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| © Le Monde Diplomatique, June 2008 |
Images by MAG photographer Sean Sutton capturing the legacy of conflict in Lao PDR are featured in this month's Le Monde diplomatique.
The article, "Laos reaps a deadly harvest", details how, years after the last bomb was dropped there in the secret war on Vietnam’s ‘other theatre’, the Laotians treat the unexploded ordnance as a natural resource to be exploited, dangerously, for its metal content:
Extract:
“War scrap has become a resource to be harvested
like wood or bamboo,” says Tom Morgan from the Mines Advisory Group, a humanitarian organisation that clears mines.
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View Sean Sutton's photo galleries in MAG Multimedia |
“The sheer quality of metal in the ground, combined with high levels of poverty, has led to a thriving trade. Almost everything can be used in some way.
"Part of the problem is that people don’t see unexploded ordnance as particularly dangerous.
"It’s been here for more than 30 years. It’s all around them and it’s a resource that people will use, as stilts for their houses, to grow vegetables in as planters. They'll fashion pots and pans, cutlery and watering cans. In rural areas, UXO will be used for everything.”
The article - available online at the Le Monde diplomatique website - was written by Angela Robson, a writer and journalist for BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service. Her documentary on Laos,‘Bomb hunters’, will be broadcast on the BBC World Service on 13 June 2008 and available online from that date at www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice.
MAG's work in Lao PDR is currently funded by: DFID (UK Department for International Development); Irish Aid; The Humpty Dumpty Institute; Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund (JAIF); Jersey Overseas Aid; USDA (United States Department of Agriculture); US Department of State.
4 June 08
