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Vietnam

Last Updated: 15 November 2012

Mine Action

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

Body

Situation on 1 January 2012

National Mine Action Authority

National Steering Committee

Mine action center

BOMICEN

International demining operators

NGOs: Mines Advisory Group, Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA), NPA/Project RENEW, PeaceTrees Vietnam, SODI

National demining operators

People’s Army of Vietnam/BOMICEN, 45 military companies

International risk education operators

Catholic Relief Services, Project RENEW, SODI

National risk education operators

Youth Union

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

Operator

Battle area cleared (m2)

Roving tasks completed

Submunitions cleared

Other UXO cleared

Antipersonnel mines cleared

MAG

174,436

11,839

1,676

14,244

6

NPA/Project RENEW

76,183

1,169

567

2,162

10

PeaceTrees Vietnam

191,677

391

0

6,677

0

SODI

3,336,249

1,757

1,555

17,368

20

Totals

3,778,545

15,156

3,798

40,451

36

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]

 



[1] “National Mine Action Targets, Tasks, and Implementation Solutions,” Speech by Vice-Minister of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, Bui Hong Linh, Hanoi, 5 December 2011.

[2] An Dien, “UXO contamination in Vietnam an uphill task,” Thanh Nien News, 8 December 2011.

[3] “Vietnam mine/ERW (including cluster munitions) contamination, impacts and clearance requirements,” Presentation by Sr. Col. Phan Duc Tuan, People’s Army of Vietnam, in Geneva, 30 June 2011.

[4] Fatal Footprint, the Global Human Impact of Cluster Munitions (Brussels: Handicap International, November 2006), p. 15.

[5] Interview with Sr. Col. Phan Duc Tuan, PAVN, in Geneva, 30 June 2011.

[6] “Vietnam mine/ERW (including cluster munitions) contamination, impacts and clearance requirements,” Presentation by Sr. Col. Phan Duc Tuan, PAVN, in Geneva, 30 June 2011.

[7] Information provided by Sr. Col. Phan Duc Tuan, PAVN, in email received from VVAF, Hanoi, 24 September 2012.

[8] “Hundreds of unexploded munitions found dangerously near a local house are safely removed,” Project Renew, 15 March 2012.

[9] Interview with Sr. Col. Phan Duc Tuan, PVAN, in Geneva, 30 June 2011.

[10] Landmine Action, “Explosive remnants of war and mines other than anti-personnel mines,” London, March 2005, p. 181.

[11] Information provided by Sr. Col. Phan Duc Tuan, PAVN, in email from VVAF, Hanoi, 24 September 2012, and in interview in Geneva, 30 June 2011.

[12] Interview with Sr. Col. Phan Duc Tuan, PAVN, in Geneva, 30 June 2011.

[13] Landmine Action, “Explosive remnants of war and mines other than anti-personnel mines,” London, March 2005, p. 181.

[14] Prime Minister’s Decision No. 96/2006/QD-TTg, 4 May 2006.

[15] Email from Col. Nguyen Trong Dac, Ministry of National Defense, 6 August 2006.

[16] Prime Minister’s Decision No. 2338/QĐ-TTg, 22 December 2010, (unofficial translation by VVAF); email response to Landmine Monitor questions by BOMICEN, 4 April 2012; interview with Sr. Col. Phan Duc Tuan, PVAN, Geneva, 30 June 2011.

[17] Email response to Landmine Monitor questions from Executive Office of the National Steering Committee, 6 August 2012.

[18] Interview with Sr. Col. Phan Duc Tuan, PVAN, Geneva, 30 June 2011.

[20] Email responses to Landmine Monitor questions from Executive Office of the National Steering Committee, 6 August 2012; and from BOMICEN, 4 April 2012; Response to Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor questionnaire by VBMAC, provided by email, 19 August 2010.

[21] Prime Minister, “Decision on Approval of the National Mine Action Plan Period 2010–2025,” Hanoi, 21 April 2010.

[22] Email response to Landmine Monitor questions from Executive Office of the National Steering Committee, 6 August 2012; Bui Hong Linh, Vice Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, “The National Mine Action Targets, Tasks and Implementation Solutions,” undated but December 2011.

[23] Bui Hong Linh, Vice Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, “The National Mine Action Targets, Tasks and Implementation Solutions,” undated but December 2011.

[24] Email from Executive Office of the National Steering Committee, 6 August 2012.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Ibid..

[27] Interview with Sr. Col. Phan Duc Tuan, PAVN, in Geneva, 30 June 2011.

[28] National Mine Action Program, 2010−2025, p. 17; and email from BOMICEN, 4 April 2012.

[29] Interview with Michael Creighton, Operations Manager, NPA, Vientiane, 11 April 2012.

[30] Email from Executive Office of the National Steering Committee, 6 August 2012; information provided by Sr. Col. Phan Duc Tuan, PAVN, in email received from VVAF, Hanoi, 24 September 2012.

[31] Email from Portia Stratton, Country Programme Manager, MAG, Hanoi, 9 April 2012.

[32] Email from Paul Eldred, Operations Manager, NPA, Vietnam, 21 March 2012.

[33] Email from Milica Koscica, Program Coordinator, PeaceTrees Vietnam, 19 March 2012.

[34] Email from Marion Gnanko, Project Manager, UXO/Mine Action, SODI, and Max Wennbo, Senior Technical Advisor, SODI Vietnam, 16 April 2012.

[35] Emails from Portia Stratton, MAG, Hanoi, 9 April 2012; Paul Eldred, NPA, Vietnam, 21 March 2012; and Marion Gnanko and Max Wennbo, SODI, 16 April 2012.

[36] Response to Monitor questionnaire by VBMAC, provided by email from VVAF, 19 August 2010.

[37] Bui Hong Linh, Vice-Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, “The National Mine Action Targets, Tasks and Implementation Solutions,” undated but December 2011, p. 3.

[38] Catholic Relief Services website, accessed 21 August 2012; and email from Sandra Rihtman, Country Representative, CRS, 11 August 2010.

[39] Email from Paul Eldred, NPA, Vietnam, 21 March 2012.

[40] Email from Marion Gnanko and Max Wennbo, SODI, 16 April 2012.