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Reclaiming the Community One Bomb at a Time: The View From Indochina

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Ted Lieverman
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Extract

Ending a war is like stopping a heavy truck. Even when you slam on the brakes, the mass and inertia of the conflict takes a very long time to halt; the violence might end but the effects can reverberate through decades and generations. German units still find and defuse bombs in Germany dropped during World War II; French deminers regularly collect and destroy artillery shells on the Western Front from World War I, over a hundred years ago. During the active phase of a war, many of the shells and bombs hurled by armies on both sides fail to explode upon impact; many land mines are never tripped. Later they are forgotten in the forests or jungles, covered by vegetation or shifting soil, washed away by rain or floods - or sometimes they just sit there in plain sight. They linger for years or decades, waiting for children or unsuspecting villagers, scrap metal scavengers, or construction workers to wander by.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 17 , Issue 18 , September 2019 , e2
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2019

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References

Notes

1 See, e.g., A. Higginbotham, “There Are Still Thousands of Tons of Unexploded Bombs in Germany, Left Over From World War II,” Smithsonian Magazine, Jan, 2016, available online; J.W. Phippen, “50,000 Evacuate Hanover While Unexploded WWII Bombs are Disabled,” The Atlantic, May 6, 2017, available online. The same is true throughout Europe. “Barcelona's popular beach evacuated over bomb,” BBC News, Aug. 26, 2019, available online; “Unexploded bombs: How common are they?” BBC News, Feb. 14, 2018, available online. See D. Webster, Aftermath: The Remnants of War (1996).

2 Aftermath.

3 Landmine Monitor, (2018), available online.

4 NPA, Solidarity in Action, Annual Report 2017; available online.

5 The United States government actually contributes significant funds to weapons and munitions removal around the world, much of it channeled through various NGOs. The State Department work is largely conducted through its Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement. Its latest annual report, To Walk the Earth in Safety, describes its work in some detail, available online. The Department of Defense also contributes funds to support demining around the world. For a description of the work of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund and other U.S.-based NGOs in Vietnam, see T. Lieverman, “Good Boom,” Vietnam Magazine, 44 (Feb. 2014), available online.

6 NPA, Annual Report 2017.

7 NPA website.

8 See NPA, “Efficient Land Release can remove the threat of antipersonnel mines in ten years,” a video available online; NPA, Cluster Munition Remnants, available online. The latest international standard for land release, IMAS 7.11 amend. 4, created through the United Nations, is available online.

9 Landmine Monitor 2017 records 1,750 casualties through 2016; The 2018 report added 60 more through 2017, available online.

10 G. Black, “The Vietnam War is Still Killing People,” The New Yorker (May 20,2016); available online; emails with RENEW staff.

11 Information supplied by NPA and RENEW.

12 Mine Action Review, “Cambodia, Clearing Cluster Munition Remnants 2019,” available online.

13 Mine Action Review, “Cambodia, Clearing the Mines 2018,” available online.

14 Landmine Monitor 2018, available online.

15 See “‘I feel like I've saved a life;‘ the women clearing Lebanon of cluster bombs,” The Guardian, Aug. 12, 2011.

16 “Young woman leads bomb-hunting team,” Viet Nam News, available online.

17 Emails with Jan Erik Stoa.

18 Mine Action Review, “Vietnam, Clearing Cluster Munition Remnants 2019,” available online.

19 NPA website.

20 Mine Action Review, “Lao PDR: Clearing Cluster Munition Remnants 2019,” available online; Congressional Research Service, “War Legacy Issues in Southeast Asia,” p. 8, available online.

21 NPA website.

22 Landmine Monitor 2018, available online.

23 Mine Action Review, “Vietnam, Clearing Cluster Munitions Remnants 2019,” available online.

24 Landmine Monitor 2018, available online.

25 Landmine Monitor 2018, available online.

26 Landmine Monitor 2019, available online.

27 Interview with Chuck Searcy; see also J. Stevenson, Hard Men Humble, pp 99-113 (2002).

28 For more information about the history of Project RENEW, see T. Lieverman, “Good Boom.”

29 See “Good Boom;” also see interview on the website of Project RENEW.