Almost 1,000 participants in the First Meeting of States Party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions to be held in Vientiane from November 9-12 will undertake a field trip to Xieng Khuang province prior to attending the meeting to witness firsthand the devastation unexploded ordnance (UXO) continues to wreak on the people of Laos.
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Thousands of tonnes of unexploded munitions remain buried throughout Laos, hindering development and threatening lives. | UXo poses a particular threat to inquisitive children. |
Delegates will visit UXO clearance sites and communities living with the daily threat of unexploded cluster munitions and other bombs in the province.
Xieng Khuang is one of 14 provinces in Laos heavily bombed by American aircraft during the Indochina war from 1964 to 1973.
The field trip is being organised by the National Regulatory Authority for the UXO/Mine Action Sector in Lao PDR (NRA) in the hope of bringing home to delegates exactly how much misery UXO continues to inflict on the lives of Lao people more than three decades after the war finished.
“They will see unexploded bombs and many groups of sub-cluster munitions, which the locals call bombies, scattered around villages and throughout rice fields,” NRA public relations officer Mr Bounpheng Sisawath told Vientiane Times .
He said guests would also visit UXO-contaminated rice fields where villagers grow rice so they can simply survive.
“These farmers are very afraid devices will explode while they are planting rice in their fields, but they can't stop because then they would have nothing to eat. Rice is the most important daily food for Lao people, especially sticky rice,” he said.
To meet increasing demand for agricultural land to feed a growing population, farmers throughout the country clear more and more fields to plant crops every year; and every year hundreds of them are killed or injured by UXO in the process, he pointed out.
“We can say that most people in Xieng Khuang province support themselves by growing rice and the majority of them do so on UXO contaminated land,” Mr Bounpheng said.
Xieng Khuang is the second most UXO contaminated province in Laos after Savannakhet, he said.
During the field trip, delegates will also watch clearance teams from the Lao National UXO programme (UXO Lao) at work destroying bombs they have removed from the ground.
Homes, guesthouses, hotels, tourism sites and offices in Xieng Khuang are renowned for prominently displaying defused UXO items. Many local residents put old devices to practical use, using them for fences through to barbeques.
Phonsavanh, the capital of Xieng Khuang province, is home to broad avenues and pleasant views. Over the past decade, it has become more developed with hotels and guesthouses crowding the streets.
The government is now spe nding several billion kip on installing streetlights and improving the roads. The town is now no longer dark at night, Deputy Head of the provincial Office Mr Damdouan Phimmanythong said.
However, Xieng Khuang province lags behind in its development, largely because it suffers from a very high level of UXO contamination, Mr Damdouan said.
Many domestic and foreign investors want to invest in the province, but they need the provincial authorities to clear UXO for them so they can build factories. However, the province simply does not have the budget to clear all the buried munitions.
From 1964 to 1973, over 2 million tonnes of ordnance was dropped on the country by US warplanes, including around 288 million cluster munitions. About 75 million unexploded bombs were left across Laos after the Indochina war ended.
The majority of bombs used were sub-cluster munitions. As a result of the war, Laos is the most heavily bombed country per capita in the world.
Thousands of tonnes of unexploded munitions remain buried throughout Laos, hindering development and threatening lives.
By Khonesavanh Latsaphao
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