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 contamination by other explosive remnants of war (ERW), and Lao PDR also has extensive air-dropped and ground-fired unexploded ordnance (UXO) as well as antivehicle and antipersonnel mines.

Lao PDR continues to state that cluster munitions contaminate approximately 8,470km² and that overall contamination by UXO covers up to 87,000km² (around 35% of the Laotian territory).[1] Such estimates, however, are based on bomb targeting data that clearance operators have found bears little relation to actual contamination on the ground. After more than 15 years of UXO/mine action, Lao PDR has not yet conducted sufficient survey to produce a credible estimate of the total area contaminated in the country, or the 46 poorest districts that are a development priority. The National Regulatory Authority (NRA) has reported that 10 of Lao PDR’s 17 provinces are “severely contaminated” by ERW, affecting up to a quarter of all villages.[2]

Cluster munition remnants

The United States (US) dropped over two million tons (two billion kg) of bombs between 1964 and 1973,[3] including more than 270 million submunitions. Lao PDR has reported 571,929 unexploded submunitions were destroyed between 1996 and June 2012[4] (a lower figure than it reported the previous year[5]) but there is no reliable estimate of the extent of contamination remaining.

Clearance teams have found 29 types of submunitions.[6] Unexploded submunitions accounted for just over half (55%) of all items cleared in 2012.[7] UXO Lao, Lao PDR’s largest clearance operator, reported in 2011 that during 15 years of operations, submunitions had accounted for 49% of all items cleared.[8]

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.[9] Submunitions are also said to be the type of ERW most feared by the population.[10] 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.”[11] The extent of their impact has given rise to calls for a survey and clearance strategy that gives priority to tackling cluster munition remnants.[12]

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.[13] A partial survey by Handicap International (HI), published in 1997, continues to be used as a primary source of reference despite being acknowledged as out of date.[14] 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.[15] Other major causes of incidents are artillery shells, grenades, mortars, rockets, and air-dropped bombs.[16]

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,[17] and clearance operators have estimated Lao PDR may have 1,000 mined areas.[18] The remote location of many of these areas means that mines had little impact and made up only 0.2% of the more than 80,000 items of ERW cleared by operators in 2012.[19]

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

Mine Action Program

Key institutions and operators

The NRA, created by government decree in 2004 and active since mid-2006, has an inter-ministerial board chaired by the deputy prime minister and composed of representatives from 17 government ministries.[22] Until 2011, the NRA came 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 chairman of the board together with the Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs;[23] a further decree in November 2011 appointed Deputy Prime Minister Asang Laoly as principal supervisor of the NRA board.[24] In November 2012, Bounheuang Douangphachanh, a minister in the Prime Minister’s Office and chairman of the National Committee for Rural Development and Poverty Eradication was appointed chairman of the NRA board.[25]

The NRA’s structure and role was set out in an “agreement” released in November 2012 defining it as the “secretariat for the Party Politburo and the Lao government for the overall management and consideration of policy matters, planning, projects and coordination of the implementation of the Lao PDR National Strategy for the UXO sector for the entire country.”[26] Its role includes setting policy, coordinating and regulating the sector, accrediting operators, setting standards, and conducting quality management (QM). It also has the mandate to serve as the technical focal point for matters relating to international weapons treaties.[27] The NRA has four sections: Administration and Finance; Planning and Cooperation; Quality and Standards; and, Operations and Information. This includes a single QM team. UNDP supports a technical advisor and a program and finance advisor. Sterling International LLC, funded by the US Department of State, provided a technical advisor supporting QM and operations at the NRA, a second supporting UXO Lao, and a third advisor providing support to both organizations as required.[28]

UXO Lao, the largest clearance operator working in nine provinces, is a civilian government body and had primary responsibility for coordinating and regulating all UXO/mine action, including clearance, until 2004.[29] 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.[30]

Lao PDR embarked in 2011 on “Safe Path Forward II” (SPF), a plan for 2011−2020 finally approved by the government on 22 June 2012. The strategy identified six general goals, including reducing the number of casualties each year from 300 to less than 75[31] and releasing an average of 200km² a year, more than four times current rates of clearance and land release.[32]

