Bomb on the Ho Chi Minh trail and UXO

Bomb

Large bomb crater

I have been coming to Laos for a few years now and have a deep interest in the Vietnam war and in the so called forgotten war in Laos. During my travels I have visited many parts of what is known as the Ho Chi Minh trail, a road which the VC shipped guns and supply’s from Hanoi via the eastern Laos border to southern Vietnam. It was a vital link to maintain supplies to the south and continue the guerrilla tactics of Ho’s army, many books have been written about it and I am not going comment on the political or military effectiveness of this, but I want to talk about the consequences for Laos and how it has continued to affect the lives of the Lao people.

Enough said

Bomb scrap

Old lady sitting on fuel dump missile

Village life

Locals with Chris

The war in Laos was a secret war, it was run mainly by the US military and the CIA from the air to call in massive airstrikes against the VC and Pathet Laos who were fighting a civil war against the Laos establishment at the time. The American war machine decided that a massive bombing campaign should be undertaken in order to close down the trail, in the words of Gen. Curtis Le May when talking about VC activity in Laos he said “we’re going to bomb them back to the stone age”, this is not a paraphrase and he succeeded. He destroyed large parts of this beautiful country, vaporised entire cultures, killing 100,000’s of innocents, wrecking priceless artefacts but failed miserably in ending the Vietnam war.

Mortor shell

The American’s claimed they had no US troops in Laos, of course this has now been recanted and their actions condemned, for many years the largest airport in the world was in northern Laos in a place still classified, called Long Tieng. The infamous airline, Air America a profit making airline run by the CIA controlled bombing raids every 10 minutes from bases in neighbouring north eastern Thailand which they orchestrated from the secret city and also ran supplies and flights from Long Tieng for 9 nine years over a neutral country with devastating results. I could go on and on but it’s pointless, the point of this blog are the unexploded weapons or ordnance which still litter the Laos countryside today. Lots of villages and towns have MAG (Mines Advisory Group) or UXO (Unexploded ordnance) offices mining everyday for this stuff, in fact nearly 30% of all bombs and bombies dropped did not explode.

Bomb casings used to hold up a house

This is a largely rural country of 6.5 million people who had more bombs dropped on them than were dropped in Europe during WW2, these bombs still go off to day killing and maiming hundreds every year everywhere you go you see very poor people limbless or if they are lucky with prosthetics. Laos is now one of the poorest countries in the world, unable to sustain itself it relies on support average earnings are around a dollar a day, this country was ravaged by a war it neither wanted or supported. It was always a peaceful country exploited by all sides in Asia for its rich lands and then became a pawn in a forgotten war.

Bomb crater

Two and a half years ago I visited some UXO offices, there they distribute publications for visitors showing donor who countries who help with the clearing of the UXO, I never once saw the US, this may have changed but it is a miserable reflection of the American response to cleaning up a mess caused by them. I want to ask my American friends of which I have many to ask their senators why not? why will they not take responsibility and remove the bombs, there are entire villages built of war casings can you imagine this? There are certain things we do as human beings that are wrong and when we do these things in order to be better human beings we must accept this and try as best we can to fix it, make amends if you will. Laos is a prime example.

I was riding on the trail recently with my friends Diarmuid and Chris and found this, a live bomb with a detonator still in tact that had been found by some workers, we just happened upon this on that morning.

Bomb

It is nearly 40 years since America stopped bombing this small and neutral country and yet all these years later they are still pulling these weapons out of the ground every thing from 500 pounders, 1000 pounders, fat alberts and much bigger but worse of all are the bombie cases which litter the countryside. Each casing contained 100’s or 1000’s of tennis ball-shaped objects packed with steel ball bearings and explosive charge, designed as an anti personal device and brightly coloured they deliberately targeted those who would be curious, mostly children.