The Bomb Busters

Bombs, landmines and other ordnance destroyed in controlled blast

Vientiane, Laos --- Laos has the unwanted distinction of being the most heavily bombed nation per capita in the world. This occurred between 1964 and 1973 when the United States flew more than half a million bombing missions over Laos, dropping more than two million tons of various types of bombs.

This was part of a “secret war,” an attempt to block the flow of North Vietnamese arms and troops on the Ho Chi Minh trail through Laotian territory to South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. The ordnance dropped included more than 270 million sub-munitions known as bomblets (called “bombies” in Laos), which are released from larger cluster bombs.

Major land battles, including those in the war for independence during the French colonial era and between the Pathet Lao and the Royal Lao forces, also left vast quantities of unexploded heavy bombs, rockets, grenades, artillery munitions, mortars, anti-personnel landmines, and improvised explosive devices scattered across the country, according to the Laotian government.

A poster in Laotian warning about the danger of cluster bombs

Officials estimate that up to 30% of all bombs did not explode. Such unexploded ordnance (UXO) remains in or on the ground, continuing to maim or kill people and hinder the country’s socioeconomic development and its food security.

It is estimated that only 446,711 unexploded sub-munitions were destroyed in Laos from 1996 to May 2010—a mere 0.55% of the total littering the landscape.

Since 2005, the Japan Mine Action Service (JMAS), a Japanese non-profit organization engaged in removing landmines and UXO around the world, has been helping the Democratic People’s Republic of Laos deal with its unexploded ordnance problem. JMAS works closely with its partner the Lao National Unexploded Ordnance Programme (UXO Lao), providing technical advice.

JMAS has received funding from the Japanese government and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) that is then directed toward providing the Laotian government’s UXO clearance projects in Xieng Khuang and Attapue Provinces with financial, technical, administrative assistance and raising community awareness. Contributions from the Nippon Foundation for these projects are channeled through ASEAN.

JMAS and Lao UXO clearance team examining an unexploded bomb

According to Yue Hamagishi, chief of administration and finance at the JMAS Vientiane office, JMAS is setting up a training facility this year in Attapue Province with Lao UXO to provide technical assistance training to experienced Laotians, who will themselves then train local people on how to clear mines and other ordnance in the province.

The JMAS experts are able to pass on to their Lao UXO counterparts an abundance of technical expertise gained through work on UXO clearance projects in Cambodia, Afghanistan, and Angola. In Japan, too, unexploded ordnance is still found in Okinawa, and recently a WWII bomb had to be defused in Osaka, as Yamagishi points out. “The goal for the JMAS is to train Laotian experts in the latest methods on handling UXO,” she says, “thereby gradually decreasing the need for Japanese assistance.”

Yue Hamagishi, JMAS Chief of Administration and Finance, in Laos

The Laotian government points out that unexploded ordnance is a major problem, contributing to poverty in Laos and impeding its socioeconomic development. It is estimated that 10 of the country’s 17 provinces are “severely contaminated” by UXO. A 2002 study conducted by the Japan International Cooperation Agency estimated that 236.8 km² of potential agricultural land was contaminated by UXO.

As a result of UXO contamination, according to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), “economic opportunities in tourism, hydroelectric power, mining, forestry and many other areas of activity considered the main engines of growth for Laos are restricted, complicated, and made more expensive.”

UXO come in different shapes and sizes

The human cost also continues to be high. More than 50,000 people were killed or injured by UXO in Laos from 1964 to 2010. The victims in villages, almost 50% of whom are children, have lost their lives or limbs because of UXO when farming or simply walking through their fields.

Bombs often explode when villagers clear land for farming or try to collect the metal in a bomb for scrap. The government, with the help of UXO clearance organizations, is trying to reduce the number of victims to less than 300 people a year and to provide better access to medical treatment. Unfortunately, children are often seriously injured or killed when they mistake UXO for toys.

JMAS states that its mission is to help create an environment in which people can attain better living conditions by reducing poverty and increasing physical safety, improving livelihoods and food security, and enhancing environmental sustainability.

UXO found alongside a road

Cluster bomb loaded with “bombies”

“Bombies”

The average Laotian still considers such things as unexploded cluster bombs and other UXO a part of everyday life because they are so pervasive throughout the country. That’s why people have even given the almost friendly name “bombies” to the individual bomblets from the cluster bombs that appear everywhere.

Although much more expertise in tracking down and destroying the UXO would be useful, the Laotian government has until recently refused American help because the United States was the country that dropped the majority of the bombs in the first place.

JMAS has been responsible for clearing about 60% of the UXO found in Laos since its aid program began in 2005, but this barely even begins to solve the problem. Some experts estimate that it could take hundreds if not a thousand years to dispose of all the UXO in Laos.

A bomb discovered on a construction site

Laotians, like these smiling Buddhist monks in Vientiane, get on with their lives despite the challenges of the UXO problem

In the face of this tremendous challenge, JMAS is resolutely training Laotians to search for and eliminate UXO, especially in those areas of the country most heavily contaminated. The trainees include many women because, as the trainers point out, they tend to approach the task in an extremely meticulous and diligent manner.

Whether men or women, though, the trainees will need to acquire as many skills as possible from the JMAS trainers. This is because among the millions of UXO buried somewhere in the picturesque Laotian countryside there is a bewildering array of ordinance types, used by more than half a dozen different armies. They vary in size, some have unusual fuses, and still others are white phosphorous bombs—not to mention the innumerable “bombies.”

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