Mine ban policy overview

Policy

The Socialist Republic of Vietnam has not acceded to the Mine Ban Treaty. Vietnam still considers antipersonnel mines as a legitimate weapon of self-defense and has cited national security concerns, especially border security, as reasons for not joining the Mine Ban Treaty.[1]

In September 2012 a military officer noted that Vietnam has been studying the treaty but stockpiles of mines held by countries outside the treaty are of concern to Vietnam since they could be used at any time.[2] In June 2011, a representative from Vietnam said it was unlikely that the country would join the Mine Ban Treaty at this time because they are still using mines on their borders “as a form of defense.” The representative added that Vietnam was not necessarily laying new mines, but was actively maintaining them.[3]

In August 2011, the president of the Mine Ban Treaty Eleventh Meeting of States Parties, Cambodian Minister Prak Sokhonn, led a high level mission to engage Vietnamese leaders on accession to the Mine Ban Treaty.

Vietnam sent an observer delegation to the Eleventh Meeting of States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty in Phnom Penh in November–December 2011, but did not make any statements. This was the fifth time Vietnam participated as an observer in a Meeting of States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty. Vietnam made its only statement during an intersessional Standing Committee meeting in June 2008 where it stated, “We support the humanitarian aspects of the Ottawa Convention of Anti-personnel Landmines but we could not sign it yet as it regrettably does not duly take into account the legitimate security concerns of many countries including Vietnam.”[4]

On 2 December 2011, Vietnam abstained from voting on UN General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 66/29 calling for universalization and full implementation of the Mine Ban Treaty. It has abstained on all previous annual pro-ban treaty UNGA resolutions.

Vietnam signed but has not ratified the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Production, stockpiling, transfer, and use

Vietnam has not made any new official statements regarding its continued need or capacity for the production of antipersonnel mines or the types and quantities it holds in stockpile.

Vietnam produced antipersonnel mines in the past.[5] In 2008, officials said that Vietnam has not produced mines since the Mine Ban Treaty came into force, but also emphasized that it reserves the right to produce mines in the future.[6] Until Vietnam issues an official public statement that it does not currently and will not in the future produce antipersonnel mines, the Monitor will continue to list Vietnam as one of the few remaining global manufacturers.

In 2003, an official confirmed the existence of a stockpile of antipersonnel mines, saying, “Vietnam does not keep large stores of landmines, but we have enough to protect our country against invasion.”[7]In September 2012, a military officer stated that in the past two years (2011-2012), Vietnam destroyed 287 tons of stockpiled antipersonnel mines as well as destroying a limited number of antivehicle mines. While unable to provide a stockpile figure, the officer stated that “significant amount of mines stocked in Vietnam have been destroyed” and that each year Vietnam destroys around 100 tons of mines. The officer also stated Vietnam needs new technology for destruction of munitions and support from international community.[8]

Vietnam told States Parties in June 2008 that “we strictly observe our policy not to export” antipersonnel mines.[9] The Ministry of Foreign Affairs previously wrote to the Monitor, stating, “Vietnam has never exported and will never export mines.”[10]

Vietnam is not thought to have used antipersonnel mines since its occupation of Cambodia in the 1980s, but it has said it reserves the right to use antipersonnel mines in the future.[11]

Contamination and Impact

Vietnam is heavily contaminated by explosive remnants of war (ERW), mainly unexploded ordnance (UXO) and mostly dating back to the war with the United States (US) in the 1960s and first half of the 1970s. This includes contamination from cluster munition remnants that is among the most widespread and extensive in the world. There is, however, no precise figure for the extent of contamination remaining.

