Disarmament activists and former US ambassadors are urging Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to increase US aid to Laos

US urged to hike Laos bomb-clearing aid

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‎By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON – Disarmament activists and former US ambassadors are urging Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to increase US aid to Laos to clear millions of tonnes of unexploded ordinance (UXO) left by US bombers on its territory during the Indochina War during her brief visit to the country Wednesday. The visit, scheduled to last only a few hours on a hectic eight-nation tour by Clinton designed in part to underline the Barack Obama administration’s “pivot” from the Middle East to Asia, will nonetheless be historic. No sitting US secretary of state has visited Laos since 1955.

Sources here said Clinton is considering a US$100 million aid commitment to support bomb-clearing efforts over a 10-year period. Such a commitment would more than double the nearly $47 million Washington has provided in UXO assistance since 1997 when it first began funding UXO programs in Laos.

“While Secretary Clinton’s visit celebrates a promising future for US-Lao relations,” said Ambassador Douglas Hartwick, who served as Washington’s envoy in Vientiane from 2001 to 2004, “I hope she also affirms to the Lao people America’s steadfast commitment to help Laos and the international community to resolve this legacy once and for all by clearing Lao land of deadly bombs.”

Hartwick was one of six former ambassadors to Laos who last year publicly urged Clinton to travel to Laos and adopt the 10-year, $100 million UXO proposal – originally put forward by a Washington-based organization, Legacies of War – on her way from last year’s Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Bali, Indonesia.

Administration policymakers, however, evidently decided to put off the trip until this year’s regional summit in Cambodia, Laos’s next-door neighbor.

Over the past year, Washington has intensified its courtship of China’s southern neighbors, notably Myanmar, with which relations have improved dramatically since Clinton’s visit there – also the first by a secretary of state since 1955 – last December. Before arriving in Phnom Penh late Wednesday, she spent Tuesday in Hanoi before traveling on to Vientiane.

Between 1964 and 1973, more than 2.5 million tonnes of US munitions were dropped on Laos – more than was dropped on Germany and Japan combined during World War II – making what was then the poorest country in Southeast Asia the most heavily bombed nation per capita in history.

With some 2.5 million inhabitants at the time, an average of one tonne of bombs was dropped for every man, woman and child in Laos.

Up to 30% of the bombs failed to detonate. Their remnants not only cause several hundred casualties a year, but also effectively prevent Laotian farmers from cultivating hundreds of thousands of hectares of fertile land.

Some 20,000 people have been killed or maimed by UXO over the past 40 years, according to Legacies of War. An estimated one-third of Lao land is still littered with the deadly ordinance.

Unlike with Vietnam and Cambodia, Washington never severed diplomatic relations with the communist government that eventually took power in 1975. It nonetheless took 17 years – until 1992 – for the US, whose top priority initially was to account for the nearly 600 US servicemen killed or missing in action in Laos, to fully normalize ties. Normal trade relations were formalized only seven years ago.

Washington first provided funding for UXO clearance in 1997 under president Bill Clinton and maintained aid at an average annual rate of about $2.6 million. In 2009, it rose to $3.5 million and then to $5 million in 2010. Led by Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy and Republican Senator Richard Lugar, Congress approved $9 million for this year.

The Senate Appropriations Committee has recommended that $10 million be approved for 2013, but that amount could be a harder sell in the Republican-led House of Representatives.

Proponents of the aid are hoping that a public commitment by Clinton will enhance the chances for Congressional approval for the $10 million and a longer-term commitment which they believe will be necessary to leverage additional resources from other donor countries and agencies.

“The people who continue to suffer from the bombings are ordinary Lao villagers,” said Channapha Khamvongsa, Legacies’ executive director. “We are hopeful that after witnessing the human impact of UXO in Laos first-hand, the secretary will re-affirm the US commitment to helping Laos solve this problem once and for all.”

The challenge remains formidable. While more than 1 million UXO are estimated to have been destroyed or cleared to date, it is believed that nearly 80 million are still scattered across the country.

“UXO/mine action is the absolute pre-condition for the socio-economic development of [Laos],” according to a two-year-old study by the UN Development Programme, which has worked with the government of Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong to develop a plan to focus clearance efforts on high-priority areas.

“[E]conomic opportunities in tourism, hydroelectric power, mining, forestry and many other areas of activity considered main engines of growth for the Lao [Peoples Democratic Republic] are restricted, complicated and made more expensive,” according to the UNDP, which has estimated the funding needs to significantly reduce the UXO problem in Laos at $30 million a year sustained over a 10-year period.

While the US is the single largest donor to the UXO program, others, notably Japan, the European Commission, Ireland, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Germany, and Australia, as well as UN agencies, have also contributed to the program.

Led chiefly by the UXO funding, Washington’s total bilateral aid program to Laos has grown from to $12 million for the current year from about $5 million in 2007. In addition to the $9 million for the UXO program, Washington has focused aid on the health sector and counter-narcotics.

