Legacy of war using cluster bombs

“About 300 casualties per year are reported, but we don’t know exact number because a lot of cases from the remote area hardly were reported.” Jo Pereira, Project Coordinator of COPE (Cooperative Orthotic & Prosthetic Enterprise), that has been helping victims by cluster bombs, explained.

“It’s not acceptable to have children to be killed by bombies, even after 35 years since the war ended”, Jo said.

No country dares to compete this tranquil country in terms of ‘being bombed’ and casualties by cluster bombs. Statistically speaking, it had been bombed every single 8 minute for 9 years from 1964 to 1973, over a period of CIA-waged Secret War against the then neutral nation. Two million tons of bombs, among them are more than 270 millions of cluster bomblets, were air dropped with an average failure rate of 30 percent. When the war ended, as many as 80 millions of bomblets remained unexploded. These UXO have threatened all aspect of people’s life in almost every province, as 15 out of 17 provinces officially have been declared to be contaminated by UXO.

“We believe all provinces are de facto contaminated, because we never tried to research the province of Sayaboury and very poor researched some northern provinces, for instance Ponsali. We just have no information of those areas”

Wanthong Khamdala, a deputy national program director of UXO Lao, which is the biggest agency for UXO clearance in Laos, observed.

Disturbing number is to be continued. 80% of farmlands are contaminated by UXO in the country, where agriculture is the main source of livelihood, while 25% of villages are contaminated by UXO. The northern province of Xieng Khong, where handful forces of Pathet Lao (left-leaning resistance movement during the Indochina war) with Vietnam communist were active during the war time, was particularly the worst case along with the southern province of Savanakhet, where Hochi mihn Trail passed.

Nobody ever cared of this horrible legacy for decades until the mid of 1990, when some International NGOs and Lao government have launched clearance operation with help of international fund. It is estimated that UXO have been cleared somewhere between 0.5% and 0.9% for the past 14 years. The truth is, however, that it’s impossible to know how much percent cleared or left. The only clear fact is that it would last well over a thousand year to clear most of them, unless there would be dramatic progress with ultra spearhead equipment in technology for clearance. Or it would never happen to be completely cleared. The dog, which was trained to detect UXO, allegedly kept stopping in the province. Simply, it doesn’t work.

Well over a thousand year or ‘Never’

It was November with mild coldness in Xieng Khong province. I was embedded with one clearance unit from UXO Lao, who were heading for a field to operate. The team has been cooperated with and funded by Japan Mine Action Service, JMAS. The field was located nearly next to a school.

“People used to grow potatoes here”, Manophet Mouidouangdy, the Administrative Assistant of JMAS said. “When locals have found bombies more and more, they asked to us to clear them. That’s why we’ve been doing”, he added.

240 UXO were cleared since October 6 th. Today 6 bombies will be gone. “Most of UXO that have been found here were bombies”, the chief of the team explained.

It was a long, delicate and risky works. First, detect with extreme caution, second mark where they found bombies and then they put or attached ‘TNT explosives’ to bombies. TNT and bombies will be destroyed together by detonator from a far distanced. When preparation was done, one staff started to announce villagers, school children and passerby to be far away from the field. Again and again. After last confirmation there’s no one around, switched on detonator and explosion. It was huge shake. Another six bombies have been just gone.