Vietnam War's Painful Legacy

I have written a lot here about the young boy, Nghia, who found a bomb in Vietnam and lost his lower legs and one arm while tampering with it in March.

The San Jose Mercury News has written about him here.

Dark Star Crashes: The Passing of Scott Larned

I just learned that the keyboardist for Dark Star Orchestra, Scott Larned, died of a heart attack this weekend.

Scott was a friend of our treasurer Francesca Thompson and he was so kind in helping us get Dark Star Orchestra on to our benefit CD.

His last email to me, after I thanked him for his help on the project, was this one:

"No problem, James, Happy to help!
See you sometime soon, perhaps,
Scott"

Sadly that will not come to pass and I will not get to thank him in person.

Our hearts go out to the members of the band and to Scott's family... he was a true talent and a kind, giving man.

Despite 30 Years of Peace between US and Vietnam War Isn�t Over For Everyone

Despite 30 Years of Peace between US and Vietnam War Isn�t Over For Everyone Unexploded Ordnance Continues to Kill & Maim In Central Vietnam

On the eve of the 30th anniversary of the end of the war in Vietnam, Clear Path International is responding to a spate of new accidents north and south of the former Demilitarized Zone in Central Vietnam.

�This is a historic event marked by healing and hope in relations between former enemies,� says Martha Hathaway, executive director of Clear Path International. �But sadly, the legacy of our shared history continues to affect those who live in the former war zone of central Vietnam, particularly children.�



During the month of April, Clear Path International has responded to four different accidents along the central coast in which civilians were killed or injured by unexploded ordnance left over from the war, Hathaway says.
In just four months since Jan. 1, 2005, local hospitals reported 28 accidents involving landmines or unexploded ordnance in four provinces, killing five people and injuring 30. Twenty-four of the victims were children.
Clear Path Intenational is a U.S.-based 501 C 3 nonprofit with offices in Vermont and Washington State. It serves landmine accident survivors, their families and their communities in Southeast Asia. Since 2000, the organization has provided a range of medical and social services to these and 1,500 other survivors of accidental explosions in 13 provinces in Vietnam.
�There are thousands of previously injured landmine survivors who still need our help and the hidden remnants of war claim new victims every week,� Hathaway says.
�While we reflect on the peace that has reigned between the United States and Vietnam for three decades now, let�s support those whose lives and dreams are shattered by the war�s destructive legacy,� she says. �For many families in central Vietnam, the war simply isn�t over.�

Cambodia Landmine History

Chanthon is CPI's Cambodia Rep and he sends this in from Phnom Penh!

Cambodia, home to 10 million people and the fabled Angkor Wat temple, is also �home� to millions of landmines. War has injured the country socially, culturally and economically and the effects are visible in many ways but perhaps most poignantly in the number of children, men and women wearing prostheses or riding wheelchairs.

