Contaminated by: cluster munition remnants (massive contamination, extent unknown), landmines (extent of contamination unknown), and other unexploded ordnance (UXO).

Non-signatory to the Mine Ban Treaty

Non-signatory to the Convention on Cluster Munitions

The extent of mine and cluster munition contamination in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is unknown. Most clearance of mines and cluster munition remnants is conducted by the Army Engineering Corps, which did not provide data for 2016. Survey and clearance of cluster munition remnants by international operators continued to increase in 2016 with 51.99km² of hazardous area confirmed, 0.16km² of suspected hazardous area (SHA) identified, and 17.41km² of hazardous area cleared, resulting in the destruction of 11,872 submunitions. Three antipersonnel mines were destroyed during survey operations.

Recommendations for action

• Vietnam should prepare a multi-year clearance plan, including prioritization criteria and the application of efficient survey methodology.
• Vietnam should accelerate development of a national database and make data available to operators on a timely basis.
• Vietnam should publish comprehensive annual reports on the results of survey and clearance by all operators, national and international.

Cluster Munition Contamination

Vietnam is massively contaminated by cluster munition remnants but no accurate estimate exists, even to the nearest hundred square kilometers. The United States (US) dropped 413,130 tons of submunitions over Vietnam between 1965 and 1973, striking 55 provinces and cities, including Haiphong, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Hue, and Vinh. Vietnam’s Military Engineering Command has recorded finding 15 types of US-made submunition.[1] Most types used by the US were air-dropped, but artillery-delivered submunitions were also used in central Quang Binh and provinces to the south of it.[2]

The Military Engineering Command said in 2011 that it had encountered substantial amounts of cluster munitions abandoned by the US military, notably at or around old US air bases, including eight underground bunkers found in 2009, one of them reportedly covering an area of 4,000m² and containing some 25 tons of munitions.[3]

Mine Contamination

Vietnam’s mine problem is small compared with its explosive remnants of war (ERW) contamination, but the extent is similarly unknown. Most mines were left by conflicts in the 1970s with neighboring Cambodia and China, and affect areas close to its borders with those countries.[4] Some mines have also been found around former US military installations.[5]

Vietnam cleared an area up to 1km deep along its northern border in the 1990s under an agreement with China, but areas further inland from the border are believed to be still contaminated with mines emplaced by the military of both countries. Since 2004, military engineers have reportedly cleared around 95km² of contaminated land in the northern provinces of Cao Bang, Ha Giang, Lai Chau, Lang Son, and Quang Ninh bordering China under a project known as “Programme 120,” destroying mainly Type 72, K58, and PPM-2 antipersonnel mines.[6] Chinese troops launched a two-year operation to clear more than 50 minefields reportedly remaining on its side of the border in 2015[7] but Vietnam has made no disclosure on the extent of remaining contamination in recent years.

Cambodian border areas were affected by randomly placed mines reflecting the more irregular nature of the fighting there,[8] but Engineering Command reported in 2013 that the problem had been eliminated.[9] Many ports and river deltas were mined extensively during the war and were not completely cleared when it ended and some sea mines have been found on the coast.[10]

Program Management

Vietnam’s mine action program has moved from military management to civilian oversight but operations continue to depend largely on the armed forces. In 2013, Vietnam announced a Prime Minister’s Decision to establish a national mine action center (VNMAC) to strengthen the direction of mine action and provide a focal point for mine action operations.[11] However, although VNMAC reports to the prime minister’s office, the decision assigned responsibility for managing and coordinating the national mine action program to the Ministry of Defense. VNMAC was given the responsibility to propose policy, draw up plans, serve as the focal point for international cooperation, lead fundraising, and “preside over” mine action information management. It is also responsible for organizing and implementing quality assurance.[12] The government appointed VNMAC’s director and two deputy directors in 2014 and the center became officially operational in February 2015.[13] Prior to this, a Prime Minister’s Decision in 2006 assigned the Ministry of National Defense to oversee mine action at the national level with clearance undertaken by the Army Engineering Corps of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN).[14] The Center for Bomb and Mine Disposal Technology (BOMICEN), part of the Ministry of National Defense, had acted as a central coordinating body for clearance and survey by national operators.[15]

Provincial authorities also work with a high level of autonomy in managing local mine action activities. In 2016, VNMAC and government ministries worked on a decree intended to clarify its mandate and define the role of all state agencies involved in mine action to eliminate overlap. The decree has been submitted to the prime minister’s office for consideration.[16]

Strategic planning

Decision 504 approved by the prime minister in April 2010 set out a National Mine Action Plan for 2010 to 2025. The plan aimed to “mobilize domestic and international resources in making efforts to minimize and finally create impact-free environment for social economic development.” It called for clearance of 8,000km² of ERW contamination between 2016 and 2025.[17]

Vietnam does not have a strategy specifically targeting cluster munitions.

Operators

Most clearance in Vietnam is conducted by the Army Engineering Corps. Its current strength and deployment are unknown. Officials have previously reported that it had 250 mine and battle area clearance (BAC) teams, including around 50 military companies.[18]

International operators conclude agreements to work in Vietnam with the People’s Aid Coordinating Committee but negotiate their program of operations separately with the authorities of each province. International operators active in 2016 included Danish Demining Group (DDG, in Quang Nam province), Mines Advisory Group (MAG, in Quang Binh and Quang Tri provinces), and Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA, in Quang Tri and Thu Thie Hue provinces), which also managed clearance operations for Project Renew. Project Renew conducts non-technical survey, Cluster Munitions Remnants Survey (CMRS), and explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) in Quang Tri.[19] PeaceTrees Vietnam worked in Vietnam in 2016 but did not provide information on its activities.

