Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
07VIENTIANE496
2007-06-14 09:03:00
UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
Embassy Vientiane
Cable title:  

ASSORTED LAO UXO NEWS FRAGMENTS

Tags:  PREL KHDP PARM EAID LA 
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VZCZCXRO4897
RR RUEHCHI RUEHDT RUEHHM
DE RUEHVN #0496/01 1650903
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 140903Z JUN 07
FM AMEMBASSY VIENTIANE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 1319
INFO RUEHZS/ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN NATIONS
RUEHCHI/AMCONSUL CHIANG MAI 0569
UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 VIENTIANE 000496 

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR EAP/MLS ED BESTIC
DEPARTMENT FOR PM/WRA DAN HUTCHENS
HANOI FOR JOHN WADE
BANGKOK FOR SKIP KISSINGER

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PREL KHDP PARM EAID LA
SUBJECT: ASSORTED LAO UXO NEWS FRAGMENTS

VIENTIANE 00000496 001.2 OF 002


------------------------------
2007 Annual UXO Review Meeting
------------------------------

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 VIENTIANE 000496

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR EAP/MLS ED BESTIC
DEPARTMENT FOR PM/WRA DAN HUTCHENS
HANOI FOR JOHN WADE
BANGKOK FOR SKIP KISSINGER

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PREL KHDP PARM EAID LA
SUBJECT: ASSORTED LAO UXO NEWS FRAGMENTS

VIENTIANE 00000496 001.2 OF 002


--------------
2007 Annual UXO Review Meeting
--------------


1. (U) Charge and econoff attended the annual UXO review
meeting June 5, which addressed the 2007 workplans for the
National Regulatory Authority (NRA) and UXO Lao. The meeting
provided a useful synopsis of events in the Lao UXO sector in
2006 and presented the UXO goals of the Government of Laos
(GOL) for 2007. A number of interesting facts were
presented. In 2006 approximately 4,700 hectares of land were
cleared of UXO by all operators foreign and domestic. Of
this total, 2,097 were cleared by UXO Lao, the GOL's national
clearance operator. This was 115% of its 1,824 hectare
target. UXO Lao has improved its clearance speed through a
number of initiatives. Starting in 2006 it began to move
from clearing 100% of the metal in a designated area to a
100% UXO-free "Battlefield Clearance" model that searches for
objects half the size of a BLU-26 cluster bomb with fuse and
ignores smaller objects or metal fragments. Additionally,
UXO Lao began cross-training 72 of its medics and drivers as
deminers. When there are two or more teams on one site, one
medic and driver remain ready to assist any injured team
members, while the others search for UXO. According to UXO
Lao Senior Technical Advisor John Dingley, this innovation
has greatly increased productivity, which has steadily risen
from 800 hectares cleared in 2003 to the 2,097 cleared in

2006.


2. (U) The NRA's goals for 2007 are ambitious for an office
that only officially opened in 2006. In addition to
finalizing national UXO clearance standards and beginning the
process to accredit all UXO operators in Laos, the NRA is
also working to create a casualty surveillance capacity,
piggybacking on an already existing Lao government health
monitoring program. The hope is that by mid-2008 the NRA
will have created a database that is continually updated,
internet accessible, and contains all current UXO casualties.
The project also hopes to count past accidents as completely

as possible. The lack of reliable casualty information has
persisted since 1975. Current estimates provided by UXO Lao
range from 150-400 casualties a year, with the overall
post-1975 figure between 11,000 and 13,000 casualties.


3. (U) One problem raised by several donors at the meeting
is the slowness of the approval process for the Memorandum of
Understanding (MOU) required by the GOL before a new
independent operator can begin work in Laos. Armor Group,
the new USG contractor that distributes U.S. financial aid to
UXO Lao and the NRA, as well as managing the four technical
assistants also funded by the USG, continues to wait for the
signing of its MOU. Although the NRA has quietly allowed
Armor Group's representative to begin work at the NRA office,
continued uncertainty on when the MOU will be signed has
slowed planned management training and could endanger timely
disbursement of the USG's FY 2007 funding for UXO Lao and the
NRA if the process continues to drag on.

--------------
Lima Conference on Banning Cluster Bombs
--------------


4. (SBU) Somnuk Vorasam, NRA Deputy Director; Khonepheng
Thammavong, MFA UN Division Chief; and Major Saichay
Kommasith, Deputy Chief of External Relations at the Ministry
of Defense, represented Laos at the May 23-25 Lima Conference
supporting a treaty on banning cluster munitions. In their
statement the Lao delegates indicated that the GOL would
formally announce its intention to join both the Ottawa
Treaty banning landmines and the potential treaty banning
cluster munitions. Stephane Vigie, UNDP Deputy Resident
Representative, noted that one of the reasons for the GOL to
join the two treaties is economic. According to Vigie, a
number of traditional UXO donors (such as Norway and the EC)
have refused to support UXO Lao until the GOL joins the
Ottawa Treaty. He expects that after Laos, the country most
deeply affected by cluster bombs in the world, officially
offers to join the treaty banning cluster munitions, it will
begin receiving additional UXO clearance aid. Vigie
cautioned, however, that the statement appears not to have
been cleared at the GOL's highest levels and might represent
freelancing on the part of the Lao delegation.

--------------
We're Number 1, for Now
--------------

VIENTIANE 00000496 002.2 OF 002




5. (U) In 2006, according to Embassy Vientiane figures, the
United States Government gave $5.6 million to either the GOL
or NGOs in Laos to help with UXO remediation, education, and
victim assistance. Although we do not always receive
sufficient credit from Lao news sources, our monetary
contribution makes us the largest single funding source for
mine action in Laos. While all FY 2007 funding decisions
have not yet been made, we are likely to see the USG
contribution fall compared to 2006. Unfortunately, this is
putting us in danger of losing our crown. We are no longer
the largest donor to national operator UXO Lao--Japan has
assumed that mantle. Japan recently upped its total
contribution for UXO cleanup to about $2.12 million/year, not
far below the level of our likely FY 2007 contribution.
While USAID, and possibly USDA, will probably continue to
fund some UXO projects, USG funding appears to be trending
down, while other countries, including Switzerland and
Ireland along with Japan, are trending higher. Embassy
Vientiane believes there is significant symbolic importance
to the U.S. being the largest donor in this sector.
MCGEEHAN