by Peter Crawford

01 November 2000

Samakixay, Lao PDR: At the confluence of the Xe kong and the Xe kaman rivers, almost hidden by the Bolovans mountain range away to the north-west sits the town of Samakixay; provincial capital of Attapeu province that is usually referred to as Attapeu town. It is centred in a sleepy province of astounding natural beauty bordered by Cambodia and Vietnam. It is also one of the poorest and most remote areas of the country.

Late last year the electricity supply was upgraded providing 24-hour service for the town, and there are plans to expand the supply outwards to other districts. The locals earn a living predominantly from agriculture, cultivating rice as a dietary staple along with other fruits and vegetables. Fishing on the many rivers is also a useful source of both nourishment and income. However, as these people go about their daily lives they are constantly at risk from the unexploded ordnance that litter the land. This ordnance not only endangers but also restricts their lives and ability to earn an income, as large areas of land are rendered unusable because of contamination.

In some ways the wider community is learning that many provinces in Lao are contaminated with UXO. In Attapeu, the famous network of pathways, roads and tracks, the Ho Chi Minh trail, ran through the province from the Vietnamese border, making the province a target during the Indo-China war, 1963 - 1972. The usual response when I tell people I work for UXO Lao based in Attapeu is one of disbelief. "I didn't know there was a problem with bombs there as well." In fact, one of the main tourist 'attractions,' once they learn of its existence, is a left over surface to air missile that still sits with a look of menace in Ban Pa-am, Saysatha district. The wheels of the truck on which it was being transported have long since been removed and slowly it corrodes and sinks into the land.

At 5 am on a humid and slightly overcast morning, Mr. Phonexay Saykhounpho, a UXO Lao team leader is beginning his day. Mr. Phonexay is 45 years old, married with four children. He has been employed with UXO Lao since the outset of the Attapeu programme in October 1997, being a team leader for over a year. During that time he has seen the programme grow to its present size; 55 deminers, six medics, six community awareness personnel, four survey personnel, seven office staff and seven drivers -- a total of 85 locally recruited staff members.

He came to work for UXO Lao "so that Lao people will be able to work and play on the land in safety once we have taken all the bombs away". As team leader, he is responsible for a team of deminers 28 strong, and also takes the important decisions regarding what is to be done with ordnance once they are found. Australian Peter Gammon, a senior technical adviser with the implementing partner, Norwegian People's Aid (NPA), is full of praise. "The team leaders here virtually run the show, they know what they are doing," he says. The aim of NPA is to further develop the skills and capacity of the UXO staff so they can manage and implement all facets of the programme. NPA will implement a fazed withdrawal of their staff over the next two years.

When I meet Mr. Phonexay he is busy supervising the construction of a fence around the deminer's accommodation in the Phouvong district of Attapeu. The accommodation site is littered with craters from bombs that fell, surrounding the kitchen and sleeping quarters. Mr. Phonexay stays here during the weekdays, returning to his wife and family for the weekends. Spirit amongst the deminers at the camp is high and the air is filled with laughter and chatting as they work.

We move from the deminers camp to Ban Phalai, where the area clearance team is clearing 150,000 square metres of land for rice fields which is to be used by the local villagers. The team works to a yearly plan, clearing the land that has been prioritized by provincial government and district authorities, taking into account the development needs of villages. Then the team sets to work implementing the plan, clearing land to differing depths depending on to what use the land will eventually be put. This particular site has kept the team busy for three months already and will take approximately two more months to complete. What is immediately noticeable is the mutual respect between Mr. Phonexay and his team as he supervisors the work in progress, giving advice to individual team members and ensuring that breaks are observed so that diligence on the job does not decrease. The team all work individually clearing a given area and taking a 10-minute break every 60 minutes. It is a long day out in the field, especially as the hot afternoon sun sets temperatures rising.

As we walk through the field Mr. Phonexay picks up a piece of metal debris, it is part of the tail fuse from a bomb. He explains how the whole area is littered with such debris from old bomb parts to all manner of other corroding metal, making clearance work a slow and labourious task. Asked if he feels the work is dangerous Mr. Phonexay responds, "It is dangerous work, but the procedures that I have learnt at UXO Lao and from the NPA Advisers eliminates that danger." Clearing such an area of land is in keeping with his own belief that, "UXO's create problems, they restrict farming activities for families and when people try to clear land for themselves or when kids play with the bombs, they can easily have an accident."

The rainy season is pending so the land is dry and hard, making clearance work slow and difficult. This difficulty is eliminated during the rainy season when clearing land can be quicker. However, the rains bring with them a different problem of reduced access as some roads are flooded and become impassable. This is taken into account at the planning stage, ensuring that the least accessible areas are cleared during the dry hot season.

