LAOS: More than 30 Years On, the Unquiet Land

By Lynette Lee Corporal

LUANG PRABANG, Laos (Imaging Our Mekong) – The sound of a siren cuts through the woods of Pha Tiung village outside as a member of the roving team of National Unexploded Ordnance Lao (UXO Lao) programme used a bullhorn to warn villagers living nearby to stay clear.

Then, the two-minute countdown began as thick smoke wafted from a clearing. After what seemed like eternity came the ear-splitting sounds of bombs exploding. Boom-boom-boom-boom… it was quick, and it was deadly.

For the small group from UXO Lao, dressed in brown uniforms, it was routine work in this village outside the north-western city of Luang Prabang. It was a normal day detonating what was left of the 500,000 tonnes of unexploded ordnance (UXO) – deadly orbs that failed to explode upon impact – which account for 30 percent of the 90 million cluster bombs dropped from U.S. warplanes on 15 provinces of Laos’ 18 provinces more than 30 years ago.

Statistics show that more than 12,000 people, most of them children, have either been killed or impaired in UXO-related accidents since 1975, and an average of 120 people are killed each year.

The number of casualties are going up again these days due to scrap metal collection, which villagers sell for 1,000 to 2,000 kip per kilogramme, according to Edwin Faigmane, UXO programme technical advisor.

“The money that they earn from the scrap metal are for their children’s school allowance and other necessities,” says Faigmane, adding that 49 percent of the victims are children, 80 percent of whom are boys.

Children are usually attracted to these brightly colored orbs and, thinking that they are balls or toys, end up playing with the ‘bombies’.

LIFE ON HOLD

Thirty-five percent of UXO-related accidents are due to handling or playing; 22 percent due to agriculture; 14 percent due to forest harvesting; 12 percent to domestic; and 5 percent to infrastructure.

What these show is that in many affected areas, the development of infrastructure – be in homes, schools and hospitals - agriculture and livelihoods in Laos, one of the poorest countries in Asia, are on hold while UXO is cleared.

Alternative livelihood projects are lacking in several areas, and there are not too many relocation sites for affected villagers. The safe areas, meanwhile, are already crowded, and putting more people there would spell trouble in the long run due to lack of resources.

Farmers cannot till the land because, like seeds sown 30 years ago, the bombs are waiting to be ‘harvested’. “Some people choose to stay in contaminated lands and continue farming. They’re left with no other choices; either they starve to death or risk it,” Faigmane explains.

According to UXO Lao records, unexploded ordnance is found right at the centre of 948 villages, on paths and roads of 2,375 villages, in the lowland ricefields of 993 villages, in the upland rice fields of 707 villages, and in forested areas of 1,365 villages.

This means it will take about 150 years to completely clear Laos of UXO. Up to 30 percent of cluster bombs are estimated to have not exploded upon impact.

The ‘bombies’ were dropped by U.S planes every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, from 1964 to 1973. A legacy of the Vietnam War, the bombing operations gave Laos the distinction of being the most heavily bombed country in the history of warfare. More than 2 million tonnes of ordnance was dropped on the Lao countryside, more than the amount dropped on Germany and Japan combined in World War II.

The U.S. military, trying to stop the flow of the North Vietnamese and their supplies from reaching South Vietnam, zeroed in on Laos, where parts of the Ho Chi Minh Trail snaked through. At the time, Laos was also embroiled in a civil war between Lao communists and the U.S.-backed Royal Lao government.

Of Laos’ 236,800 sq km of land, more than 12,000 sq km were heavily impacted, while 74,786 sq km were moderately impacted. Of the 15 Lao provinces affected by UXO, nine of them – Champassak, Savannakhet, Khammuan, Xieng Khuang, Luang Prabang, Huaphan, Saravan, Xekong and Attapeu – wee severely hit.

Thus far, the UXO Lao programme, established in 1995 by the Lao government with the support of agencies like the United Nations Development Fund and United Nations Children’s Fund, has cleared more than 72.21 million sq m and of UXO destroyed 700,178 UXO.

RED FLAG

After land is marked for clearing operations, UXO Lao teams, armed with metal detectors, comb the designated “danger areas” meticulously and, once they find a bomb, promptly plant a red flag on the site.

In the case of Hat Khang village, where clearning operations are being conducted on a hilly part of the district, red paint is smeared on a tree trunk where a bombie was seen, for instance. The bombs
are detonated via wires and remote switches located hundreds of metres away from the site.

It was, however, quite difficult detonating a bomb that was one-metre bomb found submerged in knee-deep water in  the Pha River in Bam Pha Vieng village, which is home to 481 people. The huge bomb, which could have been either dropped from above or washed downstream, could easily cause damage within a one-kilometre radius once detonated. The UXO Lao team would have to remove the bomb and detonate it elsewhere.

It costs somewhere 5,000 to 8,000 U.S. dollars per hectare to rid the land of bombs.

FUNDS NEEDED

Yearly, UXO Lao needs about 5 million dollars to perform its clearing operations and this is not an easy challenge to take up. The biggest donors to the UXO Lao programme are Japan and Germany – previously heavily bombed countries themselves.

Japan donated 1.4 million dollars this year and recently donated 132 metal detectors for three Lao provinces. Germany is now funding operations in Luang Prabang area.

From the 17 donor countries that helped start the programme, only eight or nine donors are left. Apart from the some U.N. agencies, other governmental donors include Britain, the United States, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg and Norway.

“We’re also talking with China for a additional donations. They donated infrastructure, vehicles and motorcycles. India is providing training and equipment, while Singapore takes care of the training of the staff,” says Faigmane. He adds that they’re now testing a UXO detector from Australia that can detect bombies on site.

SLOW WORK

“It would be easier if Laos were just flat land, but it’s not. We have to contend with the country’s uneven terrain and hilly landscape, which slows down the pace of clearing operations. Bombies have been found everywhere – in rice fields, under rocks and trees, among bushes,” Faigmane explains.

Depending on the terrain, a parcel of land will be cleared of metal in a week or two. But the process is slow and tedious. UXO Lao members usually start work at 8 a.m. and end at 3 p.m., clearing an
average of 20 sq ms of land per day.

Deminers, mostly Lao nationals in their teens to late 20s, are paid 120 dollars a month and are trained for four months in the capital, Vientiane, before starting work on UXO. Ten percent of deminers are women. In fact, UXO Lao’s explosive ordnance supervisor is a woman, a Lao specialist in detonating bombs.

The sight of some 60 bombies, which Houmphanh Chanthavong, Luang Prabang provincial coordinator for UXO Lao, says were ready to be detonated in a 25 sq m cleared area in Pha Tiung village, brings the point home. The metal balls were covered in mind, having been taken from under the roots of trees, half-exposed on the ground. Others liked like ordinary rocks, except that they have strange patterns.

Added Faigmane: “The rustier they get, the more dangerous they bcome. And the more rain, the faster they become rusty.” (END/IPSAP/IOM/0406)