ERW still affect all of Vietnam’s 63 provinces and cities. Vietnamese officials continue to assert ERW contamination covers 66,000km², one-fifth of its total land area,[1] an estimate which reportedly dated from 2002. Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said in December 2011 that Vietnam had so far cleared a total of some 3,000km².[2]

Cluster munition remnants

The US scattered a total of 413,130 tons of submunitions over Vietnam between 1965 and 1973, striking 55 provinces and cities, including Haiphong, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Hue, and Vinh. Vietnam’s Military Engineering Command has recorded finding 15 types of US-made submunitions.[3] Most submunition types used by the US were air-dropped, but artillery-delivered submunitions were used in central Quang Binh and provinces to the south of it.[4]

The Military Engineering Command says it has also encountered substantial amounts of cluster munitions abandoned by the US military, notably at or around old US air bases, including eight underground bunkers found in 2009, one of them reportedly covering an area of 4,000m² and containing some 25 tons of munitions.[5]

Other explosive remnants of war

Vietnam estimates it still has between 350,000 and 600,000 tons of ERW to clear, including unexploded bombs, missiles, artillery shells, mortars, and grenades, which are affecting cities as well as rural areas in almost every province.[6] UXO continue to be found routinely in the course of construction and agricultural work, often close to residential areas. Between April and August 2012, military teams working in Ha Tinh Province reportedly destroyed five 500-pound bombs and a 1,000-pound bomb along with 600 submunitions and around 500 pieces of artillery, among other UXO.[7] A Project Renew team called in by a family in Trieu Phong district of Quang Tri province early in 2012 cleared 193 items of UXO, including mortars and rocket propelled grenades, from land located 15 meters from the family home at depths of between 0.5 and 1.5 meters.[8]

Mines

Vietnam has a smaller mine problem, mostly left by conflicts in the 1970s with neighboring Cambodia and China, and affecting areas close to its borders with those countries[9] but also around former US military installations.[10] Vietnam cleared an area up to 1km deep along its northern border under an agreement with China, but areas further inland from the border are still contaminated. Mines in those northern areas were laid by the military of both countries. Since 2004, military engineers have reportedly cleared around 95km² of contaminated land in the northern provinces of Lang Son, Cao Bang, Ha Giang, Lai Chau, and Quang Ninh bordering China under a project known as “Program 120,” destroying mainly Type 72, K58, and PPM-2 antipersonnel mines.[11]

Cambodian border areas are affected by randomly placed mines reflecting the more irregular nature of the fighting there.[12] Many ports and river deltas were mined extensively during the war and were not completely cleared when it ended and some sea mines have been found on the coast.[13]

Mine Action Program

Key institutions and operators

An official decision by the prime minister in 2006 assigned the Ministry of National Defense to oversee mine action at the national level with clearance undertaken by the Army Engineering Corps of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN);[14] the Technology Centre for Bomb and Mine Disposal (BOMICEN), part of the Ministry of National Defense, acts as a central coordinating body for clearance and survey by national operators.[15]

In 2010−2011, Vietnam created new mechanisms intended to accelerate mine/UXO action. Under Prime Minister’s Decision No. 504 of December 2010, Vietnam established a National Steering Committee (NSC) based at the Ministry of National Defense consisting of 12 members. It is chaired by the prime minister and two government ministers (one from the Ministry of Defense and one from the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs [MoLISA]) serve as deputy co-chairs. Other members include ministers from the ministries of foreign affairs, environment, education, and health. The NSC was launched at a meeting chaired by the prime minister in December 2011.[16] It meets every six months to oversee mine action and decide on policy and budgets.

The NSC is supported by a 21-member Standing Committee or Executive Office, chaired by the vice minister of defense, Senior Lieutenant General Nguyen Chi Vinh.[17] The Executive Office is due to meet quarterly to decide mine action priorities and make recommendations to the NSC. The Vietnam Bomb and Mine Clearance Action Center (VBMAC), which opened in February 2009, will serve as secretariat to the Executive Office.[18]

VBMAC, set up as a civilian agency under MoLISA with the help of a $1.56 million donation from Japan,[19] has a mandate to accelerate clearance and mobilize international funding. VBMAC operates with departments for planning, project management, and finance. Since May 2010 it has also deployed a total of 200 personnel in eight clearance teams and one explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) team operating in central Vietnam’s Quang Tri province. Operations continued into 2011 when these teams were discontinued.[20]

In April 2010, the prime minister approved a Strategic Plan for 2010–2025, the objective of which is to “mobilize domestic and international resources in making efforts to minimize and finally create impact-free environment for social economic development.”[21] Vietnam’s National Mine Action Program for the period from 2011 to 2015, drawn up by the National Steering Committee, says it will focus on:[22]

·         Survey and mapping of contaminated areas “on a national scale;”

·         Clearing 5,000km² of land within the next five years, including 2,000km² in the six central provinces of Nghe An, Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri, Thua Thien Hue and Quang Ngai and 3,000km² in other areas;

·         Developing national mine action standards;

·         Strengthening the National Mine Action Database Center;

·         Coordinating delivery of risk education (RE) to reduce accidents; and

·         Advocacy for support of UXO/mine action by other governments, international organizations, international NGOs and individuals.

