinciding with the beginning of economic reform in India and the opening up of the Indian market, there was a well funded synergy between India and South-East Asia countries in the areas of economic growth, political liberalism and strategic interests,” he said.

More than 80 officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Foreign Relations Committee and students from the National University of Laos’s Faculty of Law attended the seminar.