`War Scrap Is A Resource Like Wood Or Bamboo'

Dao is an unlikely risk-taker. The faded blue civil servant's uniform he has worn all his life is testament to a nature that chooses obedience over peril. As he stands, head bowed, in a large scrap metal yard on the outskirts of Ponsavan, in northern Laos, he fails to respond when a drunken man berates him for wearing his uniform while trading in bomb scrap. "You should not be talking to outsiders wearing that uniform. You are a disgrace," shouts the red-eyed drunk. Dao allows the man to continue his tirade, hoping to be out of the yard as soon as possible. As he plonks down his less than full sack, gathered from a crater high in the hills above his village over a weekend, two six-year-old girls take turns jumping on and off a large bomb five metres away.

"We are not scared, we know what's safe and unsafe," Dao tells me. "The children, well they pick up anything, but we know the difference between scrap and unexploded ordnance."

After a week's badly paid grind, this is Dao's out-of-office pursuit to make ends meet. He and his wife have not, so far, been able to save enough to buy one of the Vietnamese $12 metal detectors flooding the market, but this is the next task, once he has retired. He is planning to give up his job at the end of the month to look for bomb scrap full time.

Dao waits as Nam, the yard owner, places the sack on rusty scales. Nam doesn't look inside the bag, weighs it before flinging it atop a pile of shrapnel, artillery shells, mortars and cluster bombs. "We have had no accidents here," says Nam. "I don't accept UXO [unexploded ordnance]." A quick look around his yard reveals dozens of live bombs. "As for accidents among the bomb hunters, there are a lot. Some get killed in the jungle when they're digging for scrap. When they come across bomblets, they sometimes try to remove them from the ground and take out the explosive. But they need the income, that's why they do it."

Laos has been the most heavily bombed nation in the history of the world and foraging for bomb scrap metal, dangerous as it is, is familiar all over the country. Laos is extremely under-developed, and is only now emerging from political isolation which followed many years of power struggles. During the US "secret war" from 1964-1973, its military dropped more than 2.4m tons of bombs on Laos, including around 270m cluster bombs, more tonnage than was dropped on Germany and Japan combined during the second world war.

The aim was to stop the growing communist movement in Laos and destroy the North Vietnamese army's Ho Chi Minh trail, which ran through Laos and transported troops and supplies from North to South Vietnam. As much as 30% of that ordnance did not explode. Many areas are littered with scrap: bomb casings, bomblets (or "bombies"), pieces of aircraft, metal fragments, and intact unexploded ordnance (UXO).

The war was conducted covertly, and the United States called Laos "the Other Theatre". As journalist Christopher Robbins wrote: "There was another war even nastier than the one in Vietnam, and so secret that the location of the country in which it was being fought was classified" (1). Due to the secrecy, US pilots were advised they could ignore the rules of engagement, which had to be kept in Vietnam and Cambodia. Bombers were free to bomb whatever they liked: temples, hospitals, schools, villages (2).

Laos was also used as a dumping ground for US pilots returning to base in Thailand from raids in Vietnam, who were ordered to return with no bombs on board. As one ex-US pilot said: "Every day you flew a certain number of missions, and you flew those missions regardless of whether there were any targets available or not. So what you're doing is simply decimating any area with human beings in it" (3).

Around a third of the population of Laos was killed, injured or made homeless by the air war. "Cluster bombs were the weapon of choice," says Edwin Faigmane, on secondment from the UN Development Programme to the government-run, unexploded ordnance disposal organisation UXO-Lao. "The US dropped an estimated 270m sub-munitions. Tens of millions failed to explode and go on killing people today."

Cluster munitions have a dispenser or container that holds the sub-munitions, known in Laos as "bombies". The containers open over a target and the unguided sub-munitions are designed to spread over a large area. When they fail to detonate, they become anti-personnel landmines. The primary victims are civilians (4), often children, who mistake them for toys.

"These bomblets are the size of a soft drink can or tennis ball and spread hundreds of metal fragments that tear apart flesh and sever limbs," says Thomas Nash of the Cluster Munition Coalition, an umbrella organisation for anti-cluster munitions charities. "As if that weren't bad enough, cluster bombs consistently leave deadly duds on the battlefield that act like landmines. This problem not only affects lives but also shatters livelihoods because the unexploded cluster bombs make it dangerous or impossible to use land."

