Contamination and Impact

The Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) experienced the heaviest aerial bombardment in history during the Indochina War of the 1960s and 1970s which left it with the world’s worst contamination from unexploded submunitions. The extraordinary intensity of that bombing has tended to obscure the extent of other forms of contamination left by the war on the ground; Lao PDR also has extensive air-dropped and ground-fired unexploded ordnance (UXO) as well as antivehicle and antipersonnel mines.

After more than 15 years of UXO/mine action, Lao PDR still lacks a credible estimate of the total area contaminated in the country or the extent of land that is a priority for clearance. In September 2011, at the Second Meeting of States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Lao PDR said that a total of 304km² had been cleared between the start of mine action in 1996 and June 2011.[1] According to the National Regulatory Authority (NRA), 10 of Lao PDR’s 17 provinces are “severely contaminated” by explosive remnants or war (ERW), affecting up to a quarter of all villages.[2]

Cluster munition remnants

The United States dropped more than two million tons of bombs between 1964 and 1973,[3] including more than 270 million submunitions. Lao PDR has reported 652,447 unexploded submunitions were cleared between 1996 and June 2011[4] but there is no reliable estimate of the extent of contamination remaining.

Lao PDR’s initial Convention on Cluster Munitions Article 7 report for 2010 (unchanged in 2011) cites an estimate of contamination that is “within 87,000km².”[5] At the Second Meeting of States Parties, Lao PDR said that on the basis of an estimate of 70,000 individual cluster bomb strike locations and an estimate putting the footprint of each strike at 12 hectares (120,000m²), the NRA estimated contamination by submunitions at approximately 8,470km². It added that research by Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) suggested the size of individual cluster strike footprints – and therefore total submunition contamination – may be smaller.[6]

Clearance teams have found 19 types of submunition.[7] Unexploded submunitions accounted for just over half (52%) of all items cleared in 2011.[8] UXO Lao, a civilian government body and Lao PDR’s largest clearance operator, reported in 2011 that during 15 years of operations, submunitions had accounted for 49% of all items cleared.[9]

The NRA identifies submunitions (known locally as bombies) as the most common form of remaining ERW contamination and responsible for close to 30% of all incidents.[10] Submunitions are also said to be the type of ERW most feared by the population.[11] UNDP reports that as a result of submunition contamination “economic opportunities in tourism, hydroelectric power, mining, forestry and many other areas of activity considered main engines of growth for the Lao PDR are restricted, complicated and made more expensive.”[12] The extent of their impact has given rise to calls for a survey – and clearance – strategy that gives priority to tackling cluster munition remnants.[13]

Other explosive remnants of war

Clearance operators have encountered at least 186 types of munitions in Lao PDR, but the extent of residual contamination from other ERW is not known.[14] A partial survey by Handicap International (HI), published in 1997, although acknowledged as out of date, continues to be used as a primary source of reference.[15] It found that 15 of the country’s then-18 provinces—all those it surveyed—had districts significantly or severely affected by UXO. These reportedly range from 20lb fragmentation bombs to 2,000lb general-purpose bombs and sometimes bigger items.[16] Other major causes of incidents are artillery shells, grenades, mortars, rockets, and air-dropped bombs.[17]

Mines

All sides in the war laid antipersonnel mines, particularly along borders and around military bases and airfields. The HI survey found mines in all 15 provinces it surveyed, contaminating 214 villages,[18] and clearance operators have estimated Lao PDR may have 1,000 mined areas.[19] The remote location of many of these areas means that mines had little impact, and made up only 94 of the more than 63,000 items of ERW cleared by operators in 2011.[20]

Official figures presented in 2010 show landmines are responsible for 17% of victims since 1998, almost as many as bombies (20%), but few mine victims have been reported in recent years.[21] The NRA has, however, recognized that “with a steady expansion of land use ‘mined areas’ will become areas for growing concern.”[22]

Mine Action Program

Key institutions and operators

The NRA, created by government decree in 2004 and active since mid-2006, has an interministerial board chaired by the deputy prime minister and composed of representatives from 10 government ministries.[23] Until 2011, the NRA was under the supervision of the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare. A decree issued in June 2011 appointed a minister in the prime minister’s office responsible for rural development and poverty reduction as vice-chair of the board together with the vice-minister of foreign affairs.[24]

