VIENTIANE, LAOS: More than 200 people in Laos are killed, maimed or injured by unexploded ordnance (UXO) every year, and this fact was highlighted during International Day for Mine Awareness in Vientiane Monday (7 Apr).
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence Lieutenant General Duangchay Phichit opened the day's activities at the National Rehabilitation Centre, where UXO experts and victims spoke about the ongoing problem.
Lieutenant General Duangchay, who is also Chairman of the National Regulatory Authority for UXO/Mine Action of the Lao PDR, said April 4 was approved by the UN General Assembly in 2005 as International Day for Mine Awareness.
Laos was joining other countries around the world in observing the event for the third successive year, he said.
In his opening address, Lieutenant General Duangchay told the UN Resident Coordinator, mermbers of the diplomatic corps and donor agencies about 0.15 percent of the 87,231sq km of UXO contaminated land in Laos had been cleared in the past 11 years, but this needed to increase to avoid further long-term consequences.
"Our national development will be delayed. The country will not achieve its goal of graduating from its ‘least-developed' status by 2020," he said.
Laos is the most bombed country in the world per capita. From 1964 to 1973 more than 2 million tonnes of bombs were dropped on the country. Many of these bombs were cluster munitions that contained hundreds of sub-munitions, or bombies, and 30 percent failed to explode. Thousands remain in rice paddies and fields, around schools and markets and on roads, endangering the lives of men, women and children.
A national survey on the socio-economic effects of UXO conducted in 1996 indicated that 14 out of the country's 17 provinces are affected. About 25 percent of villages, or 87,231 sq km out of the total 236,800 sq km of land surface, are contaminated with UXO.
The government has prioritised the UXO issue and worked with domestic institutions and international organisations and governments to address the problem.
In 1995 the Lao government established the UXO Steering Committee and Trust Fund with support from the United Nations Development Programme, attracting support from the United Kingdom, Germany, Denmark, the USA, Norway, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Australia, Finland, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, Sweden, Republic of Korea, Ireland and international non-government organisations.
Between 1996 and 2007, 13,037 hectares were cleared. Of this, 9,767 ha are used for agriculture and 3,270 ha for other development purposes. The clearance effort destroyed 815,816 UXO items including 4,147 big bombs, 381,013 bombies, 5,753 mines, and 424,903 other kinds of munitions.
Mine risk education was provided in 7,036 contaminated villages in the nine provinces of Savannakhet, Khammuan, Saravan, Xekong, Attapeu, Champassak, Xieng Khuang, Huaphan, and Luang Prabang. According to records 1.7 million people attended these sessions.
Commercial companies have also cleared areas belonging to local and foreign development projects, such as copper and gold mines and hydropower, agricultural and industrial tree projects.
Next month more than two-thirds of the governments from around the world will be meeting to write a treaty to ban cluster munitions. Cluster munitions have been used in 23 countries, including Afghanistan , Iraq and Lebanon, but no country has been as affected by this weapon as Laos.
