HEALING CHILD VICTIMS OF CLUSTER BOMBS

Artwork of cluster bomb discharging 'bombies'

A cluster bomb has to be one of the most destructive weapons in world history. If you’ve ever seen video of a cluster bomb in action, you would agree. The damage they can do over a very wide area, is absolutely devastating. 

Dropped by air, most cluster bombs first appear to be a large, standard bomb. But this is deceptive, a cluster bomb’s outer shell is only a container, a ‘dispenser’. After release from an attacking aircraft, this metal container plummets toward earth, and splits apart, opening in mid-air to discharge it’s dangerous payload. 

Here in Vientiane, I’m looking up at a cluster bomb right now, frozen in time just after it has been divided in two. With the airborne dispenser broken apart, it’s lethal cargo has been dispersed into the air below. The contents don’t look very dangerous, they resemble a scattered rain of small metal baseballs. But these spheres aren’t toys, they are submunitions, and each one can contain enough explosive and shrapnel to kill or injure a roomful of people. The Laotians have their own name for these: ‘bombies’. 

This dispenser and dummy bombies hang by thin lines from the ceiling above me, and are no longer dangerous. They're part of a sobering display of anti-war artwork in the Vientiane headquarters of COPE. (Cooperative Orthotic & Prosthetic Enterprise) Obviously COPE is not your average humanitarian organization. Even the COPE sign outside is formed from old prosthetic limbs, molded together. 

The biggest cause of postwar related injuries in Laos has been, and continues to be, from cluster bombs. A caption for this unique artwork explains the hazard well:

BOMBIES

There are many types of cluster bomb. All work in similar ways scattering explosive ‘submunitions’ over a wide area. In the case of the large casings suspended here, one case would contain enough small ‘bombies’ to cover an area equivalent to three football fields. 

Each case contained up to 680 individual cluster bombs, each with a killing radius of 30 meters. The fins on the outside cause the bomb to spin to arm the device. With impact the explosion occurs. In test conditions 30% of this type of device did not explode. This means that out of the 260 million dropped there could have been 80 million unexploded cluster bombs left after the bombing ended. 

The 'COPE' sign is made of prosthetic limb parts

While I look at the hanging artwork, a Laotian boy walks up, and grabs one of the bombies suspended on its transparent line. Pretending it explodes, he feigns pain, and walks away. At least he’s aware that bombies are dangerous. Another boy approaches later, but he’s in a wheelchair tricycle. I wave hello to him, since I don’t speak Lao. He smiles, and waves back to me. This unfortunate boy is a patient here at COPE, and he’s wearing a prosthetic leg that he probably lost to a bombie. Some patients here have stepped on unexploded ordinance, (UXO) and lost both legs. Others picked up a live bombie and lost an arm, sometimes going blind. 



 

Balls for the game 'Petang' resemble bombies

There's been more than 13,000 casualties in Laos since the war ended from UXO and landmines, and about half were children. In the countryside wherepoverty is rife, children have few toys. When they happen upon bombies or other unexploded munitions, their curiosity may get the better of them, and results can be deadly. In 2008, a group of rural Laotian children went out looking for land crabs, and found a cluster bomblet instead. Four boys were killed, and five others injured. There are still about 300 civilian Laotian casualties every year from bombies and other UXO. 

Days before, I recall seeing men on the river front playing petang, a French game where balls are tossed back and forth, similar to horseshoes. Petang is popular in Laos, and unfortunately for children, the steel balls used in this game resemble bombies. How many children have been killed or injured in Laos, when they picked up a bombie, thinking it was only a petang ball?

With so many civilians still being killed or injured by cluster bombs not only in Laos, but in other post-war countries, public outcry arose against these devastating weapons. Like the earlier campaign to ban landmines, recent years saw a similar campaign to ban cluster bombs from the world’s armories. In 2008, the Convention on Cluster Munitions was signed by 107 countries, prohibiting the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of cluster munitions. Although a major step in ridding the world of these weapons, the world’s three largest weapons producers, the USA, Russia and China, did not sign the treaty. 

Here in Laos, the treaty came far too late. With millions of bombies still lying around the Laotian countryside, COPE will have no shortage of patients in the coming years. As I walk around the displays COPE’s Communications Advisor Tracie Williams joins me, telling me more of COPE’s noble work. “Our service is provided for free for those who can’t afford it,” she says. “We provide the prosthetic, rehab and other expenses.” 

Discarded patients' prosthetics hang from ceiling of the COPE center

I would expect this to be a very expensive process, but I’m pleasantly surprised at how cost effective their system is. Each below the knee prosthetic costs only about $100 per patient. Artificial limbs are made on site, just next door in their prosthetic and orthotic workshop. “They use International Red Cross Standards,” Tracie says. “They’re all handcrafted. Low cost.”

By not relying on expensive foreign doctors or manufacturers, their partnership with the Laotian government makes the operation more sustainable, “COPE is a local project, that works in conjunction with the Ministry of Health,” says Tracie. “Most staff are government staff.” Their well received operation now has five COPE clinics across Laos.

Among other UXO displays, is another somber artwork. Also hanging from the high ceiling are numerous prosthetic legs. These are old artificial limbs and some are homemade. A few are fashioned from wood. One is even made of bamboo, with the base made from half a coconut. It looks much like a peg leg from pirate

Homemade leg prosthetic at left, made from bamboo, and half a coconut!!

lore. All these limbs are from former patients. They discarded these prosthetics after receiving new ones here at COPE. 

Among the interactive displays, is a prosthetic leg you can try on. While I watch, a British visitor straps it on. I ask him if it’s comfortable. 

“Not really,” he replies. “It’s really awkward.”