The NRA’s role includes setting policy, coordinating and regulating the sector, accrediting operators, setting standards, and conducting quality management. It also has the mandate to serve as the technical focal point for matters relating to international weapons treaties.[25] The NRA has two sections: Operations, with units handling clearance, mine/ERW risk education (RE), victim assistance, and information management; and Policy, Administration and Standards. With US Department of State funding, ArmorGroup North America provided a technical advisor supporting quality management and operations. As of April 2012, Sterling International LLC took over the contract to provide an advisor.[26]

The NRA experienced significant staff turnover in 2011−2012, with the retirement of two deputy directors and the resignation of quality management staff. In April 2012, the NRA announced it was appointing Bounpheng Sisawath as deputy director for Policy and Administration. A second deputy director was to be appointed for Operations.[27]

UXO Lao, the civilian government body, had primary responsibility for coordinating and regulating all UXO/mine action, including clearance, until 2004, and remains the largest clearance operator in Lao PDR, working in nine provinces.[28] A draft decree drawn up early in 2012 provided for oversight of UXO Lao to be transferred from the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare to the same minister in the Prime Minister’s office who is responsible for the NRA. Donors expressed concern at the lack of consultation and the risk of a conflict of interest, emphasizing the need for a clear distinction between regulator and operators. As of August 2012, the transfer had not been finalized.[29]

Lao PDR embarked in 2010 on “Safe Path Forward 2” (SPF), a plan for 2010−2020, finally approved by the government on 22 June 2012. The strategy identified six goals:[30]

·         to reduce the number of casualties from 300 a year to less than 75 a year;

·         to ensure medical and rehabilitation needs of survivors are met in line with obligations under the Convention on Cluster Munitions;

·         to release priority land and clear UXO in accordance with national standards and treaty obligations;

·         to ensure effective leadership, coordination and implementation of the national program;

·         to establish sustainable national capacity integrated fully into the regular set-up of the government; and

·         to meet international treaty obligations.

The NRA continued working on plans for SPF implementation which provide for developing annual workplans and for setting out annual priorities and targets “in order to provide more detail and to account for up-to-date information and new developments that could impact prioritization.”

A concept paper for Convention on Cluster Munitions implementation also says “the government of Laos will assume funding responsibilities for certain elements of implementation as defined in the workplans.”[31] The NRA reported the government had agreed in principle in 2012 to provide the equivalent of US$1 million a year from its own budget for UXO/mine action but no date had been set to start such funding. It said national funding would also support plans by the army to set up a humanitarian demining team.[32]

Evaluations

An assessment undertaken by the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD) for the NRA in a bid to increase efficiency and accelerate land release found that one-third of all clearance tasks and 94% of technical survey tasks conducted between 2009 and mid-2011 did not find any items of ERW. A fifth of all 2010 tasks and a third of tasks undertaken in the first half of 2011 had fewer than four items.[33]

The assessment observed that Lao PDR’s national standards call for an emphasis in operations on rigorous survey in order to avoid unnecessary clearance but found a “vast difference” in how operators interpreted national standards and how they decided when an area should be subjected to technical survey or clearance. The GICHD noted that local communities have a strong influence on tasking and that operators sometimes fully cleared land without any evidence of contamination.

The GICHD recommended, among other points, that:

·         national standards focus on promoting non-technical survey (NTS) and clarify criteria for proceeding to technical survey or clearance and for deciding when to stop clearance;

·         the NRA examine operators’ different approaches to clearing submunitions and other UXO, identify best practice, and integrate them into national standards;

·         the NRA conduct detector trials with particular attention to probability of detection and reducing the false alarm rate; and that

·         the NRA explore options for use of explosive ordnance detection dogs.

The NRA responded that it was already in the process of implementing many of the recommendations and it expected detector trials to proceed later in 2012.[34]

Land Release

The total amount of land released increased slightly to 43.94km² in 2011, 8% more than the 40.62km² released in 2010. That result broke two consecutive years of falling results, but it was still far behind the level of land release in 2008 as a result of sharp contraction in the work of commercial operators caused by global financial setbacks. Land release in 2011 came from area clearance of 38.74km², compared with just under 35km² in 2010, and technical survey of 5.2km².

