Unexploded Ordnances: Laos' Explosive Problem

By: Sam Rhodehamel

Every day in Laos at least one person is killed or crippled forever by an unexploded ordnance, a large majority being children. An unexploded ordnance or UXO is any kind of explosive weapon that did not detonate during its original deployment. They pose a high risk of detonation for many decades after they are used or discarded.

In Laos during the Vietnam War, there was one bombing mission every eight minutes 24 hours a day for nine years.

To this day Laos is still the most heavily bombed country per capita in the entire world.

Throughout the war there were 580,000 bombing missions in Laos with up to 30% of the bombs dropped failing to detonate. Although Laos was of neutral status during the war between the US and Vietnam, the Vietnamese were running a supply route through the eastern border of Laos, which lead to bombing missions within the country’s frontier to block Vietnamese movement on the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

The bombings were also part of what is known as the United States Secret War in Laos, a CIA campaign to support the Royal Lao Government against Pathet Lao, a communist political party. At the time, the United States denied involvement of its combat operations within Laos.

During one of his speeches in the 60s, former President John F. Kennedy spoke about the dangers of communism in Asia. In his statement, in which he pronounced the country’s name wrong, JFK stated, “All we want in Laos is peace, not war.” In the years following that speech, at the hands of the United States, Laos became the most intensely bombed region on the planet.

Between 1964 and 1973 more than two million tons of ordnances and more than 270 million bombs were dropped on Laos, with an estimated 80 million failing to explode.

Most of those killed or injured by these UXO blasts are simply unlucky enough to have accidentally stepped on a buried ordnance. Farmers in Laos work everyday with the risk of being killed simply by stepping in the wrong place. These risks apply to all those who live in Laos; accidentally stepping on the wrong place can take your life. Victims lose their arms, legs, eyesight, and a lot of the time their lives. Along with physical injuries, victims are often shunned by their families and villages, outcasts seen as ‘bad luck’.

One of the reasons children are so highly affected by the UXO problem is because of cluster ammunitions, small round ordnances also known as ‘bombies’. These often brightly colored metal spheres lure children in, appearing to be a ball or toy of some sort. Unfortunately they are quite the opposite. Once disturbed these bombs wreak havoc on those who are unfortunate enough to find them.

This is why educating children, especially those in more rural communities where these incidents are more common, is very important and so is working towards removal of these metal menaces. The National Committee for Rural Development and Poverty Education has been spearheading this effort.

This past September President Barack Obama made history as the first U.S. president to visit Laos.

During his visit, Obama pledged $90 million to aid the removal of unexploded ordnances. He acknowledged the devastation the United States left behind from their covert bombing campaigns between 1964 to 1973 saying, “Given our history here, I believe that the United States has a moral obligation to help Laos heal.”