Laos

[Old Hippie]

In my early years in Thailand, I would see vehicles tagged as Halo Trust or some other group dedicated to removing land mines. As I understand it, the Halo trust was bigger in Cambodia and maybe only in Cambodia? At one point in time, The area along the border between Cambodia and Thailand was the most heavily mined area in the world. I recall reading that xyz number of mines had been removed, but no idea how many had been planted “detonated in action” etc… I have, somewhere the video about the young KR child soldier who had helped plant mines for the KR and when liberated, went on to help a Japanese group remove them, well worth a look if you can still get it at the various places in or around Siem Reap.  

      If I have it right, the situation in Laos is different in that most of the UXOs are from cluster bombs and not mines. I think less of an effort to retrieve these UXOs  has been made for various reasons, the single biggest of which is politics, Laos didn’t want us there and we couldn’t have cared less either way. The other reason is many bombs were dropped “indiscriminately,” as in, not a detailed record of where and when these bombs were dropped or what kind and where and when. Additionally, no idea of what bombs detonated and if any or all of the “clusters” detonated. It is possible some detonated and others didn’t, and scattered over a very wide area. I have met people who were involved with the UXO project in Laos and they will tell you it is extremely difficult to solve other than through education as in telling people/kids “…this is what these things look like, don’t touch them…” then blowing them in place. 

[bust]

I remember when the world was hit with the Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy outbreak some people were suggesting shipping all the cattle to Cambodia,Lao etc and herd them through the fields.

[Coss]

I had an idea that I sent to several of these outfits, the lack of response and disinterest in it, only further fuelled my distaste for "NGO Farangs trying to be wonderful whilst living off the pigs back', or in this case the buffalo's back.

idea

Big arse Helicopter, 50 -7 0 meters tether, to a 10 foot square steel plate of appropriate thickness - I dunno get engineers to specify - 3" or 4"?

Then mount some sort of transducer, powered by a small petrol generator on it, the transducer generating sound of a doof~doof dub n bass nature, at such a volume, that when the plate is on or within a few inches of the ground, would penetrate the substrate and detonate the mines/bombies.

The aural equivalent of hitting said bombies with a hammer.

The only flaw I now see in this, is it'd only work on relatively clear ground, trees and such would preclude the operation, mind you, 35 years ago it was clearing rice paddies that was the priority.

[Coss]

of interest

https://thediplomat.com/2025/06/did-the-lao-government-just-attempt-an-extrajudicial-killing-on-european-soil/