Five-year summary of clearance

In the first half of 2011, the NRA and the army general staff discussed plans for clearance linked to a five-year, $7 billion project, but those plans were later postponed pending further negotiation.[35]

Survey in 2011

Survey has become a priority for the NRA and operators in a bid to increase efficiency and evidence-based clearance. Three operators—HI, MAG, and NPA—started implementing the “District Focused Approach for the Management of the UXO Threat” (DFA) in 2011, a NTS initiated by the NRA. Discussions were underway in 2012 on participation of UXO Lao and Solidarity Service international (SODI) in the DFA.[36]

The NRA identified five main objectives for the DFA:[37]

·         identify and confirm all hazardous areas with UXO contamination and land use plans for those areas;

·         prioritize villages and areas for UXO clearance based on contamination and development needs;

·         provide baseline data for the NRA and operators to develop a 10-year plan;

·         provide baseline information to enable monitoring and evaluation of UXO interventions; and

·         develop a methodology for survey to be used in all contaminated districts.

The NRA did not expect the survey to map all contamination but instead to identify all areas of concern to each district, particularly areas of unexploded submunition contamination. It planned that the survey would eventually be extended to cover 85 UXO-contaminated districts in Lao PDR, but aimed to complete survey of the 41 most contaminated districts in 2013.[38]

HI, MAG, and NPA each started a pilot NTS in Nong (Savannakhet province), Boulapha (Khammouane) and Ta Oy (Saravane) respectively. HI, starting in October 2011, completed visits to 17 villages in 2011. It planned to increase its DFA surveyors from eight to 24 in 2012, and after completing Nong, to move on to survey Sepon and Vilabuly districts.[39] MAG, which started work on the DFA in September 2011 deploying nine community liaison teams, reported it led to a significant increase in demand for EOD tasks and expected that demand to grow further as the DFA expanded to new districts.[40] NPA started work on the pilot survey in Ta Oy, but the NRA reported the project was delayed by requests of some villagers for more time due to creation of new settlements and lack of cooperation from local authorities which necessitated several NRA interventions.[41]

NPA, in addition to participating in the DFA, has focused on developing and testing standard operating procedures for a Cluster Munition Remnants Survey, which it describes as a quick technical survey tailored to conditions in Lao PDR where bombing data often bares little relation to contamination on the ground. The survey is designed to establish confirmed hazardous areas (CHAs) of cluster munition remnants. NPA is also developing this survey methodology in neighboring Cambodia and Vietnam. Its survey teams in Lao PDR covered a total of 20.14km² in 2011, confirming hazards over a total of 3.62km², destroying 2,514 items of ERW, with teams averaging 4km² of survey area a month. As teams gained experience and confidence, NPA expected the ratio of CHAs to land surveyed to go down.[42] 

Battle area and roving clearance in 2011

Five humanitarian NGOs have accounted for most clearance, particularly since the sharp contraction in work for commercial operators in the financial crisis of the last three years. In 2012, two new NGOs, HALO Trust and DanChurchAid, applied for NRA approval to start operating. HALO received NRA approval­ to operate in Laos in February 2012 but as of August was still discussing a memorandum of understanding to work in Savannakhet province.[43] DCA received a permit from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in February 2012, and expected to set up two nine-person roving teams in two districts of northern Phongsaly province.[44]

The army set up a 15-strong humanitarian demining unit in February 2012, which the NRA said would receive EOD training from the US military at the UXO Lao training center. Once trained, the unit would be accredited with the NRA and subject to NRA quality assurance.[45]

Battle area clearance in 2011[46]

UXO Lao, the biggest operator which has maintained capacity at about 1,000 staff, increased productivity in terms of area by 11% in 2011 but it saw the number of ERW items cleared decrease by more than one-fifth from 2010 levels and the number of submunitions it cleared drop by 28%.[47] UXO Lao was expected to coordinate detector trials by GICHD in late 2012, with the participation of MAG and NPA.[48]

MAG, which started 2012 with 237 staff including 182 explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) experts and technicians, embarked on a review of its survey, clearance and community liaison methodologies, differentiating its approach to tackling bombies (submunitions), aircraft bombs, as well as land ammunition, and taking a more evidence-based approach to tasking. It operated nine “UXO clearance teams” as of July 2011, later expanded to 12 teams, in addition to two roving/rapid response EOD teams and 26 community liaison teams. In 2011, it increased the area cleared by one-third in 2011 and items destroyed by 14%. MAG said it expected the introduction of new techniques and approaches to result in higher productivity in 2012.[49]

