The HALO Trust organization posted this video showing how much effort it took to destroy a 750 pound bomb found in the village of Ban Nonsômboun, Laos. The bomb was dropped by US planes over forty years ago, but was still active. Altogether, the organization says it took “53 days, 250 people and 200,000 sandbags to safely dispose of the gigantic bomb in Laos which could have killed thousands if it was not found by our team.”
Unbending rigor is the mate of death,
And wielding softness the company of life
Unbending soldiers get no victories;
The stiffest tree is readiest for the axe.
(Tao Te Ching: 76)
Early in life, our bodies are like unmolded clay, ready to be shaped by our experiences. For some of us, that matching process can create problems. If circumstances change, we could end up poorly adapted to our adult environment. A child born into harsh conditions, though, may have to take that risk in order to make it to adulthood at all.
The Hmong in French Guiana may be an example of this process. They are a fascinating population for many reasons, the most obvious being that they are there at all. A few dozen refugees from Laos first resettled in French Guiana in 1977, a few years after the Vietnam War, after they and the French government agreed that life in small, ethnically homogenous villages in a tropical environment was a better option than acculturating to the cities of Métropole France. The experiment paid off. Today, more than two thousand Hmong are farmers in the Amazonian jungle, producing most of the fruits and vegetables in the country. The result is a level of economic autonomy and cultural retention that is likely unique in the Southeast Asian refugee diaspora.
Scenes from Hmong villages in French Guiana. (Clockwise from top left: fields of Cacao, young men going on a hunting trip in Javouhey, swidden agriculture of Cacao, a street lined with farmers’ trucks in Javouhey.
Minnesota PBS has an upcoming documentary on the Secret War in Laos to complement the one on Vietnam by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick. I’ve been told it will be available on October 3rd.
“It was said that after the war (WW1) when the earth was restored, there was one-third metal and war materials, one-third real earth, and one-third human flesh.” source
“Wars are not paid for in war time. The bill comes later.” – Ben Franklin
This week, a leftover bomb from the war in Laos detonated in Paek district, Xieng Khouang province. One child was killed, and twelve other people were injured (five adults and seven other children). It appears that this was a “bombie,” a tennis-ball sized cluster bomb dropped by the U.S.
Over 2 million tons of ordnance was dropped on Laos from 1964-1973. Many of these bombs failed to detonate on impact, leaving behind unexploded ordnance (UXO) that remains active to the present day. That means that this particular bombie remained dormant for at least 44 years. The villagers who were interviewed in the video below said they think the bomb could have been detonated by children playing jump-rope nearby.
That the tragedies of war can last for so long, and can be triggered by something as innocent as children jumping rope (who were born well after the war ended) only provides more factor to consider when deciding whether to engage in military conflict. It is yet another reason for caution.
And it’s not just Laos. Leftover UXO from World War 2 and even World War 1 still remain active in Europe and Egypt (and probably elsewhere). The Ben Franklin quote above (“the bill comes later”) referred to the paying of war debts, accrued by borrowing to pay for war efforts. But it also apply to the costs paid by civilians and soldiers alike, lasting for decades.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the U.S. is seeking $500 million in repayment from Cambodia for a Vietnam War-era loan, primarily in the form of excess maize. According to the SMH:
The debt started out as a US$274 million loan mostly for food supplies to the then US-backed Lon Nol government but has almost doubled over the years as Cambodia refused to enter into a re-payment program.
As the article also pointed out, many people across the political spectrum are outraged by the request, given the role the U.S. played in bombing Cambodia. According to Yale historian Ben Kiernan, from 1965-73 U.S. planes dropped nearly 2.8 million tons of bombs over the eastern part of the country. This was part of a larger war meant to deny communist troops and supplies from North Vietnam from reaching the South via Laos and Cambodia.
Although casualty estimates from war are notoriously difficult, U.S. bombing was estimated to have killed 50,000 to perhaps hundreds of thousands of Cambodians, many of them civilians. Furthermore, historians such as Kiernan have argued that without the bombing, the Khmer Rouge might not have grown as much as it did, with people radicalized against U.S. brutality and into the arms of the K.R. Their rise to power, of course, led to more atrocities and genocide only a few years later.
Given all of that, it seems preposterous, or at least tone-deaf, for the U.S. to request repayment. And it’s not just Cambodians who think so. Also noted in the SMH article was a quote from James Pringle, a former Reuters bureau chief in Ho Chi Minh City, who was near Cambodia during the war:
“Cambodia does not owe a brass farthing to the US for help in destroying its people, its wild animals, its rice fields and forest cover.”
U.S. bombing of Cambodia from 1965-1973 (by Taylor Owen and Ben Kiernan). Source.
