I used to dream of being a doctor. Now I can t even get a job, says Bounmy, now 28, who was a top student in his school.

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1 LIVING WITH BOMBS By CHIN MUI YOON 30/11/2008 The Vietnam War ended 30 years ago and the country has moved on. Ironically, it is neighbouring Laos that continues to suffer the consequences of that long conflict as millions of live munitions remain on its soil. ON March 13, 1996, teenager Bounmy Vijaek was digging a fishpond in his garden when he struck a metallic object. An explosion took off his arm and fast flying shrapnel sliced his body. He had hit a cluster bomb. I used to dream of being a doctor. Now I can t even get a job, says Bounmy, now 28, who was a top student in his school. Stories like Bounmy s abound in Laos, especially in the northeastern province of Xieng Khoung. A 19-year-old lost his left hand while hunting for crickets in a ditch. A 12-year-old boy becomes a paraplegic while helping his mother in a cornfield. In 1998, seven children were killed instantly in Namsai Village when they tried to pry apart a tennis ball-like cluster bomb. They are all casualties of a forgotten war that ended 33 years ago, even before they were born. While the world s attention was focused on the war in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s, the US Government was secretly conducting widespread aerial

2 bombing missions across Laos to destroy supply lines of the communist Vietnamese army, on the Ho Chi Minh Trail across the border. Both America and Vietnam had contravened Laos neutrality status under the Geneva Convention. Elderly Laotian folks still recall the terror of American B52 bombers over their night skies from 1964 to Cluster bombs literally rained down on them. During those nine years, the US air force dropped two million tons of explosive ordnance on Laos in what was to become America s most expensive military venture costing US$2mil a day. An estimated one ton of bombs was dropped every eight minutes. More bombs were dropped in Laos than over Germany and Japan combined during World War II. Bombs in the backyard The end of the war did not end the terror for the Laotians. Rather, it was the beginning of an endless nightmare. Some 30%, or 80 million, of an estimated 260 million submunitions that were packed inside larger bombs, like peas in a pod, failed to detonate upon impact because of the country s muddy terrain and remain buried in the land. These bomblets, nicknamed bombies are volatile, unpredictable and kill indiscriminately. Each fist-sized metal ball is packed with 100gm of high explosives and an intricately engineered arming device that can go off with a touch, or not, for years. While awareness programmes have started since the 1990s on the dangers of unexploded ordnance or UXO, accidents continue as the bombs are simply everywhere. Muddy and rusty, they look innocent. Children are the most exposed. Their curiosity compels them to pick up and examine what appear as soft drink cans, oranges or battery packs. Over the last 30 years, the people have to literally live with bombs in their backyards. They are also underneath their homes, or in ditches, fields, forests and bushes lying in wait for people like Bounmy. They have been found in the middle of 948 villages. Over 200 bomblets were unearthed in school compounds.

3 The bombs have claimed at least 14,000 lives and take hundreds of new victims each year, half of them children. Parts of Laos remain inaccessible in this primitive, landlocked country with 5.8 million people. Although Laos has fertile lands for agriculture, 40% of its population is malnourished because the contaminated lands are too dangerous to be farmed. The 80% of Laotians living in rural areas are simple farming folk. They have had no choice but to attempt to clear the bombs littering their land. Some farmers have carried over 30 bomblets into pits safely. But in many cases, there were tragic results. Ye Le, a soft-spoken H mong farmer from the remote Yod Phe Village lost both legs in August while tilling his rice field. I have five small children to feed and my wife is six months pregnant. She cannot work the field. My parents are old. Who will care for them? I need artificial legs or I will kill myself, Ye says, his distressed brown eyes swelling with tears. Disposing 80 million live bombs scattered throughout Laos is an overwhelming task. In 1995, the first foreign NGOs entered Laos to start systematic clearing programmes and in 1996, the UN-supported government agency, UXO Lao, began. Every day, young Laotians run metal detectors across every square metre of ground marked out. Progress has been painfully slow and costly. As Asia prospers economically, Laos languishes as the region s poorest country, classified by the United Nations as a least developed country. Its currency, the kip, has been devalued by 70% since While its neighbours flourish in trade and tourism (Vietnam s war tours are hugely profitable), Laos has fallen off the radar and has become dependent on foreign aid. The bombs have effectively denied Laotians their basic human rights to health, safety and shelter. A future denied Thousands of desperately poor survivors cannot afford the US$50 for prosthetics limbs.