Mines laid by all factions in the Cambodian conflict continue to maim and kill civilians and military and make agricultural land unsafe. In 1998, 1,249 known new casualties occurred. More than 644 square kilometers of land is known to be mined, and another 1,400 square kilometers is suspected to be mined. In a country where 85 percent of the population is dependent upon agriculture or related activities, such a contamination represents a massive restriction of Cambodia�s economic base. However through the Cambodia Mine Action Center (CMAC), and the non-government organizations that work alongside it, the people of Cambodia are tackling this legacy of conflict.
Key developments since May 2002: In 2002, a total of 34.7 million square meters of land was cleared, including 41,030 antipersonnel mines. In 2002, 834 new mine and UXO casualties were reported, a small increase from 2001. In September 2002, Cambodia became co-rapporteur of the Standing Committee on Mine Clearance, Mine Risk Education and Mine Action Technologies. In March 2003, Cambodia hosted a regional seminar �Building a Co-operative Future for Mine Action in South East Asia.�
Recent History
The fate of Cambodia shocked the world when the radical communist Khmer Rouge under their leader Pol Pot seized power in 1975 after years of guerrilla warfare.
The Khmer Rouge immediately abolished money and private property, and ordered city dwellers into the countryside to cultivate the fields.
An estimated 1.7 million Cambodians perished during the next three years - many died from exhaustion or starvation, others were systematically tortured and executed for being "enemies of the state".
Only now is Cambodia beginning to put the mechanism in place to bring those responsible for the "killing fields" to justice.
Cambodia is one of the poorest countries in the world. Subsistence farming employs 75% of the workforce, with the Mekong River providing fertile, irrigated fields for rice production.
Well over half of Cambodia is forested, but illegal logging is robbing the country of millions of dollars of badly needed revenue. The environment is also suffering, with topsoil erosion and flooding becoming ever more prevalent.
The government has promised to act, but local forestry officials are suspected of colluding with the timber companies.
The spread of Aids is another threat to Cambodia�s future. The booming sex industry means there are on average 100 new HIV infections every day, but Cambodia has few resources to care for them.
Geography
Location: South-eastern Asia, bordering the Gulf of Thailand, between Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos
Area: 181,040 sq km
Climate: tropical; rainy, monsoon season (May to November); dry season (December to April); little seasonal temperature variation
Terrain: mostly low, flat plains, mountains in southwest and north
Natural resources: timber, gemstone, some iron ore, manganese, phosphates, hydropower potential
People
Population: 13,124,726 (2003)
Population growth rate: 1.8%
Birth rate: 27.28 births/1,000 population
Death rate: 9.26 deaths/1,000 population
Life expectancy at birth: female 60 years, male 55 years
Ethnic groups: Khmer 90%, Vietnamese 5%, Chinese 1%, other 4%
Religion: Theravada Buddhist 95%, other 5%
Languages: Khmer 95%, French, English
Nationality: Cambodian
Literacy: female 22%, male 48%
Government
Country name: Kingdom of Cambodia/Cambodia
Capital: Phnom Penn
Government type: multiparty democracy under a constitutional monarchy established in 1983
Chief of State: King Norodom Sihanouk
Head of Government: Prime Minister Hun Sen
International organization participation: ASEAN, FAO, G-77, IAEA, IBRD, Interpol, ILO, IMF, UN, WHO, WMO, WtoO
Economy
GDP per capital: 1,500 US dollars (2002)
Population below poverty line: 36%
GDP composition by sector: agriculture 50%, industry 15%, service 35%
Import commodities: petroleum products, cigarettes, gold, construction materials, machinery, motor vehicles
Import partners: Thailand 30.2%, Singapore 21.5%, Hong Kong 10.5%, China 7.8%, Vietnam 6.6%, Taiwan 4.7%
Export commodities: timber, garments, rubber, rice, fish
Export partners: US 61.5%, Germany 9%, Singapore 5%, UK 7.2%, Singapore 4.5%, Japan 3.8%
Economic aid recipient: $548 billion (2001)
Currency: riel

UPDATE: Video of Nghia at Home

When I was in Vietnam a month ago, I wrote of a sweet, young boy who had found a piece of ordnance and tampered with it. The result was that he lost two legs and an arm...

Our phenomenal staff in Vietnam has been checking in on him and I just realized they posted a video of him to our FTP site a while ago and I somehow missed it.

Here is the video of Nghia at home a few weeks after his accident.

Cluster Bomb Kills Man in Vietnam: Video

Two days ago on April 18 in Dong Ha, Quang Tri Province Vietnam, 24 year old Nguyen Van Chung was hunting for scrap metal. He accidentally uncovered a piece of ordnance with his hoe and was killed almost immediately from shrapnel wounds to the chest and throat.

This is the third accident to hit this family and the second resulting in death.

A video of his family mourning his loss is here along with an eyewitness account of the accident (caution: graphic content).


As the 30th Anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War approaches, Clear Path International has now served over 1500 victims of unexploded ordnance and their families in 3 countries.

Senator Leahy On The Loss Of Marla Ruzicka

Statement Of Senator Patrick Leahy On The Death Of Marla Ruzicka

One of Us: The Death of Marla Ruzicka

CNN.com - Humanitarian group founder killed in Iraq - Apr 17, 2005

About a year ago I was in Thailand waiting for my contact to arrive at my hotel to take me to a CPI project site on the Thai-Burma border.