Quang Tri province, which includes the former demilitarized zone that separated North and South Vietnam and is one of the most heavily contaminated regions, approved the creation of a Legacy of War Coordination Center (LWCC) in February 2015. The LWCC, established by the province’s Department of Foreign Affairs with funding and technical support provided by NPA, is responsible for drawing up an annual workplan, and coordinating operations of NPA and MAG.[20]

Information management

Quang Tri province has its own database unit, which was set up by NPA towards the end of 2013 and taken over by provincial authorities in 2016, who have installed it in the LWCC. The center receives data from all operators in the province and uses it to task EOD and area clearance. Quang Binh has yet to establish a database unit and MAG maintains its own Information Management System for Mine Action (IMSMA)-compatible program database. In Quang Nam province, which also lacks a database, DDG similarly maintains its own program database.[21]

On a national level, data remains a challenge. Results of non-technical survey held in a BOMICEN database have proved inaccessible to international operators. VNMAC is in the process of setting up an information management unit intended to combine data on operations and victim assistance held by other national agencies. The project is supported by NPA, which provided software, hardware, and training in 2016. VNMAC also started drafting national legislation that would provide for the sharing of information and was revising the national standards for information management. Priority tasks in 2017 included populating the database with results of survey and other operations and getting the draft legislation approved.[22]

Land Release (cluster munition remnants)

The total extent of land released through survey and clearance in 2016 is unknown. VNMAC provided no information on operations conducted by BOMICEN and the Army Engineering Corps, which is the biggest operator. International NGOs cleared a total of 17.41km² of cluster munition-contaminated area.

Survey in 2016 (cluster munition remnants)

In Quang Tri, ranked as Vietnam’s most heavily contaminated province, NPA continued to conduct cluster munition survey in a partnership with MAG, which clears the resulting confirmed hazardous areas (CHAs). In 2016, NPA confirmed 46.52km², more than four-times the area confirmed the previous year. Impact and evidence points are first assessed, that are then investigated by technical survey teams, which define CHAs for clearance.[23]

Cluster Munition Survey[24]

Note: N/A = not applicable.

In Quang Binh province, MAG did not conduct technical survey, however its community liaison teams collected GPS locations of submunitions cleared in earlier EOD roving tasks and used these in a system of evidence point mapping to plot “initial CHAs.”[25]

DDG, working in Duy Xuyen and Dien Ban districts of Quang Nam province, conducted non-technical survey with two two-strong teams working from village to village to identify and prioritize hazardous areas before EOD or BAC teams conduct spot tasks or area clearance. In 2016, survey teams identified 33 SHAs covering 161,567m².[26]

Clearance in 2016 (cluster munition remnants)

Most clearance is undertaken by army engineers but VNMAC provided no information on results of operations. The amount of land cleared by international operators was 77% higher in 2016 than the previous year, reflecting in particular the progress of the US-funded collaboration in Quang Tri province between NPA, conducting technical survey, and MAG clearing the resulting polygons.

MAG’s clearance of 13.4km² in Quang Tri in 2016 more than doubled the area it cleared in that province during the previous year. This was partly due to increasing capacity with the addition of another Mine Action Team, two vegetation cutting teams, and two EOD teams, but higher clearance rates per team also contributed to the improvement. In Quang Binh, a province with one of the highest levels of cluster munition contamination, MAG cleared 8% more area but over 30% more submunitions.[27]

Clearance of cluster munition remnants in 2016

DDG, which started BAC focused on cluster munitions in December 2015, accelerated operations to clear 0.2km² by the end of August, but had to suspend clearance and spot EOD operations for the last four months of the year due to bureaucratic delays. DDG had extended its Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Quang Nam provincial authorities for 28 months until the end of 2018, but could not conduct survey or clearance until it received approval for the extension from the prime minister’s office.[28]

NPA carried out clearance in Thua Thien Hue province in 2016 working on CHAs in two of seven districts in which it had conducted technical survey in 2014–2015. With two clearance teams and a total of 20 deminers, NPA cleared 0.56km², destroying 417 submunitions, nearly 10-times the number destroyed in the previous year.[29]

The number of roving tasks conducted by international NGOs was 21% lower in 2016 than the previous year yet the number of submunitions and other ERW destroyed still rose, mainly as a result of MAG’s operations in Quang Binh, where teams encountered a number of tasks with large numbers of items located in a small area.[30]

Spot/Roving Clearance and EOD in 2016[31]

Land Release (mines)

The Ministry of Defense had announced a two-year VND74 billion (US$3.5 million)[32] project to clear a 6.6km² area of mines and ERW in Cao Bang and Lang Son provinces, starting in November 2013. VNMAC said mine clearance operations in these provinces would continue in 2016 but has provided no further information.[33]

Among international operators, DDG reported destroying three antipersonnel mines in the course of conducting non-technical survey in two districts of Quang Nam province. MAG, working in Quang Binh and Quang Tri provinces, and NPA, conducting cluster munition remnants survey in Quang Tri and BAC in Thu Thien Hue province, did not report any clearance of landmines.[34]

Deminer safety

In May 2016, a Project Renew/NPA searcher died in an incident during technical survey operations that injured a second deminer.[35] In April 2016, one MAG searcher was injured.[36]

The Monitor acknowledges the contributions of the Mine Action Review (www.mineactionreview.org), which has conducted the mine action research in 2017, including on survey and clearance, and shared all its resulting landmine and cluster munition reports with the Monitor. The Monitor is responsible for the findings presented online and in its print publications.