HI, operating with 23 EOD/clearance staff, restructured operations in 2011, switching assets from undertaking roving/spot clearance tasks five days a month to having a permanent roving team which followed up the findings of a survey team conducting the DFA. HI reported a sharp increase in items cleared in the first two months of 2012 as a result of the change. It planned to double its survey and roving team capacity in 2012 and to adopt NPA’s land release methodology to accelerate productivity.[50]

NPA focused in 2011 on the DFA and developing the Cluster Munitions Remnants Survey methodology working with 150 technicians in eight teams cross-trained for survey, area clearance and spot EOD. UXO found during survey are treated as spot tasks. NRA data showed it increased the area it cleared to 1.11km² and had the highest “bombie” per m² ratio. In 2012, it expected to add another five teams and continue its focus on survey.[51]

BACTEC did not appear in NRA data for 2011 but reported clearing 80,000m² and destroying 45 bombies and 26 items of UXO while operating under contract to Italthai and the Nam Theun 2 hydroelectric power project.[52]

Roving clearance operations 2011[53]

*MAG reported conducting 1,666 roving tasks, destroying 3,323 submunitions and 1,550 other items of UXO.

Compliance with Article 4 of the Convention on Cluster Munitions

Under Article 4 of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, Lao PDR is required to destroy all cluster munition remnants in areas under its jurisdiction or control as soon as possible, but not later than 1 August 2020.

The NRA worked in 2011 on preparing an implementation plan for the convention, which it said covered the period 2012 to 2020 and was “designed to demonstrate to States Parties our commitment to fully implement the CCM [Convention on Cluster Munitions].”[54] However, with contamination estimated at thousands of square kilometers and clearance progressing at a rate of approximately 40km² a year, it is already apparent Lao PDR will not meet its initial Article 4 deadline. A GICHD assessment (see Evaluations section above) makes clear that clearance resources have been used to clear land with no contamination and can be used far more productively. The NRA has initiated a district level survey that can target clearance more effectively and provide a baseline for prioritizing clearance taking better account of national development as well as local needs.[55]

Quality management

The NRA had one quality assurance team working as of April 2012 instead of the planned capacity of three teams, due to staff turnover and recruitment difficulties. It acknowledged it was unable to undertake as much quality assurance as called for by national standards and focused resources on commercial operators.[56]

Risk Education

The NRA’s Technical Working Group on Mine Risk Education (TWGMRE) coordinates planning and implementation of risk education, which in 2011 was delivered in nine of the worst-affected provinces in Lao PDR by six organizations (CARE, Catholic Relief Service, Empower for All, Norwegian Church Aid, Spirit of Soccer (SOS), and World Education); and four clearance operators (UXO Lao, HI, MAG, and SODI).[57]

At the Convention on Cluster Munitions intersessional meetings in June 2011, the NRA reported that risk education (RE) strategies “are evolving, from the provision of traditional awareness‐raising sessions on the consequences of unexploded ordnance to more complex and targeted processes focused on behavior change. Such processes involve data analysis to identify high‐risk groups, development of new MRE [mine risk education] materials (in local languages where appropriate), community liaison, development of government policies on scrap metal, as well as teacher training programmes and the growing involvement of Buddhist monks.”[58]

The NRA completed a survey of “Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices” (KAP) of high-risk populations in three provinces (Xieng Khouang, Khammouan and Savannakhet) in October 2011 to assess the effectiveness of RE materials and strategies. More than 75% of the 1,800 people surveyed had found UXO in the preceding 12 months. Close to 90% said UXO of all kinds should not be touched or moved but nearly 30% had collected scrap metal in the previous 12 months, and among the adults of this group, 41% had a metal detector at home. The survey concluded RE had targeted the right audience and had been successful in building knowledge about the risks of UXO, but found a significant proportion still engaged in risky behavior. The survey expected to interview around 100 scrap metal dealers but encountered only 10, of whom only two agreed to be interviewed; the report therefore did not include any findings on the scrap metal trade. The report said this group might need to be resurveyed.[59]