Vietnam building military hospital in troubled Laotian province HANOI - The Vietnamese army is building a military hospital in the troubled Laotian province of Xiang Khouang, where diplomats say Vietnamese troops have intervened in the face of a mounting rebel insurgency, Vietnam's official VNA news agency said Saturday. The Vietnamese defence ministry is funding the whole of the 666,600 dollar cost of the hospital, which will serve what the news agency described as the Xiang Khouang "military zone." Vietnam sent a high ranking delegation to the ground-breaking, headed by Major General Nguyen Khac Duong, commander of Vietnam's fourth military zone and a member of the powerful central committee of the ruling Communist Party, the news agency said. The Laotian side was led by Colonel Ukeo Sayphoubanh, the deputy director of the army's logistics department, it said, without specifying when the ceremony took place. Vietnamese officials have repeatedly denied that their troops have intervened in Laos, but diplomats in Vientiane say the authorities there have been forced to seek a renewed intervention by the larger communist neighbour in the face of mounting casualties at the hands of rebels from the Hmong minority. One Western diplomat told AFP last month that he had seen military transports carrying Vietnamese troops on the streets of the Laotian capital and a string of officials from both the Laotian army and Xiang Khouang province have visited Vietnam in recent weeks. Massive military support from Vietnam in the late 1970s and 1980s largely eliminated the remnants of an anti-communist militia recruited among the Hmong by the the US Central Intelligence Agency during the Vietnam War, although low-level attacks continued through the 1990s. But diplomats say an upsurge in rebel attacks this year has left the Laotian army reeling in the face of mounting losses and struggling to control Xiang Khouang province as well as the Xaysamboun "special zone" to its south. Earlier this year the authorities imposed a complete ban on foreigners travelling to Xiang Khouang, even though the Plain of Jars, south of the provincial capital of Phonsavan, had previously been one of Laos's most popular tourist attractions, diplomats say. Xaysamboun, between Xiang Khouang and the Laotian capital, has long been under military rule and closed to foreigners. Agence France Presse - July 1st, 2000.