The government has also set new priorities moving the UXO clearance sector from a humanitarian to a more development-oriented program more closely integrated with government socio-economic development plans. Announcement 93, published by the government in November 2012, said all provincial and district development projects affected by UXO must undergo survey and clearance before implementation and must also allocate funding to cover the cost.[33] The NRA, as of June 2013, was still in the process of consulting with provincial and district authorities about how this announcement could be implemented.[34]

In 2012, the government approved a revision of its 2011−2020 strategy, SPF II, calling for release of a total of 2,000km², about four times the average annual rate of clearance.[35] In 2013, the NRA was drafting a new multiyear workplan intended to align the UXO clearance sector with broader development goals. These identify 64 priority areas planned to become small rural townships, 167 focal sites to consolidate and “stabilize” remote rural communities, and more than 1,680 priority projects.[36] It hoped to present the workplan by the end of the year.

A concept paper on the implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions also says “the Government of Laos will assume funding responsibilities for certain elements of implementation as defined in the workplans.”[37] However, the NRA reported the government would consider providing financial support “depending on the quality of the budget request from the sector and the availability of funds.”[38] It said national funding would also support plans by the army to set up a humanitarian demining team.[39]

As of June 2013, the NRA had accredited 18 operators, six humanitarian organizations and 12 commercial companies. Among the humanitarian organizations, HALO Trust received accreditation and trained clearance teams in 2012 but only became fully operational in 2013. The NRA recorded clearance by only half the accredited commercial companies in 2012.[40]

The Army set up a humanitarian demining unit with 15 staff in February 2012 which received explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) training at the UXO Lao training center funded by the United States Department of State. The NRA said it would receive accreditation and operate subject to NRA quality assurance.[41] The NRA reported that China also offered training for 30 mine action personnel in 2013 that would be drawn mainly from the army and UXO Lao. The government has directed the Army to develop a humanitarian mine action capacity, and consideration is being given to a Ministry of Defense proposal to train some 500 military personnel in five divisions.[42]

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 although Lao PDR ranks as one of the most heavily contaminated countries in the world, 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 further one-fifth of all 2010 tasks, and one-third of tasks undertaken in the first half of 2011, found fewer than four items. The assessment observed that Lao PDR’s national standards call for an emphasis on rigorous survey in operations in order to avoid unnecessary clearance, but found a “vast difference” in how operators interpreted national standards and 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.[43]

Land Release

The total amount of land released rose by more than one-third to 60.4km² in 2012. Humanitarian operators accounted for 70% of the total area but the increase was largely a result of a revival in clearance by commercial operators who had been hit by global financial cutbacks in the previous three years. Land released by humanitarian operators edged up 8% in 2012.[44]

Five-year summary of clearance

The progress of UXO clearance in 2012 attracted persistent official criticism for being too slow, inefficient, and falling far short of the targeted clearance of 1,000km² in the five years to 2015.[45] Donors voiced growing concern over the absence of any clear NRA policy for survey, the lack of government consultation in framing policy for the sector, and the possibility that the operators they fund for humanitarian clearance may be drawn into tasks that support commercial interests. Some donors said these policy uncertainties would affect decisions on the future level of funding for the sector.[46]

Survey in 2012

The NRA identifies survey as a priority and in 2011 initiated a non-technical survey, the “District Focused Approach for the Management of the UXO Threat” (DFA), starting with a pilot program in three provinces implemented by HI, Mines Advisory Group (MAG), and Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA). 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.[47] The program halted in August 2012 after the NRA did not endorse plans for HI and MAG to continue the survey beyond the initial districts they had covered.

