Cambodia pledges free Khmer software by 2006
MATT REED in Phnom Penh
Staving off a possible Microsoft monopoly and promoting Khmer-language computing are the driving ideas behind a Cambodian government project that promises to bring free Khmer software to Cambodian computers by next year.
Open source software is being translated into Khmer by software developers at Open Forum of Cambodia, a non-government organisation in Phnom Penh that is working with the government on the project.
A Khmer version of software programs - which can run on Microsoft Windows and includes programs similar to Microsoft Word, Excel and Power Point - is being tested and has been distributed to more than 1,000 computers around the country, according to Noy Shoung, the official responsible for promoting the software.
The software, available through OpenOffice.org, is joined by a Khmer-language version of the Firefox internet browser and the Thunderbird e-mail software program.
The benefit for young Cambodians from the countryside who hope to get a high-paying office job is that they no longer have to spend months learning English before sitting down for computer lessons.
It will also be much easier to teach government officials to use computers, said Noy Shoung, the deputy secretary-general of the National Information Communications Technology Developments Authority.
Javier Sola, the co-ordinator of Open Forum's Khmer Software Initiative, said: "How can you computerise the government if not everyone speaks English? You cannot run a government on a foreign language."
Cambodia, which is struggling to recover from decades of war and turmoil, has about one computer for every 1,000 people, according to an estimate by the International Telecommunication Union.
Cambodia joined the World Trade Organisation last year. The expectation that it will eventually begin enforcing intellectual property laws means that cheap, pirated software might not be as easy to obtain in Cambodia in the future.
Another important issue is that Microsoft has no plans to translate its new operating system software, due out at the end of 2006, into Khmer, said Keo Sophorn, a software programmer at Open Forum.
"Microsoft is good, but on the other hand, it is very expensive. So it is not suitable for our own society," he said. "And open source software is comparable to Microsoft."
Part of Open Forum's role in the project is to come up with a Khmer computer glossary that expands the meaning of Khmer words to fit into technical terms, rather than using English words that are more difficult for Cambodians to memorise.
That is what makes the project as much cultural as it is technical, Mr Sola said. It is partly about fending off foreign words and maintaining the Khmer language, he said.
A copy of the government's master plan for promoting open source shows the government hopes to install a Khmer-language Linux open source operating system, which would run in place of the Microsoft Windows operating system, by next year. Government computers would then be completely free of Microsoft.
Government officials were trained in April on the OpenOffice.org software in Stung Treng province, near the Laos border. Most officials who attended the training were already familiar with computers, "so it was easy for them to learn," said Ourn Bora, chief of cabinet for Stung Treng's provincial government.
"This is about national dignity to see Khmer script on a computer. It is historical," he said.
But if open source does not catch on with computer users, at least the government will have a card to play with Microsoft if it ever decides to enter the Cambodian market, Mr Sola said.
"With open source, you have nothing to lose," he said. "When you have choice, you have power. You can negotiate with Microsoft, which no country has ever done."
HK accuses drug giant of racism
NIKI LAW
Hong Kong's medical community has accused Swiss pharmaceutical manufacturer Roche, the producer of flu drug Tamiflu, of discrimination against Asia.
The accusation follows the pharmaceutical giant's decision last week - widely seen as the result of pressure from Europe and the United States - to share production of its drug with other companies. Tamiflu is no cure and only reduces the severity of the bird flu symptoms.
"When bird flu was affecting Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia Roche refused to bow to pressure to share the production of Tamiflu," said Legislative Council medical representative Kwok Ka-ki. "But now that the virus is in Europe - the fire is burning in their backyard - they open up production. This is extreme discrimination."
Accusing Roche of having no ethics, Dr Kwok said the manufacturer was no different from oil companies which purposely kept fuel prices high to make more money.
The H5N1 strain of bird flu first jumped the species barrier in Hong Kong in 1997 and since 2003 has killed more than 60 people in Southeast Asia - prompting countries in the region to plead with Roche to increase production of Tamiflu by allowing other companies to produce it. Roche - which had acquired the rights in 1996 - turned down all requests.
Last month, Philippine Health Minister Francisco Duque described Roche's refusal as "almost bordering on immoral".
Last Tuesday, Roche seemingly bowed to pressure from the US and UN in announcing that it was now willing to share production of Tamiflu with other companies and governments.
When asked by the Sunday Morning Post why it had ignored Asia's requests, Roche refused to address the question directly.