I was watching a CNN International program on Iraq and what caught my attention (naturally) was a new organization working with Iraqi victims of war called CIVIC. Their founder, a young, dynamic woman was being interviewed and I was inspired. Marla Ruzicka had the same spirit as my colleagues at CPI, was around the same age as us and reminded me of my wife, Martha.

She was one of us!

I emailed her when I got back to the States and said that I would love to meet her in DC sometime and talk shop. She emailed me back and agreed it would be a good thing for us to compare notes sometime, but was heading back to Iraq.

Marla was killed in Iraq yesterday by a car bomb and the world has lost a true hero. I admired Marla. I never met her, but I am as sad as I post this blog as if I lost a friend.

She was one of us.

Turtles Can Fly: The Children of War

The following is posted by longtime CPI advisor, and movie critic, Dr. Joan Widdifield.

"Turtles Can Fly"
Director: Bahman Ghobadi
Running Time: 95 minutes
Language: Kurdish
2004

The 1974 documentary "Hearts & Minds" released at the end of the Vietnam War is credited for humanizing the Vietnamese people for Americans. Before that the Vietnamese people were anonymous strangers who lived in a strange faraway land. "Hearts & Minds" director Peter Davis says that our news show us what is behind the guns, but seldom what's on the other side of the guns. "Hearts & Minds" did that for the Vietnam War, and now the drama "Turtles Can Fly" from 36 year-old Iranian director Bahman Ghobadi shows us what's on the other end of the guns in Kurdish Iraq.

Just as in Ghobadi's first film "A Time for Drunken Horses," "Turtles Can Fly" gets to the heart of the experiences of marginalized children. The film opens right before the American invasion and ends right after it starts. Landmines that have been killing and maiming have been a part of Kurdish life for generations. American and Western European countries manufacture the landmines that Saddam Hussein used there. In an interview Ghobadi said that when he visited Iraq he saw the horrors that children suffer as the victims of war and wanted to capture that in his film.
"Turtles Can Fly" takes us into the world of parentless refugee children who have suffered for years under Saddam's rule, U.N. Sanctions, and now the impending American invasion. These children have to hustle to eat, worry about defending themselves with weapons, find out how to acquire masks to protect them from chemical attacks, and escape exploding mines.
The story focuses mainly on two children; "Satellite" is the scrappy, slightly awkward but deeply empathic ruler of the children. As we watch him navigate his daily challenges and make impossible decisions, the poignancy of his character sears into your heart. Agrin, the newly orphaned girl who has already endured too much is in charge of caring for her maimed brother and a baby. We see the children's struggles and the state of their lives as the casualties of war -- and decisions made by Saddam Hussein and George Bush. In their small world they try to make sense of the fate they have been dealt.
Satellite oversees children who clear mines and negotiates at the market to get the best deal for the mines. He is the only one who knows how to install satellite dishes for the anxious refugees starved for news about the impending American invasion, and their destiny. Satellite is a smart self-appointed boss and natural leader who finds out that Agrin's brother, maimed by landmines, has a gift for seeing into the future. He uses the boy's gift to protect the community. Agrin is besieged with grief over her losses and the trauma she has endured. We enter her world and can only imagine what it must be like to be so young and have to shoulder her burden.
When we hear in the American news that over 125 thousand people have been killed in the Iraq war -- and even more have been maimed -- our minds naturally protect us from the reality of what that means. We can't possibly imagine the well of sorrow these numbers represent. "Turtles Can Fly" hones in on the stories of the children in a small refugee community and shows us a little about what war really means to the civilians who are actually there. We care about the characters in the film. If a good film is supposed to transport you to a different place and show you another way of seeing the world, "Turtles Can Fly" has succeeded.
In San Francisco, this is Joan Widdifield for Movie Magazine. �
Movie Magazine International www.shoestring.org

Benefit Concert in Northern Vermont

APRIL 21st THE LONG TRAIL TAVERN, Johnson VT
The Ghosts of Pasha will be performing with
The Mud City Ramblers

To Benefit Johnson State College's Breakway trip to Vietnam!

