One of the more unusual tourist attractions in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, is the visitor centre run by COPE, the Cooperative Orthotic & Prosthetic Enterprise.
This mini-museum highlights the continuing after-effects of unexploded ordnance (UXO) resulting from the US’s ‘secret’ war on Laos from 1964 to 1973.
These were the Vietnam War years and the US was trying to prevent North Vietnamese infiltration into South Vietnam by disrupting the Ho Chi Minh supply corridor (which partly ran through Lao territory) by means of a massive covert bombing campaign led by the CIA.
Here are some of the facts, according to COPE:
- Laos was the most heavily bombed country ever (per capita).
- There were 500,000 bombing missions, or one every eight minutes for nine continuous years.
- Two million tons of ordnance were dropped.
- 270 million ‘bombies’ (the bomblets inside cluster bombs) were dropped.
- 80 million (around 30%) failed to explode and remained unexploded after the war.
- 25% of villages in Laos are still contaminated with UXO.
- 20,000 people have been killed or maimed by UXO in the nearly 40 years since the war ended.
- 40% of these victims have been children.
- 13,500 of these people have lost a limb(s).
- 100 new casualties are still occurring annually.
The exhibitions here are quite informative, as they divulge the many harsh realities faced by modern day victims of these UXOs. Like all wars and conflicts, it is the innocent who pay the true price.
If you’re ever in Vientiane in the future, do visit this centre as it provides a very vivid and sobering reminder of the tragic effects of war and conflict.
COPE Visitor Centre
Boulevard Khou Vieng
Vientiane, Laos
This article first appeared on Thrifty Traveller.