In a related development on Monday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged Clinton to halt all aid to the Somsanga drug detention center until the Lao government conducts a full and independent investigation into human-rights abuses allegedly committed against detainees there, including children.

In March, 12 UN agencies also called for Somsanga and other drug detention centers in Laos to be closed.

“The Lao government and the US State Department claim that Somsanga is a modern healthcare center,” said Joe Amon, HRW’s health and human-rights director. “But a decade of US funding hasn’t changed the fact that it’s a brutal and inhumane detention center where the Lao government puts undesirable’ people.”

Jim Lobe‘s blog on US foreign policy can be read at http://www.lobelog.com.

Before Clinton Visit: Chinese State Councilor Meets Lao President

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By Xinhua, 9 July 2012

Chinese State Councilor Meng Jianzu (left first) met Friday with Lao Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Douangchay Phichith on July 9, 2012, speaking highly of the China-Laos relations and the outstanding contribution the president has made to the development of bilateral ties. [Photo: Xinhua/Si Hongliang]

Vientiane — Chinese State Councilor Meng Jianzu met here Friday with Lao President Chummaly Saynhasone, speaking highly of the China-Laos relations and the outstanding contribution the president has made to the development of bilateral ties.

Meng, who is also minister of public security, said since the murder case took place on the Mekong River on Oct. 5 last year, China and the Lao have cooperated closely to promote the establishment of the security cooperation mechanism for law enforcement by China, the Laos, Myanmar and Thailand, which are linked by the river.

The capture of Naw Kham, head of an armed drug gang suspected of masterminding the murder of Chinese sailors on the Mekong River, is a major achievement of the security cooperation which has provided strong protection of the life and property safety of the people along the river.

Two Chinese cargo ships, the “Hua Ping” and “Yu Xing 8â-’, were attacked by armed people on the Mekong River on Oct. 5, 2011. Thirteen Chinese sailors were killed in the incident, in the ” Golden Triangle” area where the borders of Myanmar, Thailand and the Laos meet.

A joint investigation by police from China, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand found that Naw Kham, core members of the gang and a small number of Thai soldiers planned and conducted the murder of 13 Chinese sailors.

Naw Kham was arrested on April 25, 2012, in an undisclosed location in Laos. Upon his transfer to the Chinese side, he was sent to China via a chartered plane on May 10.

The transfer of the drug lord fully demonstrated the strategic mutual trust between China and Laos, Meng said, adding that the Chinese side is willing to strengthen contact and cooperation with Laos and related countries to carry out the interrogation of Naw Kham.

He said the security situation still remains grave along the Mekong River valley, and China is willing to work with the Laos to enhance coordination and support each other to push forward law enforcement and security cooperation on the river and create a steady and peaceful environment for regional economic development and the livelihood of the people.

Saynhasone, also general secretary of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party, spoke highly of the achievements Laos and China have made in the fields of law enforcement and security, saying the fruitful results of bilateral cooperation on the Mekong River were based on the high-level political mutual trust between the two countries.

The law enforcement and securities departments of the two countries should strengthen contacts and cooperation in the next step and take effective measures to destroy the criminal gangs that have long threatened regional security, so as to maintain shipping safety along the Mekong River and boost regional prosperity and development.

As for the ninth ASEM summit Laos will sponsor in the next half of this year, Saynhasone expressed gratitude for the support the Chinese side has offered, saying Laos is willing to learn from Chinese experience in maintain security for major international meetings.

While meeting with Lao Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Douangchay Phichith, Meng suggested that to deepen law enforcement and security cooperation between China, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand, efforts should be made to promote related countries to discuss and sign an agreement on the cooperation along the Mekong River valley, conduct intelligence and information exchanges and embark on joint operations to cope with major problems concerning security.

Efforts should also be made to improve the joint petrol and other law enforcement operations and to further crack down on Naw Kham’s armed drug gang by searching the other members of the criminal gang at large for punishment according to law.

Phichith said he agreed to the suggestions and believed that Meng’s visit would help deepen the law enforcement and security cooperation between the two countries.

Meng also had talks with Lao Minister of Public Security Thongbanh Sengaphone here on Monday. They exchanged views on deepening China-Laos ties and law enforcement and security cooperation before signing a summary of the talks.

Copyright © 2012 Capital FM. All rights reserved

Laos 1965 plane crash airmen to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery

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Associated Press

ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) – It was Christmas Eve 1965 when the Air Force plane nicknamed “Spooky” took off from Vietnam for a combat mission. The crew sent out a “mayday” signal while flying over Laos, and after that, all contact was lost.

Two days of searches turned up nothing. For years, that was all the families knew about what happened to the six servicemen aboard the plane.

Now, nearly 50 years after the AC-47D went down, a measure of finality comes Monday: Remains from the six men will be buried with full military honors in a single casket at Arlington National Cemetery.