Landmine Commercial Controversy

Recently there has been a lot of media buzz around a commercial put out by the U.N. Mine Action Service. If you have not seen the ad, it involves a typical American, middle class, suburban scene. Two girls soccer teams are playing a game in front of their parents. One of the girls steps on a landmine hidden in the field and is severely injured.

The tagline the end of the commercial asks "If there were land mines here, would you stand for them anywhere?"

The public service announcement has not run on any stations as most stations feel it is too graphic and disturbing for a general audience.

I respect what the U.N. Mine Action Service is trying to say in this spot. Having seen first-hand the horror of landmines and unexploded ordnance, I too would like people to witness, and somehow identify with, this horror and get involved personally in the cause.

But what happens to most families is even more horrific than this ad can possibly convey. The family in this ad most certainly has health insurance... they certainly will not have to sell their home to pay for medical treatment for their daughter. They will not have to sell all of their farm animals to help pay for her prosthetics. The daughter is most likely not one of the major breadwinners in the family and working in the fields to help support the family.

Like I said, I respect what the U.N. Mine Action Service is doing here. I think the ad should run... however, the reality is much more horrifying.

There is a brief video here of me visiting a boy who lost his lower legs and arm to a landmine... the reality to me... with no actors, no sets and no special effects, is much more telling: http://www.cpi.org/multimedia/nghia_in_hospital_3_05_med.wmv

Landmine Monitor 2004 Report on UXO in Vietnam

Was just reading this to send to a reporter and thought I would share it here. This comes from the LANDMINE MONITOR's online edition.
Vietnam, Landmine Monitor Report 2004

Vietnam is heavily contaminated with unexploded ordnance from the conflict in the 1960s and early 1970s, as well as smaller quantities of bombs and mines from other conflicts. Minefields exist from as long ago as the Dien Bien Phu campaign against the French in 1954, extending through border conflicts with China and the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s. BOMICO now maintains that as much as 20 percent of Vietnam's land surface, a total of 66,578 million square meters, is affected by unexploded ordnance (UXO) and landmines.[20] This represents a substantial increase from previous BOMICO estimates of 7 to 8 percent. No reason has been given for the change. The Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation (VVAF) has cited Ministry of Defense sources as stating that three million landmines remain in Vietnam's soil,not including UXO.[21] Official sources cite figures ranging from 350,000-800,000 tons of war-era ordnance in the ground.[22] All 61 provinces are affected, particularly in the center and south of the country, though there are significant mine action programs in only three of the most affected provinces (Quang Tri, Quang Binh and Thua Thien-Hue).

The scale of the UXO and landmine problem was most severe in the late 1970s and early 1980s, immediately after the conclusion of the war. However, new discoveries of ordnance were reported in 41 out of 61 provinces in 2003.[23] The Ministry of Defense states that the most affected portions of the country are the central provinces from the former DMZ southward, including Quang Tri, Quang Nam and Quang Ngai.[24] Historical records of US combat activities housed at BOMICO, provided by the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency, allow for a ranking of provinces by total number of air-dropped ordnance, largely bombs and cluster munitions.[25] The most common types of UXO are BLU-26/36 cluster bombs and M79 40mm grenades, which are together responsible for 65 percent of injuries since 1975.[26] The Boundaries Committee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed in May 2003 that despite significant clearance in the 1990s, landmines remain a serious problem on the Chinese and Cambodian borders. Few mines but many UXO are found on the Lao border.[27]

Survey data shows that residents of Quang Tri and Thua Thien-Hue provinces have encountered landmines and UXO most frequently while gathering firewood, farming or tending livestock, and near homes.[28] Up to 35 percent of local land in Quang Tri cannot be used for cultivation or settlement.[29]

Few of the UXO/mine-affected areas are marked, even with local materials such as bamboo sticks.[30] Survey results in Quang Tri province indicate that only 33 percent of subdistricts contain marking signs, and 92 percent of survivors report that the areas where their injuries occurred were not marked as dangerous.[31] In some cases, maps of minefields are not available, or locations have shifted due to floods, landslides and erosion.[32]

Workers on the Ho Chi Minh Highway, running through affected areas near Vietnam's western border, have found tens of thousands of UXO since 2001.[33] New sections of the highway in central provinces are attracting migrants from lowland areas who are engaging in small-scale farming or opening shops. As migrants clear and explore previously unused land near parts of the former Ho Chi Minh Trail, they will encounter UXO and landmines.