Cluster bombs have been used in at least 23 countries and were most recently deployed by the Israelis in Lebanon in 2006. Figures from the charity Landmine Action estimate that in 2003, Britain and the US used around 13,000 cluster munitions, containing 1.8m to 2m sub-munitions.

"In all of these countries they continue to cause problems for civilians post conflict," says Andrew Wells-Dang, a researcher on the legacies of war in Southeast Asia. "Incidents involving UXO frequently claim multiple victims. Shrapnel may be scattered over a wide area, and cause upper-body injuries, burns, and/or blindness to survivors, a profile divergent from the single-victim, lower-limb amputation consequences of many mine explosions. The pieces of UXO are not laid in minefields but can be found randomly. With no alternative, people continue to plant in UXO-contaminated fields, hunt and gather in contaminated forests, and live in contaminated villages" (5).

According to UXO-Lao, since data recording began in 1996, only about 364,000 sub-munitions have been cleared in Laos. Yet 4,837 people are reported to have been killed or injured by cluster munitions, many of them decades after the war's end. Many others have been killed or maimed without report.

"It happened just after five in the afternoon," says Viengkeo Kavongsone, speaking of the event which shattered his world four days earlier. He stands by the beds of his two oldest children in Ponsavan hospital in Xieng Khouang province, northern Laos. "They were digging a drainage ditch, with their mother, behind our house." His wife lies in a bed in an adjacent ward, too shocked to talk, her body covered in small black wounds. "The force of the blast from the bombie threw our little boy, Bounma, right out of the ditch. He died instantly."

Six-year-old Phetsida looks on silently. Her upper body, like her mother's, is peppered with black shrapnel wounds. Nine-year-old Soulideth lies motionless on his bed in the same ward. "He was hit in the face and has vision problems," says Viengko. "We hope he will not go blind."

During the war Xieng Khouang was strategically important because it controlled the roads from Luang Prabang, where the royalist government was, to the capital Vientiane. This was also where the Vietnamese could support the Pathet Lao, a communist, nationalist political movement. Many of the wartime activities concentrated around the Plain of Jars, believed to be an ancient burial site, high in the mountains in Xieng Khuang province. Opposing forces battled for control of the plain, the surrounding mountains, and transit routes. Military camps and airbases were often located on strategic mountains and hills, to control the surrounding areas. Most villages reported moderate to severe military activities near their villages during the war (6).

Edwin Faigmane from UXO-Lao says there are not enough resources in Laos to clear everywhere. More than a third of Laos is affected. The most common type of UXO are anti-personnel BLUs (cluster bomb sub-munitions), followed by mortars and projectiles. Unlike other affected provinces, Xieng Khouang has UXO in many locations, including village centres, grazing lands and lowland rice fields.

"Our number of donors is declining," says Faigmane. "And the amount of support they're giving is declining. Clearance only started in 1996. Before that, it was the army, with the help of the Russians and the Vietnamese, trying to clear roads. We could double the work force and the amount of clearance if we got double the money. We get clearance requests for 500-600 hectares just in Xieng Khouang alone, but we're only able to accommodate 400 hectares. And the Laos government has other priorities that need more attention, such as health, education, public infrastructure, and while they recognise that UXO clearance is necessary, they have to focus on this first."

The problem has been worsened by the flourishing trade in scrap metal which encourages villagers to scavenge what they can from the countryside. Explosives have become part of everyday life and, since the end of the conflict, local populations have exploited the commercial value of the metal, from vehicles and bullet casings to large unexploded bombs. Villagers sell what they find to dealers, who buy scrap for $1.50 a kilo and explosives for $2.50 a kilo. Dealers sell it to smelters who melt down and recast the scrap.

"War scrap has become a resource to be harvested like wood or bamboo," says Tom Morgan from the Mines Advisory Group, a humanitarian organisation that clears mines. "The sheer quality of metal in the ground, combined with high levels of poverty, has led to a thriving trade. Almost everything can be used in some way. Part of the problem is that people don't see unexploded ordnance as particularly dangerous. It's been here for more than 30 years. It's all around them and it's a resource that people will use, as stilts for their houses, to grow vegetables in as planters. They'll fashion pots and pans, cutlery and watering cans. In rural areas, UXO will be used for everything."