"We have been working to expand manufacturing for Tamiflu since the beginning of 2004 to assist governments with pandemic stockpiling," a spokesman said.
"We are also willing to expand the collaboration to include any government or other company who is able to contribute to the manufacturing or who can seriously manufacture Tamiflu for emergency pandemic use.
"Roche has recently donated 3 million packs of Tamiflu to the WHO for use as a `rapid-response stockpile' at the epicentre of the outbreak of a human influenza pandemic."
Infectious-diseases specialist Lo Wing-lok said Roche's about-face earlier last week was not surprising since it was a well-known fact that western countries and drug companies regarded Asians as no more than medical specimens.
"They always use the information they collect in Asia to protect themselves. They use it to come up with vaccines for North America and Europe. And lately they have been coming to Hong Kong," he said.
"The [Centres for Disease Control and Prevention] of the US is like a branch of the army. They are constantly sending teams out to countries to gather intelligence. They say they are here to help us, and I guess we have to believe them, but the other interest is protecting their own citizens."
Both Dr Kwok and Dr Lo suggested that, instead of being at the mercy of the west, Hong Kong and the mainland should fight for the right to produce the drug in the Pearl River Delta. "We can't depend on others to help us. Hong Kong, Macau and Guangzhou should work together to produce the drug. Hong Kong should take the lead ... and the government should come up with a guarantee to [Roche] that the drugs will not be counterfeited," said Dr Lo.
Dr Kwok added: "It's okay that they discriminated against us in the past, but now we need to start producing the drugs as soon as possible in the region. And we need to make sure prices are controlled too."
A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said there was no need to produce Tamiflu in Hong Kong or on the mainland.
"If they open up the patent then the global supply will increase. There is no need for us to produce the drug ourselves," she said.
Japanese PM makes another controversial war shrine visit
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Tokyo
Updated at 11.40am:
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi made another controversial visit to the Yasukuni war shrine on Monday, risking damage to already strained relations with Asian neighbours who say it glorifies Japan’s past militarism.
Mr Koizumi, dressed in a grey suit and light-blue tie, bowed deeply for about 30 seconds in front of the shrine as a general worshipper would, without entering the main hall as on past visits.
The pilgrimage lasted only a few minutes before Mr Koizumi was whisked away in his motorcade, without speaking to the media gathered outside the shrine in the rain, along with a handful of supporters and protesters.
The visit to the Tokyo shrine, which honours 2.5 million Japanese war dead including some infamous war criminals, defies a ruling last month by a Japanese high court that the pilgrimages violated the constitution.
The move is almost certain to anger Japan’s Asian neighbours China and South Korea, which Japan occupied in the first half of the 20th century and which see the shrine as a symbol of Japan’s wartime atrocities.
Since taking office in 2001, Mr Koizumi has kept his pledge to pray annually at Yasukuni, which honours 2.5 million Japanese war dead including 14 top convicted war criminals.
The Osaka High Court ruled on September 30 that his visits to Yasukuni were unconstitutional but Mr Koizumi snubbed the ruling, saying he was not making his pilgrimages as part of the prime minister’s official duties but to express his personal grief over people killed in war.
The latest visit comes as Mr Koizumi enjoys a groundswell of public support at home following his landslide election victory last month.
Yasukuni visits could gain legal backing
ASSOCIATED PRESS in Tokyo
Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party has proposed amending the pacifist constitution to soften the division between religion and state - a move that could give prime ministers more freedom to visit the Yasukuni War Shrine.
The change, included in a draft constitution by the LDP, is part of a general push by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's government to amend the charter to allow Japan a larger international military and diplomatic role.
The draft, posted on the LDP's website, would allow the state to engage in religious activity "in cases within the boundary of social customs". The present charter, drafted by the US after the second world war, totally bans the state from religious activity.
The proposed change has added significance after an Osaka High Court ruling on September 30 that Mr Koizumi violated the constitution by making an official visit to Yasukuni.
The Osaka court ruled that when he went to the shrine, he used an official car and signed the registry as prime minister, giving his visit the appearance of being official. The ruling, however, did not appear to have the power to prevent him making further visits.
Such rulings anyway have been inconsistent: the Osaka decision came a day after the Tokyo High Court ruled in a separate case that there was no legal basis to decide whether or not the visits violated the constitution.