Reports from central and southern Vietnam describe a sharp increase in scrap metal collection and bomb hunting in areas that have not been cleared since the war.[34] Most searchers do so not by choice, but for lack of economic alternatives; few have any training in ordnance disposal.[35] Scrap metal collecting is a legal activity in Vietnam. Possession or use of explosives, however, is not. Fines and prison terms have been imposed on explosives dealers and fishermen who have hoarded large quantities of UXO, but enforcement of the law remains sporadic.[36] Inquiries in Quang Tri province confirm a thriving cross-border scrap metal trade into Laos. As long as no explosives are involved, the import or export of metal and metal detectors is legal.

Notes from the Field: A Filmmaker's View

April 6th, 2005

Notes from the Field: Vietnam

Here�s the deal. We�re shooting a film titled BOMBHUNTERS, that examines the effects of UXO contamination on vulnerable populations in Cambodia and Vietnam. We�ve spent four and a half months shooting throughout Cambodia and feel like we have a pretty good feel for how to approach what is sometimes a rather disconcerting subject. Things like kids hammering at bullets, men taking hacksaws to bombs and aiming cutting torches at mortars have become commonplace to us. By the time we pull into Dong Ha town in central Vietnam, we have experience. We have confidence. What we don�t have is a lot of time.



With a Fulbright research grant as our foundation, and a pre-arranged sponsor already in place (we thought) in Quang Tri province, we were confident that access to stories would be comprehensive, and immediate. Instead we began to hear things like:
�No, you can�t go there�.�
�Wait in your hotel until we call you.�
These statements were eventually followed by short outings accompanied by officials who ensured that whatever we saw was fully sanitized, and as far away as possible from the truly vulnerable populations in Vietnam who we really wanted to talk with.
After a full week of hearing every conceivable variation of �No,� our one official scheduled day with CPI arrived.
And suddenly, we began to hear �Yes.� Sure, we can go there. Do this. Look at case files. Select subjects. Copy files. Shoot interviews. Copy footage. Use the internet for communication. Share transportation. Talk about real issues. Even drink good coffee the entire time we were in the office.
We accomplished more in the one full day we spent with CPI than we did in three full weeks with other organizations in Vietnam.
Now to be fair, UXO, landmines and agent orange contamination are sensitive issues at the moment in Vietnam. Vietnam receives substantial funding from American groups with the intent to address munitions contamination and provide victim assistance, among other things. But at the moment, with a Vietnamese group filing a class action suit against US chemical manufacturers who produced Agent Orange during the war in Vietnam, the Vietnamese government is treading carefully.
Perhaps too carefully. Instead of fully acknowledging the continuing problems of UXO tampering in Vietnam and other related issues, (and likely opening the possibility of greater outside assistance in the future) the government is tightly controlling media access.
But why was our experience with CPI so different than with other organizations designed to provide the same services in Vietnam?
I believe it comes down to experience. CPI staff in Dong Ha town are savvy, educated, organized and trusted. Their work over time in the area speaks for itself. Countless civilian victims of war are living better lives because of their work. And the community knows it.
They are doing something worthwhile that isn�t being done by other groups in the area. And they are doing it actively, comprehensively, and with the intent to provide for civilian victims of war in Vietnam for many years to come. Why wouldn�t they want to share this with the media?
I just hope we are able to work our single day of footage with CPI into our film. If there is an organization in Vietnam that truly deserves a bit of publicity for their work, it�s CPI.
-Skye
Skye Fitzgerald, MFA
Producer, Epiphany Film
Fulbright Researcher
Email: skyefitzgerald@gmail.com

CPI Executive Director Honored

Congratulations to Martha Hathaway our Executive Director, who was honored by the Governor and Vermont colleges.