The burial comes after the recovery of remains in 2010 and 2011 by joint U.S.-Laotian search teams.

Examiners relied on dental records, personal items recovered from the site and circumstantial evidence to conclude that the recovered remains are representative of all six Air Force servicemen: Col. Joseph Christiano of Rochester, N.Y.; Col. Derrell B. Jeffords of Florence, S.C.; Lt. Col. Dennis L. Eilers of Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Chief Master Sgt. William K. Colwell of Glen Cove, N.Y.; Chief Master Sgt. Arden K. Hassenger of Lebanon, Ore.; and Chief Master Sgt. Larry C. Thornton of Idaho Falls, Idaho.

The Air Force gave all six posthumous promotions, a military spokeswoman said. Dribs and drabs of information came in over the years, and some family members heard rumors that loved ones had been seen alive.

But mostly it was the passage of time that led relatives to conclude their loved ones had perished.

“The sad part about our situation is for seven years, we hoped he was alive,” said Jeanne Jeffords, 86, of Temecula, Calif., whose husband, Derrell, was on board.

Their son, Terry, was 16 years old when Jeffords died and their daughter, Deryl, was 13. “We hoped he was a prisoner.

Seven years later, they released all the prisoners. The Air Force called me at 3 a.m. one morning and said, ‘We’re sorry to tell you, but your husband is not among the prisoners.’”

Ron Thornton, who now lives in Bozeman, Mont., remembered reacting to news his father’s plane had gone missing with the optimism of the sixth-grader he was in 1965: At some point, he was just sure his father would come walking out of the jungle and back into his family’s arms.

“The world being the size it was, I just thought he’d been misplaced,” Ron Thornton said. “I really believed they would find him.” Weeks turned into months, months to years.

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The family kept Thornton’s picture on the wall of their home in Great Falls, Mont., along with his medals.

Even now, he said, he doesn’t expect Monday’s burial will completely erase the questions from his mind, given that there is no definitive DNA evidence of his father’s remains.

“There will always be this little hint of doubt at the back of my mind,” he said. “It would be nice if they would have the proof positive.”

Joseph Christiano’s wife, Josephine, took an especially active role in the search, according to her daughter Elaine.

Josephine Christiano addressed Congress and a special session at the Paris Peace Talks, went to Thailand and Laos looking for information, and joined a family support group.

She said her mother’s greatest fear was that her father was captured, held prisoner and died in captivity.

“The military will continue their search at the site to hopefully find more remains and artifacts,” Elaine Christiano wrote in an email to The Associated Press. “The family still has questions but we have to accept this as our (closure).”

Dean Eilers remembered getting the news about his brother Dennis around Christmastime.

“After weeks or so, you think maybe with the training … and survival, you think they’d escape or get away from somebody. Then after a year or two, you thought they might be prisoners. Then after that, you don’t give up hope, but you figure they probably died in the crash, you know, after 40 some years.”

He said the family still wonders what happened that night. The first joint U.S.-Laotian team didn’t visit the crash site until 1995 in the southern province of Savannahket, which was heavily bombed during the war as it lay on the Ho Chi Minh supply route that supplied Vietcong communist guerrillas in southern Vietnam.

A villager recalled seeing a two-propeller aircraft crash near the village. A second villager had found wreckage of it and took the team to the crash site.

Follow-up teams revisited the site four times between 1999 and 2001 and recovered military equipment but no human remains, and excavation was suspended.

Excavations resumed in 2010 and 2011, when human remains and personal items from the crew were found. It is not uncommon in situations like these for joint sets of remains to buried at Arlington.

The Pentagon’s Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office lists more than 83,000 servicemembers as missing in action, the vast majority from World War II. In 2011, the office identified the remains of 62 service members previously unaccounted for.

Colwell’s family, after years of holding out hope, had him declared dead in 1977 “for paper reasons,” said his niece, Ann Famigliette, who described her uncle as a “lifer.”

“He loved it. He loved flying,” she said. When the military called to tell her that her uncle’s remains had been identified, “it took me a while to process it,” she said. “I just didn’t think this day was going to come. … I’m so grateful it has come, and he’s able to be buried a hero on American soil.”

Hassenger’s daughter, Robin Hobson, said she takes comfort in the fact that the remains were found near the wreckage of the plane, which she takes as evidence that the men died quickly and did not suffer.

“It’s just a big relief that he has come home. It’s been a long time, and it was time for him to be home.” said Hobson, who was 8 when her father deployed. “We know where he’s at now.”

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Related News:

• Six Airmen Lost Over Laos in 1965 Buried at Arlington  ABC News (blog)
• US military to bury airmen killed in 1965 crash‎ The Reporter
• Airmen killed in 1965 crash in Laos finally come home for burial‎ Plain Dealer
• 46 years later, US military 6 airmen lost in Laos plane crash buried …‎ Washington Post