Asaho Mizushima, a constitutional-law expert at Tokyo's prestigious Waseda University, said the proposed constitutional change could undercut the legal backing of lawsuits against official worship at the shrine.
"Government officials could justify their Yasukuni visits to mourn for the dead," Professor Mizushima said. "It is clearly aimed at preventing future lawsuits."
The prime minister has visited Yasukuni four times since taking office in 2001, spurring an avalanche of lawsuits. The shrine honours 2.5 million Japanese war dead from the late 19th century to the mid-20th century - including convicted war criminals executed after the second world war.
China, South Korea and other victims of Japanese wartime aggression protest against the visits, saying they pay homage to Japan's wartime, emperor-based ideology
The way forward in southern Thailand
Asia Times Online
14 October 2005
The way forward in southern Thailand
By S P Harish
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest
writers to have their say. Please click here if you are interested in
contributing.
The southern provinces of Yala, Narathiwat and Pattani in southern
Thailand have witnessed a series of high-profile incidents of
violence in the last month. The alleged killing of a Muslim religious
teacher by security forces led the residents of Lahan in the Sungei
Padi district to blockade access to the village. The subsequent
exodus of 131 people from southern Thailand to neighboring Malaysia
has led to tensions between the two countries.
Furthermore, the gruesome murders of two soldiers in Tanyong Limo
village and the ensuing cordon of the village by women and children
reflected the deep mistrust between the authorities and the populace
of the region. Even as Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra visited
the southern provinces, two bombs went off in Sungei Golok. Clearly,
more than a year after the Tak Bai incident in which 78 Muslim men
suffocated while in police custody, the violence in southern Thailand
continues in a downward spiral.
Many analysts advocate a velvet glove approach to alleviate the
insurgency. Particularly after the conclusion of a peace agreement
between the government of Indonesia and the separatist group, Gerakan
Aceh Merdeka in Aceh, there have been calls for Thailand to initiate
a similar peace process. There are two problems with applying this
Aceh-style strategy to southern Thailand. Firstly, unlike Aceh, no
one rebel group can offer a reasonable guarantee to cease all acts of
violence in southern Thailand. Secondly, it does not take into
account the role that ordinary citizens can play in resolving the
insurgency.
Broadening the actors
Tackling the conflict in southern Thailand requires what the peace
scholar, Harold Saunders, calls a "public peace process". The aim of
the peace process is not just to conclude a peace agreement but to
inoculate society against violence. It endeavors to empower actors
other than the state in building peace. In doing so, it seeks to go
beyond the winning-hearts-and-minds rhetoric and attempts to make
citizens responsible for peace.
The current attempts in southern Thailand to engage non-state actors
primarily involve recommendations made to Bangkok by the National
Reconciliation Commission and the local elites. Unfortunately, these
groups currently do not have the autonomy to implement any of their
proposals. The central government in Bangkok still has the power to
adopt or reject these suggestions. The recent extension of the
emergency decree in the south and the labelling of villages into
colored zones depending on their perceived support for the insurgents
have only widened the divide between the authorities and the local
population. In contrast, a public peace process advocates a more
bottom-up approach where a sustained dialogue is maintained between
Bangkok and the southern populace.
With a broader group of participants, a better understanding of the
nature of the conflict in southern Thailand can be obtained. Is the
conflict ethnic or religious? Could it be economic or a potent mix of
all three dimensions? If so, how should these different aspects be
prioritized in the government's search for a solution? These
seemingly abstract questions are important for determining whether
the current response to the conflict is a right one. More
significantly, a larger consensus can help determine more precisely
the nature and characteristics of the insurgency.
At the risk of oversimplifying, a formal peace process between a
government and a rebel group usually focuses on stemming the violence
on the ground in exchange for addressing the grievances of the
insurgents. Since a single rebel group in southern Thailand is
unlikely to assure the termination of violence, the situation is ripe
for a public peace process.
Some plausible approaches
Among the strategies that could be employed to deal with the current
divide between Bangkok and the people of the southern provinces is
education. The pondoks (Islamic schools) are probably the most
effective medium to engage the southern population. Although there
may be a few radical ones, more efforts could be made to ensure that
pondoks are not chastised. Sincere efforts by Bangkok to create an
environment where they can flourish will go a long way in gaining the
trust of the local populace. The pondoks can then be steered toward
imparting both the Islamic education, which the southerners want, as
well as a curriculum that will promote their Thainess.