The NRA reported that the results of the DFA pilot surveys would be incorporated into a standard survey methodology but as of June 2013 had not decided on a strategy. This has raised concerns among some stakeholders about the long delay in achieving a realistic estimate of the extent of the ERW problem and in establishing a baseline against which to measure progress. After plans for a meeting on the issue in May 2013 were postponed, the NRA planned to conduct a workshop on survey with operators in a matter of months to consider options.[48]

In 2012 and 2013, NPA continued conducting the Cluster Munition Remnants Survey, described as a quick technical survey, working in southern Saravane, Sekong, and Attapeu provinces. HI, after completing the DFA in Nong district of Savannakhet province in December 2011, started a general survey in Sepon district in December 2012 and expected to complete it in August 2013.[49] MAG completed its DFA survey of Boulapha district of Khammouane province and was preparing to proceed with Mahaxay and Nhomalath districts but did not receive NRA authorisation to continue.[50]

Battle area and roving clearance in 2012

UXO Lao, the biggest operator in Lao PDR with about 1,100 staff working in nine provinces, reported a small rise in the amount of land it cleared but a 47% rise in the number of items it destroyed in 2012. As in 2011, UXO Lao, alone among operators, reported cancelling a little over 5km² through technical survey. Although tasks are undertaken in response to local requests forwarded by district and provincial authorities, the result reflects an effort by UXO Lao to move from past practice which focused more on clearing land than on clearing contamination; this resulted in costly clearance of large quantities of land with no items of ERW as identified in GICHD’s assessment (see above).

MAG, one of the biggest NGO operators with 381 staff as of mid-2013, reported that from mid-2012 it had adopted an evidence-based approach to clearance and would undertake full clearance only on areas where preliminary survey by community liaison teams had resulted in strong evidence of contamination. Clearance teams had also moved from only clearing up to the perimeter of individual tasks to instead following the footprint of a cluster munition strike. MAG reported in mid-2013 that it was reviewing its survey procedures and exploring the possibility of moving from survey of individual tasks to a bigger area, possibly an entire village.[51]

Battle area clearance in 2012[52]

NPA, working in 2012 with 190 operational staff in 10 teams, concentrated primarily on applying its cluster munition remnants survey in Sekong, Saravan, and Attapeu provinces. In 2012, NPA surveyed 13.91km², identifying 90 confirmed hazards covering 5.89km² and destroying 2,516 submunitions. It also cleared 26 cluster munitions hazards covering 1.55km², destroying another 2,370 submunitions. NPA added two more teams in January 2013 and was due to add another three later in the year, reporting a significant acceleration in the progress of survey operations.[53]

An expansion of capacity was also expected in southern Savannakhet province. HI, which worked with three teams, added one deminer per team in 2012 and planned to double the number of teams, submitting an application for a revised Memorandum of Understanding to the NRA in June 2012. As of June 2013, HI had not received approval. HI participated in the DFA by surveying Nong district and providing support to the survey team with a mobile EOD team that destroyed items identified in the process of survey. This resulted in a sharp increase in the number of spot tasks and items destroyed.[54]

In the meantime, HALO set up operations in Savannakhet, concentrating on training in 2012 and beginning operations from January 2013 in the Sepon and Vilabuly districts of Savannakhet with three survey/EOD teams and three clearance teams; each clearance team had a staff of 12. It expected to expand to seven survey/EOD teams and five clearance teams with a total of 135 personnel during the course of 2013.[55]

Solidarity Service International (SODI), working in the northern district of Khamkeut, also expanded, adding a mobile team for small battle area clearance tasks of up to 50,000m² for which it reports strong demand; these clearance tasks contributed to a one-third increase in the area cleared during 2012. In 2013, SODI expected to retain the same capacity of 63 staff (supported by village assistants clearing brush) but embarked on a review of survey and clearance operations to improve planning and task selection. SODI also planned to introduce a QM system to improve administration and operations.[56]

Roving clearance operations 2012[57]

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.

Given official estimates of thousands of kilometers of cluster munition contamination, Lao PDR does not expect to meet its Article 4 deadline. A revised version of Lao PDR’s SPF II 2011−2020 UXO sector strategy released in 2012—SPF II—aims to “reduce the humanitarian and socio-economic threats posed by UXO to the point where the residual contamination and challenges can be adequately addressed by a sustainable national capacity fully integrated into the regular institutional set-up of the Government.”[59] Moreover, SPF II targets release of 2,000km² in the decade to 2020, a figure far in excess of current or foreseeable sector performance. In 2013, the NRA prepared to issue a multiyear work plan that would focus on 300 “development focus areas” in line with national socio-economic priorities.[60] In the absence of baseline survey data, however, Lao PDR remains unable to assess either the extent of its cluster munitions contamination or the progress made towards tackling it.