Sunday, November 14, 2010

Int'l delegates witness hazards of UXO


Their Royal Highnesses, Princess Astrid and Prince Lorenz of Belgium, were among delegates attending the ongoing cluster munitions meeting in Vientiane who visited Xieng Khuang province yesterday to witness the detonation of unexploded ordnance (UXO). 

Delegates visit a UXO clearance site in Tontay village.
The members of the royal family visited a UXO clearance site in Tontay village, Paek district. 

“Both the princess and prince were invited to press a switch to detonate UXO devices during a demonstration in the field,” Xieng Khuang provincial Coordinator for the National UXO Programme (UXO Lao) Mr Kingphet Phimmavong said. 

Delegates were divided into two teams to undertake the field trip to Xieng Khuang province, either on Monday and Wednesday. The visits were arranged as part of the First Meeting of States Party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions taking place from November 9-12. 

On Monday, over 280 delegates visited Xieng Khuang to watch clearance teams from UXO Lao detonate about 262 items in fields, villages and schools. 

Delegates were divided to visit clearance sites in Kangyao, Nasom and Tontay villages.
Yesterday, more than 130 delegates visited two UXO clearance sites in Tontay village. About 131 bombs, mostly cluster sub-munitions known locally as bombies, were detonated in front of the visitors. 

Before the detonation, delegates watched on as clearance teams demonstrated how local farmers would typically clear the land to plant crops. 

The rice fields of Tontay village, just 12 kilometres from the provincial capital, are littered with unexploded cluster munitions and other types of bombs. 

Prior to returning to Vientiane, delegates also visited the province's Plain of Jars and a UXO exhibition at Xieng Khuang Airport. 

Rice is the daily food of the Lao people, with most eating sticky rice. This means that every growing season rice fields throughout the country are cleared for new crops. 

In rural areas, farmers cut down trees and shrubs in rice-growing areas, and then burn a ny remaining stubble.
For 35 years, the bombs have been a daily hazard in the lives of the people of Thontay village, said Mr Kingphet. 

“At the end of September we started to clear UXO in the rice fields here and found a lot of unexploded devices, especially cluster sub-munitions,” he said. 

The village has over 15 hectares of rice fields which the team is now clearing. So far it has cleared about two hectares. 

“We have found 116 UXO devices so far, of which 91 were cluster sub-munitions,” he explained.
UXO continues to kill and maim people in Xieng Khuang province ever year, with an average of about 50 people injured annually, about 40 percent of them children. 

Xieng Khuang is the second most UXO contaminated province in Laos, after Savannakhet; however, Xieng Khuang contains the most cluster sub-munitions, UXO Lao Director Mr Bounpone Sayasenh said yesterday. 

UXO Lao continues to clear bombs in the provinces of Luang Prabang, Huaphan, Xieng Khuang, Khammuan, Savannakhet, Saravan, Xekong, Champassak and Attapeu. “We hope that after the meeting in Vientiane international donors will provide more support for Laos to clear land and help victims,” Mr Bounpone said. 

Over 18,800 hectares of farming and other land has been cleared by UXO Lao since it was established in 1996.

By Khonesavanh Latsaphao

Friday, November 12, 2010

UXO clearance promotes development

Nearly a decade and a half after the end of the war, Laos is still working hard to clear its land of unexploded ordinance (UXO), reflecting the dedication of the government to its humanitarian goals and the alleviation of poverty. 

A UXO worker clears remnants 
of a bomb from a rice field in Laos
The Lao National UXO programme (UXO Lao) of the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare conducts five different types of clearance operations: roving clearance, surface area clearance, shallow area clearance, deep area clearance and deep search. 

All serve the purpose of clearing the land of UXO so that the local people of the poorer villages might use it for agriculture. According to the National Regulatory Authority UXO/Mine Action Sector in Laos (NRA), 41 of the 47 poorest districts nationwide are still contaminated with UXO. 


Laos' UXO clearance teams focus on public land and buildings such as schools, markets and health care centres. In addition it also removes sub-surface explosives from sites where government development projects have been proposed, such as roads and irrigation canals. 

The public relations officer of the NRA, Mr Bounpheng Sisawath, said that when people see UXO items in the rice fields of nearby villages, they can tell UXO Lao to come and clear it. 

Roving clearance tends to UXO that has been sighted in a particular area, and therefore reduces the risks to people living in the contaminated areas, he told Vientiane Times

“The teams respond to emergency calls from local people. This is what happens when daily life is affected by the presence of UXO and there is an immediate threat to people and their property,” he explained. 

“They react to situations in which people have already found UXO and marked it, and when the explosives are seen above ground in fields or villages. Some of the operations are planned by UXO Lao, following community visits,” said Mr Bounpheng. 

The surveying department of UXO Lao is responsible for the data collection that enables the team to establish which areas need priority clearance. 

The members of the survey team use a combination of GPS units and hand drawn maps to pin point the exact location of the UXO. The teams always work in pairs and often travel to remote areas on off-road motorbikes. 

“Their communication with the villagers is invaluable to the process of identifying the areas of contamination,” he said.
He also added that the surveys are an integral part of the clearance operation as they provide the office with the information they need to prioritise certain areas and plan the clearance efforts. 

“The surveys provide important data for the roving team to plan what equipment and resources they will need to complete their work quickly and efficiently,” he said. 

A 2008 evaluation of the UXO sector showed that priority agricultural land could be cleared within 16 years at the present rate of clearance. With additional resources that could be reduced to 10 years. 

From 1996-2009, more than 1 million items of UXO were destroyed, including big bombs, cluster sub-munitions, mines and other UXO fragments. The NRA also reported that during the same period over 23,000 hectares of land was cleared for agricultural use and development. 

From 1964 to 1973, over 2 million tonnes of ordnance was dropped on the country by US warplanes, made up of 18 different types of bombs and including around 288 million cluster munitions. About 75 million unexploded bombs were left across Laos after the war ended. 

Laos is the most heavily bombed country per capita in the world. The bombs that were used were sub-cluster munitions, know to the local people as ‘bombies'.
 By Khonesavanh Latsaphao
Vientiane Times, 2010