In the past two months, there have been a number of newspaper reports
about rebels surrendering to the authorities. While this is a good
sign, there can be more information on the efforts made by the
authorities to reintegrate these rebels into mainstream society and
enlist them for peace-building efforts in their respective villages.
This will showcase Bangkok's sincerity in assuaging the conflict.
The public peace process also calls for the involvement of the rest
of the Thai population into peace-building endeavors. The historical
mistreatment of the southern population has largely been ignored by
the rest of the country. The people of the southern provinces are
usually referred to as khaek, which means visitor or guest. One
possible way to get the Thai population involved in the public peace
process is for the government to spearhead an initiative that
discourages the use of such derogatory terms. Steps can also be taken
to strengthen the culture of mutual tolerance. In other words, the
focus of a public peace process is more on relationships and less on
the tangible demands of a specific rebel group.
Issue of legitimacy
In the final analysis, the legitimacy of a public peace process is
critical to its success. This legitimacy can be built in two ways.
First, people from all cross-sections of society can be engaged to
have a stake in the process. The more inclusive the public peace
process, the higher its authority. Second, consensus needs to be
achieved through persuasion rather than coercion. With a greater
number of voices debating possible policy options, compromise will be
harder but not necessarily impossible. Arm-twisting tactics to
realize an agreement may work in the short-term but in the long-term,
it is detrimental to the legitimacy of the public peace process.
Engaging non-state actors as part of a public peace process is not a
one-off consultation exercise. The sustainability of such a peace
initiative is crucial. Indeed, the process is not a linear road and
some measures may need to be revisited regularly to ensure its
relevance. If a formal peace process with a rebel group is commenced
in future, the public peace process will only reinforce it. The
primary focus of the Thai government now seems to be containing the
internationalization of the conflict. Instead, more attempts could be
made to stitch the divide between the southern populace on the one
hand and the government as well as the rest of the country, on the
other.
S P Harish is an associate research fellow with the Institute of
Defence and Strategic Studies, Nanyang Technological University,
Singapore.
(Copyright 2005 S P Harish)
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest
writers to have their say. Please click here if you are interested in
contributing.
The IMF Has Lost Its Influence
Counter Punch
12 October 2005
Good News at Last!
The IMF Has Lost Its Influence
By MARK WEISBROT
Sometimes historic changes take place quietly, while no one is
looking. Great institutions lose power with a whimper rather than a
bang. Such is the case of the International Monetary Fund (IMF),
which will hold its annual fall meetings with the World Bank next
week in Washington D.C.
Just a few years ago, the IMF was the most powerful financial
institution in the world. When financial and economic crises swept
across East Asia in 1997, it was the IMF that laid down the painful
conditions that governments had to meet in order to access more than
$120 billion in foreign funds. When the financial contagion spread to
Russia and Brazil, the IMF followed, brokering the multi-billion
dollar loans that -- however unsuccessfully -- were intended to prop
up overvalued currencies on the brink of collapse.
Those days are over. The Asian countries began, after their
nightmarish experience with the Fund in 1997-1998, to pile up huge
international foreign exchange reserves -- partly so they would never
have to go begging to the IMF again. But the final blow to the Fund
came from the country that IMF First Deputy Managing Director Anne
Krueger reportedly calls "the A-word": Argentina.
Argentina suffered through a terrible four-year depression, beginning
in 1998. A country that had recently ranked among the highest for
living standards in Latin America soon had the majority of the
country falling below the poverty line. Many Argentines blamed the
IMF, which had played a major role in designing the policies that led
to the collapse, and seemed to prescribe just the wrong medicine
during the crisis: high interest rates, budget tightening, and
maintaining the Argentine peso's unsustainable link to the U.S. dollar.
In December of 2001 the government defaulted on $100 billion of debt,
the largest sovereign debt default in history. The currency and the
banking system collapsed, and the country sank further into
depression. But only for about three more months. Then, to most
people's surprise, the economy began to recover.
The recovery began and continued without any help from the IMF. On
the contrary: in 2002, the Fund and other official creditors
(including the World Bank), actually took a net $4.1 billion -- more
than 4 percent of GDP -- out of Argentina. But the government was
able to chart more of its own economic course, rejecting IMF demands
for higher interest rates, increased budget austerity, and utility
price increases. Argentina also took a hard line with foreign
creditors holding defaulted debt, despite repeated threats from the
Fund. When push came to shove in September 2003, Argentina did the
unthinkable: a temporary default to the IMF itself, until the Fund
backed down.