UXO Lao also utilizes a roving clearance team. Whereas the area clearance team uses detectors and locates subsurface ordinance, as the name suggests, the area roving team operates in an altogether different manner. When the community awareness team visits a village, the survey team is also in attendance; they will ask locals questions concerning the whereabouts of ordnance they have seen in and around the village. In this way they gain information regarding surface contamination, maps are drawn detailing the locations of ordnance and the names of key village people who know where the bombs are located also get written down. This information is then passed to the roving clearance team who will visit the village to remove / destroy these UXO's, checking the village in the process for further contamination.

After my day with Phonexay, I meet the roving clearance team as they go to test sentry positions at the new demolition site in Phouvong district. The mood here is a little more somber as on 28 February 2000 at Ban Houakout, three young boys from Ban Don Ngew (aged 9, 11 and 24 respectively) were killed opening BLU 26's. The boys were extracting the explosives and grinding them up for fishing. Scattered nearby were approximately 200 bomb casings that the kids had opened before the fatal one, along with a bag full of retrieved explosives. The memory of this still fresh in their minds has made the roving team even more diligent than usual.

Miss Sengphachan Phomgentow, aged 23 has worked with the roving clearance team for eight months following two months training at the UXO Lao training centre at Ban Y lai, Vientiane. She is single with five brothers and one sister, although she is the first of her family to work for UXO Lao; it is also her first job. She says; "I wanted to work for UXO Lao because I want to help develop my country, freeing more land to Lao people and making it safe for them."

At the demolition site, the team is busy preparing a test demolition under the guidance of Mr. Phonexay and Mr. Bob Rae, the other NPA Technical Adviser responsible for the capacity building of this team. They are testing cracker barrels on the tail fuse of two 500-pound mark 82 bombs, in the hope that the method could be employed to blow fuses off, rendering munitions safe. They are also detonating a 120mm mortar bomb. Miss Seng herself is busy running the electric firing cable.

The local villagers have been warned one day in advance but some of the team go off to the surrounding villages to ensure that the warning has been heeded and no one is in the vicinity. A loud hailer is also used to warn any local people who may be in the area, the team then run the firing cable a minimum of one km from the site for their own safety. They are in constant contact with the sentries via radio to ensure the surrounding area is free of people and a medic is on precautionary standby. Once they are satisfied, the demolition takes place.

The sound of the explosion, like a huge thunderclap, reverberates and echoes around the surrounding area for some minutes afterwards. The team then returns to the demolition site to check the results. The test has been a success. Miss Seng likewise is full of praise for the safety procedures and training "I am not afraid of my work because the procedures are taught very well so we know what to do when we come across different bombs," she says.

After a communal lunch, the roving clearance team makes a visit to Ban Bouangsamphan as the survey team has recently reported UXO contamination. The villagers who know the whereabouts of the ordnance are found and the team are shown to the munitions. They also conduct a check around the village turning up another couple of bombs. Following a short discussion, the necessary procedures are put in place to destroy these ordnance. While chatting to a local family, for just five minutes or so, the young children mention that they know where there are some more ordnance and take me to see them. There are three mortar bombs protruding from a mound of earth just over the road from their home, with a group of young kids playing, oblivious to the danger, close by. The team removes the mortars. This type of incident is extremely common, stop anywhere in the province in a UXO Lao vehicle and exchange a few pleasantries, almost invariably it will lead to being taken somewhere nearby and shown munitions lying on the ground, in fields, schools, paths, almost anywhere. With contamination so high it is almost inevitable that accidents continue.

The community awareness team has the difficult task of raising awareness of the dangers of UXO. For this they use a variety of activities including performance, puppetry, song, video, in fact anything that may get the message across to both children and adults alike. They take their show on the road around the province visiting villages with the message and leaving posters, booklets and other informational documentation behind. Miss Seng feels that this work is important; "Repeated education for both parents and children warning them of the dangers of UXO is essential," she says, adding: "The community awareness team need to visit the villages regularly, reiterating the message in varied and interesting ways."

This year up to the end of April, the UXO Attapeu team has destroyed 2,101 varied munitions. Over 173,776 square metres of land has been cleared in the same period. This land is predominantly for agriculture but also includes a development road and various school grounds. In spite of these efforts, this year there have unfortunately been five deaths and one serious injury from UXO explosions in Attapeu province alone. Clearly there is still work to be done in here, but with the positive attitude, hard work and diligence displayed by all involved, the risks to locals should continue to decrease.