Today, President Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to visit Laos. It’s kind a big deal. So far, I think he’s hit all the right notes, pledging a substantial increase in funds to help clear unexploded ordnance dropped by U.S. planes decades ago during the Second Indochina War. Whereas the U.S. had given about $100 million over the last 20 years to help clear some of the bombing, this will now be increased to $90 million over the next three. The effects of these bombs have lingered for too long, causing about 20,000 casualties since the war officially ended, so it is good to see Obama take this seriously. (And, by the way, the New York Times has just published a story on how this increase in funds is almost entirely due to the amazing Channapha Khamvongsa. She has worked on this for a long time, and she is to be admired).
Others have observed that because Obama was too young to have served in the military during the Vietnam War, he has a fresher perspective and can therefore act as a generational page-turner. Perhaps that is sometimes necessary in order to rise above the past, as people often become entrenched in their views. The old guard phases out, and new blood enters the picture. In fact, Obama declared that his visit marked a new era in U.S.- Lao relations, based on mutual respect and “a shared desire to heal the wounds of the past.”
I’ve given this some thought. When I was younger, whenever I read a story about some tragedy — a car accident, a war, a terrorist attack, refugees forcibly displaced from their homes, a victim of sexual violence, etc. — I don’t think I quite understood the magnitude of how long that type of emotional pain could endure. Those things don’t just clear up overnight. They can persist well beyond the actual offense, even for decades. Because we are such a social species, intensely connected to others and highly attuned to the thoughts and emotions of the people around us, it seems that one of the key ingredients to healing is to hear that others recognize and respect our pain.
I think Obama recognized this. If I were a poor Laotian farmer whose fields were contaminated with leftover bombs, I would probably put more weight on the $90 million than on any speech or anything Obama might say. Yet, symbolic gestures can also go a long way. Obama’s statement that he recognized and had high hopes for “the dignity and the future of the people of Laos” is a potentially powerful one. At least I think so. Let’s see what happens during the next few days of his visit there.
From: Legacies of War
In a few days, Barack Obama will become the first U.S. president to have ever visited Laos. The organization Legacies of War has come up with the catchy title of LAObama to raise awareness of the visit. An NBC News story described Laotian and Hmong Americans as “cautiously optimistic” about the visit, including the possibility of further reconciliation after the war years, or at least bringing the two countries closer together.
“The visit of the President might help the former refugees from Laos and the government of Laos to speed up their long overdue reconciliation process. The war ended more than 40 years ago,” Asian American studies professor emeritus Kou Yang of California State University, Stanislaus told NBC News. “The U.S. should assist Laos to rebuild itself after the secret war. Bring Laos closer to the U.S. and closer to the more than 560,000 former refugees from Laos in the U.S. These refugees have already contributed much to the people of Laos. Each day, thousands and thousands of dollars are sent to Laos. Many schools and libraries are built by former refugees to the people in Laos.”
Whatever the results of the visit, it is still noteworthy that this is the first time a U.S. President will have set foot there. John F. Kennedy didn’t even know how to pronounce Laos (it doesn’t rhyme with “chaos”).
Good news. Two days ago, Voice of America reported that President Obama would announce more funding to remove bombs that the U.S. dropped on Laos. Some messes are so large that they can seem nearly impossible to clean up. The damage in Laos is so extensive that it will last for several more generations, but this is an improvement over the status quo.
The VOA video accompanying the story (below) looked instantly familiar to me, as it shows some of that damage in Xieng Khouang province. It looked very much like the area I saw the time I visited with one of the removal teams a few years ago. In fact, I saw some familiar faces. They do good work and deserve more support.
Channapha Khamvongsa, the founder and executive director of Legacies of War, an organization that advocates for removing the bombs said this: “What was once thought to be an insurmountable task now seems achievable in 10 to 20 years rather than a century… The next decade is critical, however, and it is necessary for the U.S. to commit to a long-term and sustained level of funding for UXO clearance and victim assistance in Laos.”
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited Laos on Sunday, foreshadowing a visit by President Obama sometime this autumn. It will be the first ever visit by a U.S. President to Laos. There are probably several reasons for the visit, including strengthening ties, checking Chinese power in the region, etc. Most relevant to me is the hope that more will be done to alleviate some of the damage done during the war years, especially by removing leftover unexploded ordnance (UXO).
A CNN article mentions two emotions that Americans might feel toward President Obama’s position towards Laos: guilt and optimism. It quotes Channapha Khamvongsa, who founded he NGO Legacies of War, which works to raise awareness of UXO in Laos. Continue reading
Patrick F. Clarkin, Ph.D. 