The result: a rapid and robust economic recovery, with a remarkable
8.8 percent growth in GDP for 2003 and 9 percent for 2004. With a
projected 7.3 percent GDP gain for 2005, Argentina is still the
fastest growing economy in Latin America.
Prior to Argentina's 2003 showdown with the Fund, only failed or
"pariah" states with nothing left to lose -- e.g. Congo, Iraq -- had
defaulted to the IMF. That's because of the IMF's power to cut off
not only its own credit but also most loans from the larger World
Bank, other multilateral lenders, the rich country governments, and
even much of the private sector. This has been the source of the
IMF's enormous influence over economic policy in developing
countries: in effect, a creditors' cartel led by the Fund, which is
answerable primarily to the U.S. Treasury Department.
But Argentina showed that a country that was flat on its back could
stand up to the IMF, and not only live to tell about it, but even
launch a solid economic recovery. This changed the world. Although
the IMF still carries a lot of weight in poorer countries (for
example, in Sub-Saharan Africa), its influence in the middle-income
countries has plummeted. The Fund is now a shadow of its former self.
Reformers over the last 15 years debated whether change would come
about through the IMF altering its policies, or through the Fund
losing influence. That debate has now been settled by history. The
IMF has not been reformed, but its power to shape economic policy in
developing countries has been enormously reduced.
Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy
Research, in Washington, D.C. He is the author, with Dean Baker, of
Social Security: the Phony Crisis. He can be reached at:
weisbrot@cepr.net
Resisting freedom costly, says envoy
REUTERS
The outgoing US envoy to Singapore criticised the city state's limits on political expression, saying governments will pay an increasing price for failing to give citizens freedom of choice and expression.
US Ambassador Franklin Lavin said it was surprising to find what he called constraints on discussions given Singapore's strong international links.
"In this era of weblogs and webcams, how much sense does it make to limit political expression?" Mr Lavin told an audience at his farewell dinner on Tuesday. The speech was made available on the US embassy's website.
In August, police ordered a 36-year-old filmmaker to surrender equipment used to make a documentary on opposition figure Chee Soon Juan. A student on a state scholarship shut down his personal website in May after a government agency threatened a libel suit for his online comments.
Then, last Friday, Singapore jailed two men for posting racist comments aimed at the country's Malay community, who are mainly Muslim, on the internet.
"Singapore has flourished over the past 40 years, but is a 20th-century model adequate for the 21st century?" Mr Lavin asked.
"Remaking [Singapore's] economy is, in a sense, the easy decision. Shaping a political system to reflect the needs and aspirations of its citizens is more difficult and more sensitive."
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong last week ruled out adopting a western liberal democracy with a multiparty system in the next 20 years, saying it was unsuitable for the country.
Mr Lavin, whose four-year tenure saw the conclusion of a US-Singapore free-trade agreement and a strengthening of security ties, takes up a new post in Washington as undersecretary for international trade at the US Department of Commerce.
He will be replaced by Patricia Herbold, a lawyer and Republican fund-raiser.
A parliamentary republic with elections held at regular, constitutionally mandated intervals, Singapore has been dominated by the People's Action Party (PAP) since independence in 1965.
Opposition politicians, who hold only two of the 84 seats in Parliament, have long complained that frequent defamation suits by PAP officials have stifled dissent - a view echoed by a 2004 US State Department report on Singapore.
Military regain Suharto-era role
FABIO SCARPELLO in Jakarta
News that the Indonesian armed forces are to take a key role in the fight against terrorism and revive a much-reviled structure that could see troops patrolling the streets have prompted concerns about the military's increasing power.
Analysts say the measures, announced last week by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and armed forces (TNI) chief General Endriartono Sutarto, are a black eye for the post-Suharto reform process.
"Allowing TNI to take part in the fight means giving it more space on the political arena," said political analyst Salim Said.
Under the Territorial Structure, branches of the armed forces were deployed in a manner likened to an occupying force. Soldiers were posted everywhere from big cities all the way down to tiny villages. The system formed the backbone of former dictator Suharto's 33-year long grip on power. It brought generals in close contact with local politicians and businessmen, opening the door for the military to influence every facet of the archipelago's life.
Local politicians were screened by generals before an election, which virtually handed political power to the armed forces.