Richard Moyes from the CMC describes scrap foraging as self-exploitation (7), where the risk of engagement with ordnance and the value realised are balanced against the "availability, drudgery and output of other possible activities". Moyes says the trade has one of the most pervasive and broadest-based economic structures in the country. "In countries worst affected by cluster bombs, selling scrap metal has become one of few ways to survive. Although clearance efforts have been ongoing for more than 10 years, accident levels are rising among the rural population because of changes in the price of scrap metal."

From 2004 the number of casualties from unexploded ordnance has risen, because the scrap trade has expanded with the influx of cheap Vietnamese metal detectors; some 30% to 80% of UXO casualties result from "tampering".

Leng is 25 and was blinded in an explosion while collecting scrap with Ten, 15, and Talay, 30. They were trying to chisel out the tail fuse on a 250 lb bomb. "Talay and Ten were trying to take the fuse off a large bomb and it blew up. I was a bit further away so I am alive. Ten told me he was going to die and that I should try and get back here if I could. Talay didn't say anything. I think he was already dead" (8). The bodies of Talay and Ten were buried by their families, with their metal detectors.

Andrew Wells-Dang believes that the tampering is increasing because "demand for metal and explosives in the construction, mining and timber industries" has raised their price to new highs. New roads provide easy access to heavily contaminated areas that have not been populated or exploited since the war. The actual numbers may be even higher, as many survey respondents give unconvincing answers which may be cover stories for tampering. Scrap collecting is not illegal but handling explosives is, and survivors may fear that they will not get help if they admit to handling live ordnance.

Phil Bean, operations technical adviser from the Mines National Regulatory Authority in Laos, says UXOs are just another commonplace problem in the villages: "A little bit like the wet season or the dry season, like malaria or common colds. This is just the way it is because there are not enough resources to deal with the issue. So people cope on their own when they come across UXO in their farming, their forestry and their routine ways of life. And that's sometimes why things are not always reported because it's normal to have to deal with these UXO themselves. Some 30 years after the bombing stopped, this is a tragedy."

Wells-Dang says that international donor funding has been spread unevenly. "Cambodia has received an average of $20m per year over the last five years, roughly $2 per capita. Laos has received $5m annually, around $1 per capita. Vietnam has averaged $5-10m, about $0.10 per capita. This discrepancy appears likely to continue."

Although there is no question as to where the moral responsibility lies for clearance, Jung Katalansi from the Laos foreign ministry says that the US government has been reluctant to take an active role in UXO clearance. "Unlike in Vietnam, we are suffering double ignorance from the world community," he says. One reason is that the war was always secret and without casualty records on either side, or even bombing mission records. And "we are suffering from indifference because of governmental inability to take responsibility. Only in 2000 did the US government begin to join UXO clearance activities. We hope they will increase these activities. They are aware that with the limited capacity we can mobilise, it will take a hundred plus years to clear the land. With the technology they have they are in the best possible position to help us."   ________________________________________________________

Angela Robson is a writer and journalist for BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service. Her documentary on Laos, `Bomb hunters', will be broadcast on the BBC World Service on 13 June 2008 and available online from that date at www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice . An interview with Angela Robson will be published on LMD's website www.mondediplo.com from 13 June

(1) Christopher Robbins, Air America: The Story of the CIA's Secret Airlines, Corgi, 1988.

(2) Mines Advisory group (MAG).

(3) Mines Advisory group (MAG).

(4) National Regulatory Authority, UXO/Mine Action Sector Lao PDR.

(5) Andrew Wells-Dang, "A Regional Approach: Mine and UXO Risk Reduction in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia", Journal of Mine Action, Virginia, US, 7 March 2006.

(6) Lao National Unexploded Ordnance Programme (UXO Lao).

(7) Richard Moyes, "Tampering: deliberate handling and use of live ordnance in Cambodia", Cluster Munitions Coalition. London, August 2004.

(8) "High risk trade", story and photography by Sean Sutton, MAG.

Original text in English