The government has estimated funding needed to implement the program at US$700 million, but said it would be able to allocate about $200 million, putting a premium on raising overseas donations. The six-point action plan for 2011−2015, projects spending on UXO/mine clearance of VND12,500 billion (US$595.2 million), and VND26 billion (US$1.3 million) on the Landmine Impact Survey.[23] After 2015, BOMICEN says Vietnam will aim to implement clearance and victim assistance projects on a broader scale.[24]

The Vietnamese government reported spending about VND1,600 billion (about US$80 million) for mine action, which it said included clearance, RE, victim assistance/community re-integration, advocacy for funding and “construction of infrastructure within integrated projects.”[25]

Land Release

BOMICEN reported that the total amount of land cleared by the military (and operators accredited with the military) in 2011 amounted to 247.28km²,[26] less than half the 612km² reported by the military the previous year and less than the annual average of about 600km² it said it achieved in 2008–2010.[27] International NGOs reported clearing an additional 3.78km² of battle areas in 2011.

Survey in 2011

Vietnam started to conduct a Landmine Impact Survey in 2004. The National Mine Action Program 2010−2025 calls for completion of the LIS in 63 provinces and cities by the end of 2013. At the end of 2011, BOMICEN reported it had completed the survey in 19 central, central highlands, and southeastern provinces and cities but it gave no details of survey activity in 2011.[28]

Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) started work in 2012 on a pilot project, training and providing technical advice to military engineers in non-technical survey to evaluate suspected hazardous areas and technical survey to define confirmed hazardous areas, using NPA’s cluster munition remnants survey method developed in Lao PDR. The project was expected to run for three months in Thanh Hoa province, which had not been covered by the landmine impact survey.[29]

Battle area and roving clearance in 2011

Vietnam’s army remains the biggest UXO/demining operator, reporting in 2011 that it had some 250 mine/UXO clearance teams with some 20 to 25 personnel in each team, of which 160 teams are military engineers and the rest from military companies. BOMICEN said 45 operators (military companies) were accredited under the army in 2011 and one operator, VBMAC, under MoLISA. VBMAC had worked with 10 clearance teams until late 2011.[30]

International operators reported clearing almost the same area in 2011 as in the previous year. However, they have shifted increasingly to more mobile operations in recent years and increased the number of roving tasks by almost half in 2011, destroying almost the same number of ERW items overall but including in that total one-third more submunitions.

Mines Advisory Group (MAG) deployed eight EOD teams (with 133 technicians) and six community liaison teams by the end of 2011; after receiving funding from the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development, it expanded its presence in Quang Tri province from one to four EOD teams and from one to three community liaison teams. It was also preparing to shift some capacity from Quang Binh and into Quang Nam province for the first time in 2012.[31] Although MAG cleared nearly three times as much area as in the previous year, 98% of the items destroyed were cleared in the course of roving operations.

NPA worked in partnership with, and provided management support for, Project RENEW operations in Quang Tri. This was in addition to conducting its own project in Thua Thien Hoa province, expanding capacity from a combined strength of 27 in 2010 to 60 at the end of 2011 (Project RENEW accounted for 49 while NPA accounted for 11). NPA conducted 89 spot EOD tasks in 2011, clearing 274 items of UXO; it expected to expand in 2012 to add three 10-man multi-task teams conducting survey, battle area clearance (BAC) and roving EOD. Project RENEW cleared 30% more area after starting BAC operations in January 2011 compared with April the previous year; in 2012 it planned to expand its operating area and possibly add a nine-man team, depending on funding.[32]

PeaceTrees Vietnam also increased capacity in 2011, adding a 16-man clearance team and operating with two mobile EOD teams in Quang Tri Province and one mobile EOD team in Quang Binh.[33]

