Switzerland to give 3 million dollars to Laos bomb clearance fund

Nov 3, 2010, 14:33 GMT

   Vientiane, Laos - Switzerland is set to contribute 3 million dollars to Laos' Cluster Munitions Trust Fund, designed to clear the country of thousands of unexploded bomblets, reports said Wednesday.

   Switzerland will soon hand its contribution, and Belgium will give another 150,000 euros (210,000 dollars) to the fund, set up by the government and United Nations to clear Laos of unexploded ordnance dropped on the country by the US military during the Vietnam War, the Vientiane Times reported.

   'The most recent pledges will bring the total amount of the fund, previously subscribed to by Australia, Ireland, Canada and France, to more than 52 billion kip (6,379,508 dollars),' the state-run newspaper said.

The Swiss and Belgian contributions are expected to be handed over before Laos hosts the first meeting of state parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions to be held in Vientiane on November 9 to 12.

   Cluster munitions eject smaller submunitions and are designed to kill, maim and demoralize civilian populations.

   To date 38 former users, producers and stockpilers of cluster munitions have joined the treaty, leaving some 73 countries that continue to stockpile the explosives. The US, the world's largest producer and stockpiler of cluster munitions, has refused to sign the convention.

   Laos is the country most heavily contaminated by cluster munitions, the Cluster Munitions Monitor 2010 report said.  

   From 1964 to 1973 the US military dropped over 2 million tons of bombs on Laos to try to wipe out communist guerrillas and to prevent Vietnamese communist forces from using eastern Laos as a route for supplies into southern Vietnam.

   An estimated 30 per cent of the US bombs failed to explode on impact, leaving about 25 per cent of all villages or an estimated 87,231 square kilometres - 40 per cent of the country - affected by unexploded ordnance.

   According to the first survey of unexploded ordnance released by the government's National Regulatory Authority, about 30,000 Lao died or were maimed by bombs and mines from 1964 to 1973 and another 20,000 thereafter with accidents continuing to be reported as late as last year.

   Last year, of the 100 confirmed casualties of cluster munitions worldwide, 33 were in Laos, according to the Cluster Munitions Monitor 2010.

   The meeting in Vientiane next week will seek to raise more donations from the international community to help Laos and other countries affected by cluster munitions, such as Vietnam, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Cambodia, with clearance and services for victims.

   The Laos meeting, the first of its kind, is scheduled to include representatives from 106 countries and more than 400 civil society groups.

   'The objective of the first meeting is to set the framework for putting this treaty in to practice,' Thomas Nash, coordinator of the Cluster Munition Coalition, told a press conference in Bangkok earlier this week.