4 At the Xieng Khoung-Mongolia Friendship Hospital, Dr Bouavanh Outhachaek, 49, explains that patients often awake to a traumatic reality of having amputated arms or legs. Many become suicidal. Other common UXO injuries are affected motor movements, ruptured eardrums, blindness from fragmentation or from the blast, burns, puncture wounds and lacerations. May and June are the deadliest months, as farmers plough their land to prepare it for planting, she says. Victims often need a lifetime of assistance. Some are psychologically scarred. NGOs like World Education and UXO Lao routinely conduct awareness programmes in community halls and schools. We start educating children from a young age with lessons applying to their daily lives, says World Education s Barbara Lewis. We hope awareness can reduce casualties. At the Viengthong School one morning, a puppet show of children safely hunting for frogs and crickets, staples in the Laotian diet, is in progress. Drawing is a helpful tool. Instead of rainbows and animals, the children are busy drawing limbless figures. Amphai Phunmixay s drawing depicts her father whose left leg was blown off last year. I know I must tell my teacher when I see a bombie and not touch it or it will hurt me, she says. But sometimes, education is not enough in the face of poverty. Many risk life and limb to scavenge for steel fragments and even whole bombs to sell as scrap metal to unscrupulous dealers for US$1 to US$3 a kilo. It s good money in a country where the average daily income is US$2.

5 Laos is a vulnerable country, says David Robert Hayter, country programme manager of the British-based NGO Mines Advisory Group (MAG). Most farmers plant rice during the rainy season for one annual harvest. The rest of the time, they hunt for scrap metal to buy food for their families. A single big bomb can fetch hundreds. Never again? What was done to Laos should never be allowed to happen again. Which is why on Dec 3, 2008, over 100 nations will gather in Oslo, Norway, to sign a historic treaty banning cluster bombs. Dec 3 is chosen because it is also World Disability Day. The treaty is coordinated by the Cluster Munitions Coalition, which secured the 1997 Landmine Ban. The treaty is aimed at preventing the same catastrophe that befell Laos from happening in other countries in future conflicts, explains Steffan Kongstad from the Norwegian Foreign Affairs Ministry, which has led the way for the treaty. Cluster munitions are weapons that cause injustice, he says. It is irresponsible to use a weapon on civilians who cannot defend themselves against it. In Laos, that s been going on for 30 years. But will the treaty make any difference to survivors like Bounmy and Ye Le? And can it achieve its aim when America, Russia and China, which have the world s largest militaries, refuse to sign the treaty? Coalition co-chairman and New York-based Human Rights Watch director Steve Goose explains, The treaty is significant because it is indicative of a civil society that went beyond traditional diplomatic channels. The entire treaty is based on Human Rights and the Rights of Persons With Disabilities. Signatories are also obligated to help victims and support clearance efforts in affected countries, a lesson we learned during the 1997 Landmine Ban. Millions more to go Will Laos ever be free of bombs? Only 0.47% or 900,000 bombs (88,259 in 2007) have been recovered with millions more buried in Laos, as 10 of its 17 provinces remain heavily contaminated.

6 The clearance rate is slow and costly, says Hayter from MAG. We have 600 deminers working daily. We re uncertain if funds will be channelled to us next year. If we could have just US$700,000 to buy 100 more detectors, we can increase our output by 100%. John Dingley, the UNDP s senior technical advisor, says it will take up to 16 years just to clear high priority land for agriculture, schools, villages and irrigation. Laos hilly terrain compounds matters. The soil also has a high mineral content, which masks the presence of bombs, requiring more sophisticated detectors. Even on cleared lands, a perpetual danger exists for landowners who change their land use, as agricultural land is cleared only up to 25cm deep. Dingley, too, is concerned about limited funding. We don t have enough funding for 2009, he says. Funding cycles vary each year and donors do not offer multi-year funding so we cannot plan ahead. A 100% clearance rate is impossible, he adds. Nothing stays static as new villages are developed. People will always have to live with the risk. The United States has never acknowledged its role in Laos, which has today become an inconvenient consequence of an embarrassing war. UXO survivors like Bounmy are still waiting for the possibility of independence and security that have been denied to them as a legacy from a secret war they never played a part in.