US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday became the first US secretary of state to visit Laos in 57 years, on a trip focused on the damaging legacy of the Vietnam War and a controversial dam project.
At Vientiane’s flag-bedecked Wattay International Airport, Clinton was given flowers by girls in traditional purple-silk costumes, as she began her brief but historic trip.
“It’s a pretty big deal for the Laotians, and we will underscore a number of areas that we’re working on together,” a senior US official said.
Photo: AFP
These include leftover ordnance from the war that ended in 1975, excavating the remains of US soldiers missing in action and the continuing effects of defoliant Agent Orange, used by the US to try to flush out communist forces.
Clinton, whose four-hour whirlwind trip has been front page news in Laos this week, met with Laotian Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong at his office in an elegant white-columned building with two large elephant statues outside.
The pair had “substantive discussions on the broadening bilateral cooperation,” a joint statement released after the meeting said.
The two “agreed to improve and further facilitate the accounting operations for American personnel still missing from the Indochina War era” and address the “remaining challenges” of unexploded ordnance, the statement said.
They also discussed the forthcoming entry of Laos into the WTO.
Clinton is only the second US secretary of state to visit Laos after John Foster Dulles, who spent a day in the then-monarchy in 1955. Experts say that all those years ago, they had to clear the water buffalo from the Vientiane airport runway so his plane could land.
Clinton was invited by Laotian Foreign Minister Thongloun Sisoulith in 2010, who was the first top Laotian official to visit Washington since the Soviet-backed communist rebels swept to power, ousting the monarchy, in 1975.
US relations with Laos, while never severed, were long tense, in part over its campaign against the Hmong hill people who assisted US forces during the Vietnam War.
However, the US established normal trade ties with Laos in 2004 and annual US aid to Laos will be around US$30 million in total this year, a US embassy official said.
Of that, US$9.2 million will be set aside this year for cleaning up unexploded ordnance (UXO). US forces dropped more than 2 million tonnes of ordnance on Laos between 1964 and 1973 in about 580,000 bombing missions to cut off North Vietnamese supply lines.
As a result, Laos is the most heavily bombed country, per capita, in history. About 30 percent of the ordnance failed to detonate and all 17 of the country’s provinces still suffer from UXO contamination.
Clinton, who also visited a US-funded orthotic and prosthetic center, discussed “ongoing bilateral cooperation to help resolve the challenges associated with UXO” with Thammavong.
Another of the main thrusts of the trip is talks on controversial plans by Laos to build a massive dam on the Mekong River.
During regional talks in Bali last year, Clinton called for a moratorium on dam building along the river. Activists say the dam projects could spell disaster for 60 million people who depend on the Mekong waterway.
See FOR on page 9
A ship that appears to be taking on the identity of a scrapped gas carrier exited the Strait of Hormuz on Friday, showing how strategies to get through the waterway are evolving as the Middle East war progresses. The vessel identifying as liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier Jamal left the Strait on Friday morning, ship-tracking data show. However, the same tanker was also recorded as having beached at an Indian demolition yard in October last year, where it is being broken up, according to market participants and port agent’s reports. The ship claiming to be Jamal is likely a zombie vessel that
Cannabis-based medicines have shown little evidence of effectiveness for treating most mental health and substance-use disorders, according to a large review of past studies published in a major medical journal on Monday. Medical use of cannabinoids has been expanding, including in the US, Canada and Australia, where many patients report using cannabis products to manage conditions such as anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and sleep problems. Researchers reviewed data from 54 randomized clinical trials conducted between 1980 and May last year involving 2,477 participants for their analysis published in The Lancet. The studies assessed cannabinoids as a primary treatment for mental disorders or substance-use
NATIONWIDE BLACKOUT: US President Donald Trump cut off Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba, strangling the Caribbean island’s already antiquated grid Cuba’s national electric grid collapsed on Monday, the nation’s grid operator said, leaving about 10 million people without power amid a US-imposed oil blockade that has crippled the already obsolete generation system. Grid operator UNE on social media said that it is investigating the causes of the blackout, the latest in a series of widespread outages that last for hours or days and that this weekend sparked a rare violent protest in the communist-run nation. Officials ruled out a major power plant failure, but had still not pinpointed the root cause of the grid collapse, suggesting a problem with transmission. Officials said that
‘HEALTH ISSUE’: More than 250 women are hospitalized every day due to complications from unsafe abortions, and about three die, a study showed Jane had been bleeding heavily for days before finally seeking help, not from a hospital, but from the man who sold her the pills meant to end her six-week pregnancy. Abortions are strictly outlawed in the mainly Catholic Philippines, forcing women to turn to a patchwork of providers operating in the online shadows. While rare in practice, Philippine law allows for prison terms of up to six years for abortion patients and providers, leaving thousands of Filipinas to search for solutions in online forums where unlicensed sellers promote abortifacients. “It was very painful, as if my abdomen was being twisted,” said Jane, whose
RSS