The artificial leg is mostly plastic and metal, with a foot made of rubber. With a bent leg, I insert my knee, and tighten the velcro straps. I put weight on it, and the first sensation I get is immediate pain. Since it isn’t fitted for me, this is not unlike the pain that legless UXO survivors endure when they wore homemade prosthetics. Also here are training stairs, used for patient therapy. I slowly walk up the steps, using the hand rails. It’s definitely awkward. Reaching the top, I look at a mirror. I see I've one normal leg, and one artificial. This is how Laotian patients here see themselves every day. 

A few other patients are here as well. Using crutches, they don’t have a prosthetic yet. The total process of getting a proper prosthetic limb isn’t easy, it entails fitting, manufacture, therapy, and occasionally surgery. But the alternative for these unfortunate folks is to remain crippled and dependent for life. A prosthetic is all about regaining mobility, and many of these patients can return to work. In time, they feel empowered, and self-esteem improves. Some will even be able to walk through their villages without a limp.                                                                                        

“You can see the difference it makes in peoples lives,” Tracie says proudly. “They can go back (to their villages), and cultivate rice.”

Visitors to COPE can try on this prosthetic leg

Artwork of woman and child fleeing an attack

 

INTRODUCTION: WHY ON EARTH GO TO SOUTHEAST ASIA?

Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Mention these countries to Americans, and most immediately think of unending war, and communist rebels. Forbidding jungles, and mysterious mountains.

Ancient Cham ruins in Vietnam. This former Viet Cong hideout was heavily damaged from war's destruction.

When I first told friends that I was going to live in Southeast Asia and travel extensively through these countries, their first reaction was between shock and surprise. Then came the inevitable questions.

“Isn’t it dangerous?”

“Don’t the people there still hate us?”

The questions were understandable, since these were the lands from America’s longest 20th century war, the first war America didn’t win. The cold war quagmire spread across Vietnam’s borders to include Laos and Cambodia. Faraway places that Americans had never heard of before the conflict, became infamous: Saigon and Khe Sanh. Hanoi, and the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Phnom Penh, and the Mekong River.

As news reports on the conflict flooded the media, military acronyms became part of the American public lingo. The NVA, and the ARVN. The USMC, and the VC. The M-16, and the AK-47. The B-52 became so famous, it’s now also known as an alcoholic shot, even at bars within Vietnam today.

Then there were the people on opposing sides that made history: Ho Chi Minh versus Lyndon B. Johnson. General Giap versus General Westmoreland. The Khmer Rouge versus everybody. 

A great deal of US made war materials remains in Vietnam today.

The wars of that region dominated western newswires for years. Communist movements across the region defied the will of four US presidents, and withstood the wrath of the world’s most powerful military.

Casualties of the war were high. More than 58,000 American servicemen died in Southeast Asia during those violent years, but that’s only the beginning of the grim numbers. In Laos, casualties from all sides left more than 150,000 dead, and that’s the lowest number for the region. In Vietnam, a total of more than 2,000,000 were killed. In Cambodia, with the wars and the communist genocide that followed, more than 2,400,000 people lost their lives. As always, civilians caught in the middle suffered the most.

Then finally, after decades of fighting, and so much bloodshed, the guns went silent.

Or did they? When American troops left the region, the TV news cameras left with them. Some wars there continued out of the global spotlight for decades. There are a couple of remote places in the region that still see conflict today, while hidden leftovers from the wars continue to kill and maim unsuspecting civilians in all three countries.

Far from Southeast Asia, the legacy of the Vietnam war continues to affect the current American political scene. Three recent American presidential elections have featured politicians who were Vietnam War veterans: Al Gore, John Kerry and John McCain. All three of those candidates lost their elections.

Soviet built tank used by the North Vietnamese Army during the war, sits today on the grounds of the former Presidential Palace

American war veterans who fought there decades ago, would hardly recognize these countries now. The coming of the 21st century has brought enormous change to this region. But there continues to be a great lack of first hand knowledge in the western world, of what life is like there in Southeast Asia, now and today.

As I made my way around Southeast Asia, I traveled under the radar. If I had applied for an official journalist’s visa for Vietnam and Laos, I would have been restricted as to where and when I could go, and who I could interview. I also would have had to wade my way through a great deal of additional propaganda and bureaucracy. Since I went to these countries on my own, and wrote about what I honestly saw and heard, I fully expect to be banned from future entry to some of these countries. Regrettably, they may never give me another visa. If I had gone the official route, I could have interviewed higher profile politicians, but their stories have already been told. I preferred to talk to the regular people I encountered on my own, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that most people I met were far from ‘regular’. Their stories were new, inspiring and often amazing. These former soldiers and survivors had great to stories to tell, and they helped inspire this blog.

As I traveled around these former war zones, I used translators, or guides, or used guides as translators. Few of the people whose stories I tell here knew I was writing a blog. If they knew, many would never have spoken with me at all. Much of the local populace fear speaking to foreign journalists, and with good reason. Several Vietnamese bloggers recently received long prison sentences The press in Vietnam and Laos are government controlled. Although Cambodia is supposed to have a free press, the government often represses local journalists and citizens for speaking out. Some of the names have been changed. 

Stained glass window in Vietnam museum depicts the war years

As I was departing for Southeast Asia, I wondered, whatever happened to those war torn countries? What legacy has America left behind? What are the people like that live there? Will I encounter problems and prejudice because I’m American?

In writing this blog, I went to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia to find out. The answers to all those questions were surprising, illuminating, and fascinating.

This is your invitation, to join me on that journey of historical discovery.

Your visa is approved, and your seat on the jet is waiting.

It’s the final boarding call.

It’s time to go to Vietnam.