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Thirty Years on, US Bombs Still Killing in Laos |
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| LAOS: December 2, 2005 | ||
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VIENTIANE - Three decades after the final act of the Vietnam War, Laos, the conflict's secret and illegal theatre, remains littered with millions of unexploded US bombs, which kill or maim at least 200 people a year.
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In all, an estimated 2 million tonnes of munitions were dropped on Laos, a landlocked jungle-clad country of 5 million people which still has the dubious honour of being the most bombed country per capita in the world. Of that 2 million tonnes, around 30 percent did not detonate, say Lao bomb disposal experts responsible for cleaning up the horrific harvest of unexploded ordnance, or UXO as it is called. "It will take a very long time, many, many years to clear all the UXO from Laos," Bounpone Sayasenh, UXO Lao director, said on Thursday, eve of the 30th anniversary of the communist revolution which was arguably the final act of the Vietnam War. Even the destructive heat and humidity of the Lao jungle, where North Vietnam ferried men and material along the Ho Chi Minh trail during the "American War", as it is known locally, has failed to breakdown the ordnance. "In maybe 50 or 100 years, it will still be active because with some kinds of UXO, the shell disappears but the explosive is still active," said Bounpone, who has seen three members of staff killed in accidents over the last nine years. The munitions come in all shapes and sizes, ranging from mortars to phosphorous rockets to 3,000-lb bombs dropped from high in the sky by B-52s. Of particular concern are the "bombies" - the lethal baseball-sized bomblets scattered by cluster munitions all along the Ho Chi Minh trail. "Children don't know about UXO," Bounpone told Reuters, casually juggling a bombie in his office in the capital, Vientiane. "If they go into the forest and see a bombie like this, they often think it's a toy, and start playing with it or throwing it between them. But if one of them drops it, it will explode."
In nine years, UXO Lao has found and destroyed 600,000 munitions, but with poverty driving many villagers to see UXO as a precious source of scrap metal and with donor funding tight, it is an uphill battle, Bounpone said. In the last few years, as the scrap metal industry has spread, annual casualty figures have started to creep up, and are probably well over the official average of 200 as these are only the incidents the government hears about, he said. The United States has donated more than $3 million to UXO Lao in the last nine years, as well as "in kind" assistance with training and equipment, according to its 2005 working report. But Bounpone thinks Washington should be picking up more of his organisation's $5 million annual tab. "We need more support from the US government. They provide a contribution to UXO Lao, but it is not enough," he said.
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Story by Ed Cropley
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REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
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