Since 1998, when Suharto was forced to step down, reforms have attempted to limit both the military's business interests and its role in politics. Following a law passed in September last year, the military (and the police) lost the automatic quota of 38 seats in the national parliament, and its vast business interests will be placed under government scrutiny by 2009.
Dr Susilo said the revival of the territorial structure allows the armed forces to be deployed to fight terrorism, which he said has tarnished Indonesia's image abroad.
Analysts said sending out the troops was against the spirit of the reforms. Some expressed concern the move could hand political leverage back to the generals.
Agus Widjojo, a military affairs commentator known for his reformist views, said that any role for the armed forces in uprooting terror should be safeguarded with unambiguous presidential directives governing their duties and a specific time frame for its field activities.
"The authority has to stay with the president, who has to make clear what TNI's duties are and how long they will last," he said, pointing out that in the past, the system led to an extensive role for the military in politics, security and law enforcement.
"You cannot let the TNI decide."
Scrap-metal scavengers risk life and limb
NICK MEO in Xieng Khuang province
Phomm Mma often thinks of carting off the 1,000-pound (453kg) American bomb at the bottom of his garden to sell for scrap.
With prices high, dealers would pay enough to buy a tin roof for his leaky hut and a new stove, with a bit left over for emergencies.
But he has seen several friends blown up scavenging for the bombs that litter their hamlet in Laos, and his desperate need for money has never quite got the better of his profound fear of bombs.
"I can remember the American planes dropping the bombs like rain in 1973 when I was a boy," he said. "I never thought they would still be killing us 30 years later."
Two months ago a neighbour's 10-year-old son was ripped apart by ball bearings when he picked up an unexploded cluster bomblet, called a "bombie" by locals.
His playmate Tam was running away but was still caught in the detonation which sent hundreds of steel balls flying in every direction at 2km a second.
Tam pulled off his shirt to show where one ball bearing tore through his arm before embedding itself in his back. Another is still lodged in his knee.
"My friend No wanted to sell the bomb but I didn't want to touch it," the child said quietly.
Parents in the villages of Xieng Khuang province, high in the mountains of northern Laos, live in dread of bombs. Youngsters cannot leave them alone.
Phomm Mma, who collects bits of shrapnel he digs up in his garden admits the parents set a poor example. Bombs sell for much more than anything they can grow.
"There are bombs everywhere and people need money to live," he said.
Nobody is sure about casualty rates but they all agree that there have not been so many killed for years. The scavenging business is the reason. It has never been more buoyant, with prices for scrap steel at record levels and demand high for bomb casings, artillery shells, and prized aluminium parts from crashed airplanes.
Scrap dealers in Vietnam pay handsomely by the standards of farmers who earn about 16.8 million kip ($12,000) a year. Prices are now up to 1,600 kip per kilo for steel and 50,000 kip per kilo for explosives extracted from live bombs and sold to road blasters and miners.
In March, six men died near the regional capital Phonsavan as they tried to open a US bomb to retrieve its valuable explosive. Few remains could be found.
In the province's orphanage most of the 130 children have lost their parents to bombs, according to its director Khamsing Maliya. "Every couple of months we get some child whose parents have been killed, often as they are working in the family fields," he said.
Northern Laos is the most heavily-bombed land in the world. Its fields are still cratered from B-52 strikes decades ago when the frontline of the struggle against communism arrived in one of Asia's most obscure backwaters.
In a secret, undeclared war directed by the CIA from 1964 to 1973, US planes flew 580,000 bombing missions dropping more than 2 million tonnes of explosives, with Xieng Khuang province bearing the brunt. About 30 per cent of the bombs failed to detonate, and cluster bomblets dropped in packages of up to 600 are a particular menace. There may be 9 million bomblets in Laos.
The scrapyard in Phonsavan is the centre for the trade.
"We don't have accidents, usually," a worker claimed.
At the back, among ancient engine parts, was a huge pile of bomb casings. The scrapyard is notorious as an employer of last resort for those desperate enough to step into the shoes of its blown-up staff.
Mick Hayes, a bomb disposal expert and former operations manager of Mines Action Group in Laos, was critical of their safety.
He said: "Last time I was there they were trying to chop the fuses off mortar bombs with axes."
Mr Hayes added: "Farmers understand the risks very well. They collect bombs to sell because they are desperate to feed their families. There's little paid work up here and much of the land is too dangerous to cultivate. Who knows how many people are killed, especially out in the jungle?"