Solidarity Service International (SODI), a German NGO, had a total of 139 personnel in 2011, including two large BAC teams with a total of 96 people and five EOD teams with a total of 29 people working in Quang Tri and Thua Thien Hue provinces. SODI started operating a mobile small area BAC/EOD team in Quang Tri in 2010 and added a second in Thua Thien Hue in 2011; it introduced a two-man special search team with equipment for deeper searches as well as forming an EOD unit within the larger BAC teams in order to tackle spot UXO found near BAC tasks. SODI also created community focal points in its area of operations, increasing the number by 10 to 30 in 2011.[34]

International NGO clearance in 2011

Quality management

International NGOs conduct internal quality assurance (QA). In the case of NPA and Project RENEW, QA is conducted by NPA’s operations manager and technical advisor and RENEW’s national technical officer. MAG has a three-man QA team which conducted 877 internal assessments in 2011 and its technical operations manager also conducts a random assessment of each EOD team every six months. SODI maintains a QA officer in each of the two provinces it works in.[35]

Risk Education

MoLISA has taken the lead role in UXO/mine RE since 2010, with VBMAC acting as its coordinating body, planning and mobilizing resources for RE.[36] The six-point action plan for 2011−2015, drawn up by the National Steering Committee, calls for an expenditure of VND200 billion (US$14.2 million) on RE.[37]

Catholic Relief Services continues to deliver RE through community outreach teams in Quang Tri and Quang Binh, as well as to partner with departments of education to help produce an RE curriculum for school children.[38]

Among international UXO/mine action NGOs, Project RENEW maintains a Community Reporting Network in two districts of Thua Thien Hue that have provided RE training to Youth Union members; it has also conducted two workshops on improving the quality of RE activities as well as other events in 2011 to deliver UXO accident prevention messages.[39] SODI also provided RE through its small area BAC/EOD teams and through community focal points reaching more than 20,000 people in 2011.[40]

Support for Mine Action

Vietnam is heavily contaminated by explosive remnants of war (ERW), mainly unexploded ordnance (UXO) and mostly dating back to the war with the United States (US) in the 1960s and first half of the 1970s. This includes among the most widespread and extensive contamination from cluster munition remnants in the world. There is, however, no precise figure for the extent of contamination remaining.[1]

In 2011, seven donors contributed US$7.9 million for clearance and victim assistance.[2]

In 2011, as in previous years, Vietnam did not report national contributions to mine action or publish any details of land released through clearance or technical survey. Nevertheless, various sources indicate national spending may be significant. In April 2010, Vietnam released its 2010–2025 National Mine Action Plan. Although the plan did not include projected costs, a media article at the time of the plan’s release reported Vietnam “annually invests hundreds of billions of dong on disposing UXO and supporting victims.”[3] In 2011, the commander of the Army Engineering Corps of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) reported in an interview with the Monitor that Vietnam spent US$89 million in 2009 and around US$100 million in 2010 on mine action.[4] No comparable figures are available for 2011.

The lack of transparency and legislative oversight also makes difficulties in tracking government expenditures for mine action. There is no national mine action budget. The government of Vietnam budget structure involves a combination of national and provincial revenue sources from taxes, fees, bonds, and state-connected “private” firms. In Vietnam, the Ministry of Defense is a self-contained military-industrial complex in which profit-making entities (road construction, telecoms, manufacturing, etc.) subsidize the ministry budget. The Engineering Command and army firms receive payment as revenue which the Engineering Command must collect and compile the data. Still, research conducted by the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD) has found that as many as six central provinces in 2011 spent an estimated US$4 million on mine action. Additionally, based on 2009–2010 data government and private investor funds could account for as much as an estimated 90% of mine clearance in Vietnam. Like other affected countries such as Afghanistan, Angola, and Cambodia where large investments are being made in public infrastructure, Vietnam is also improving its infrastructure through investments in transportation and poverty reduction, which requires a parallel investment in demining, of which little information is available.[5]

International contributions: 2011[6]

Thematic contributions in 2011 (US$)

Summary of contributions in 2007–2011 (US$)[7]