The story is here. Our thanks to our friends at Johnson State College!

Near Tragedy at Home

This site is dedicated to assisting civilian victims of war in Southeast Asia. Last night, though, I had such a dramatic experience that I think it is appropriate to go off topic.

My wife took a call late last night from our daycare provider. Her father was missing and she was calling to tell us she may not be able to open in the morning. Her father has Alzheimer's and was once an avid hunter. In the past he had wandered off thinking it was deer hunting season in the middle of summer.

Brita, the CPI intern, and I left the house to join the search party to look for him. We spent two hours with Dorset's fire chief driving while I called his name on the truck's loudspeaker and searched the woods with a floodlight...it was raining...it was cold...and where we are is pretty heavily wooded. The streams are swollen from a long Vermont winter's thaw on top of all the rain we have been getting.... it was close to midnight...we were all scared that we may have had seen our friend Fred for the last time.

Luckily, and wisely, Fred's daughters had purchased him a GPS enabled bracelet. The State Police initially could not find his signal... but eventually it started to chirp out by a dairy farm not far from his house.

We scoured the barn... no sign of Fred... the searchlights showed nothing but cows... I had been calling his name for hours... I called out one more time and he responded!

Another searcher and I jumped the fence and into the cow pasture (into near knee-deep mud and manure) and ran up into the bushes. There was Fred, wet, scared... and telling us he was out there trying to fix the furnace because he was so cold. He had been out in the elements for over four hours.

Please, if you know of someone with Alzheimer's please read this and get them a bracelet. Today.

Bloggers: We need your Help!

Hey fellow bloggers... and everyone else (that would be you, dad)... please help us spread the word on our upcoming CD! Post a story to your blog! Ask others to post it to theirs!

Our ad budget for this is ZERO because we believe it is possible to be succesful without spending a gazillion dollars on what some might call "old media". We believe the power of our message and the revolutionary form of this medium will be just as effective... let's see.

So please... spread the word!

Artists Contribute Music to CPI Benefit CD

The war in Vietnam may have ended 30 years ago on April 30th , 1975, but bombs and landmines left over from that conflict still maim and kill innocent civilians almost every day.

In response to this humanitarian tragedy, Natalie Merchant, Philip Glass, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Widespread Panic, The String Cheese Incident and other artists have joined forces with Clear Path International (CPI: www.cpi.org) to assist landmine and bomb accident survivors by donating tracks to an upcoming CD entitled �TOO MANY YEARS: A BENEFIT FOR CLEAR PATH INTERNATIONAL.�

The title comes from a Jorma Kaukonen song which is included on the CD.

�The title �Too Many Years� sums up our feelings at Clear Path regarding explosive remnants of war,� said Clear Path International Executive Director Martha Hathaway. �For too many years, decades in the case of Vietnam, thousands of innocent people have been killed and seriously wounded by bombs and landmines left over from conflicts that ended long ago.�

Since the war ended in 1975, nearly 40,000 Vietnamese have been killed and 100,000 injured by leftover ordnance.

Appearing on the CD in track listing order:

Natalie Merchant, Juliana Hatfield, Jorma Kaukonen, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Yonder Mountain String Band, Sally Taylor, The Jim Gilmour Band, Rick Redington, Widespread Panic, Dark Star Orchestra, The Samples, The String Cheese Incident, Philip Glass.

Song samples can be heard at www.cpi.org/toomany.php

Legendary album cover artist Stanley Mouse is donating the cover art.

The CD will be released in early May in recognition of the 30th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. Copies are available for pre-purchase at www.cpi.org, or by phone order at 802.867.4406.

Clear Path International, online at www.cpi.org, is an independent 501 C 3 nonprofit serving landmine and bomb accident survivors, their families and their communities in former war zones in Southeast Asia. This assistance takes the form of direct medical and social services to survivor families as well as equipment and technical support to local hospitals. Current Clear Path projects are in Vietnam, Cambodia and on the Thai-Burma border.