Note: ERW = explosive remnants of war.

Mine Contamination

The Socialist Republic of Vietnam’s mine problem is small compared with its ERW contamination, though its full extent is unknown. A survey conducted between 2010 and 2014 reported antipersonnel mine contamination in 26 of 63 cities and provinces but gave no further details.[1] Most mines were left by conflicts in the 1970s with neighboring Cambodia and China, and affect areas close to its borders with those countries.[2] Some mines have also been found around former United States (US) military installations.[3]

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 “Program 120,” destroying mainly Type 72, K58, and PPM-2 antipersonnel mines.[4] Vietnam has made no disclosure on the extent of remaining contamination in recent years.

Cambodian border areas were affected by irregularly emplaced mines reflecting the more sporadic nature of the fighting there,[5] but Engineering Command reported in 2013 that the problem had been eliminated.[6] Many ports and river deltas were mined extensively during the armed conflict with the US and were not completely cleared when it ended. A number of sea mines have been found on the coast.[7]

Cluster Munition Contamination

Vietnam is massively contaminated by cluster munition remnants but no accurate estimate of the extent exists, even to the nearest hundred square kilometers. The US dropped 413,130 tons of submunitions over Vietnam between 1965 and 1973, reportedly striking 55 provinces and cities, including Haiphong, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Hue, and Vinh.[8] An ERW impact survey, started in 2004 and completed in 2014, was only published in 2018. It found that 61,308km² or 19% of Vietnam’s land surface area was affected by ERW but did not specify the area affected by cluster munition remnants. It said, though, that cluster munition remnants affected 32 of Vietnam’s 63 provinces and cities.[9]

In Quang Tri, reputedly Vietnam’s most contaminated province, estimates of the cluster munition-contaminated area are increasing sharply with the progress of survey. On the basis of partial survey results in one district, by the start of 2018, operators estimated total ERW contamination at more than 130km², and with survey still to be conducted in three districts they expected the total would rise to between 150km² and 200km².[10] The higher estimate would represent less than 5% of Quang Tri’s total area of 4,470km².

Vietnam’s Military Engineering Command has recorded finding 15 types of US-made submunitions. Most submunition 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.[11]

Most of the cluster munition remnants international operators encounter in Quang Tri province are BLU 26, 29, and 61, and occasionally M20 Rockeyes.[12] In Quang Nam, almost all the cluster munition remnants cleared by Danish Demining Group (DDG) were M83 submunitions.[13] The Military Engineering Command has in the past 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.[14]

Other explosive remnants of war and landmines

Vietnam has huge unexploded ordnance (UXO) contamination.The ERW impact survey identified 61,308km² ERW contamination, including cluster munition remnants. The most heavily contaminated regions as central coastal provinces, the Central Highlands, the Mekong River delta, and the Red River delta.[15] The experience of international operators in central Vietnam points to wide variations in the types of contamination from district to district. International operators report encountering mainly projectiles, mortars, grenades, and some aircraft bombs.[16]

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.[17] 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.[18] The center became officially operational in February 2015.[19] 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).[20] The BOMICEN, part of the Ministry of National Defense, had acted as a central coordinating body for clearance and survey by national operators.[21]

A further decree on management of mine action under preparation since 2016 is intended to clarify VNMAC’s mandate as well as to define the role of all state agencies involved in mine action to eliminate overlap.[22] A draft of the decree circulating in 2018 stated the Ministry of National Defense will elaborate and preside over the national mine action program in coordination with other relevant ministries and sectors. It also identified the Ministry of National Defense as the focal point for international cooperation in mine action. The decree instructed “VNMAC, under the direction of the Prime Minister and managed by Ministry of Defense, to monitor, coordinate and implement mine action tasks.”[23] By April 2018, the draft had received endorsement of 20 ministries and was awaiting the prime minister’s approval.[24]

Vietnam set up Steering Committee 504 in 2010 under the prime minister, with the minister of national defense and the minister of labor, war invalids and social affairs as deputies, charged with overseeing the national mine action program for 2010–2025. In March 2018, the government merged Steering Committee 504 and Steering Committee 33 (in charge of responses to the impact of toxic chemical defoliants dropped by the US) into Steering Committee 701 on the Settlement of Post-war Unexploded Ordnance and Toxic Chemical Consequences.

A Mine Action Partnership Group (MAPG), whose formation was approved by the Prime Minister in 2016 to strengthen coordination between national and international stakeholders, had its first Executive Committee meeting in June 2017. The committee agreed to set up four thematic working groups to take up priority issues in the second half of the year. These included, i) contributing comments on the long-awaited decree on mine action management, updating national standards; ii) evaluating the status of victim assistance and risk education; iii) reviewing the status of information management and plans for a national database; and iv) reviewing resource mobilization. Delays in setting up a steering committee, however, stalled further activity.

Provincial authorities work with a high level of autonomy in managing local mine action activities.

Quang Tri province[25]

Provincial authorities approved the creation of the Legacy of War Coordination Center (LWCC) in February 2015 to coordinate mine action in the province. The center, funded by the United Kingdom (UK) Department for International Development (DFID) until March 2018 and supported by Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA), has developed a system of task dossiers, draws up an annual workplan, and coordinates survey, clearance, and explosive ordinance disposal (EOD) by international operators. A hotline for the community to report the presence of ERW receives an average of four calls a day.

In 2015, international operators had projected completing clearance of Quang Tri province by 2020, but the sharp rise in estimates of the extent of its ERW contamination as a result of survey has made clear those targets are unattainable. In response, the LWCC is prioritizing tasks in consultation with operators. It is also seeking to integrate mine action into provincial socio-economic planning. A steering committee, which brings together representatives of the LWCC and the provincial authority, meets quarterly. The LWCC has been consulted by VNMAC and held workshops for authorities of other provinces raising awareness on program and information management.

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.[26]

A VNMAC action plan for 2018 included three main targets:[27]

• Finalize legislation, decrees, and guidelines for the mine action sector in order to provide a unified framework for the sector country-wide;
• Clarify estimates of contamination through the release of the landmine impact survey and develop risk education; and
• Clearance of some 300km² of ERW affected land.

Vietnam does not have a strategy specifically targeting landmines.

Information management

On a national level, data remains a considerable challenge. VNMAC is in the process of setting up an information management unit that is intended to combine the data on operations and victim assistance held by other national agencies. The project is supported by NPA, which has provided software, hardware, and training. In 2017, support included training in advanced database development and management, data consolidation and developing information management standard operating procedures. VNMAC also started drafting national legislation that would provide for the sharing of information, and was revising the national standards for information management.[28]

Priority tasks in 2017 included populating the database with results of survey and other operations and getting the draft legislation approved.[29] VNMAC’s release in 2018 of the results of an impact survey was welcomed by mine action stakeholders as an important step towards information sharing.

The LWCC maintains an Information Management System for Mine Action (IMSMA) database for Quang Tri. The database stores results of survey and clearance by international organizations, providing a basis for planning and tasking, as well as victim data. It has also received some data on clearance activity undertaken by the Provincial Military Command for the years 2000 to 2013.[30]

With the exception of Quang Tri, Vietnamese provinces with active mine action programs do not have databases, so operators maintain their own.[31]

Operators

Most clearance in Vietnam is conducted by the Army Engineering Corps and military-owned commercial companies. Its current strength and deployment are unknown. Officials have previously reported that it had 250 mine clearance and battle area clearance (BAC) teams. Vietnam reportedly has more than 70 military-owned companies undertaking clearance related to infrastructure and commercial and development projects.[32]

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. Humanitarian operators were concentrated in central provinces on either side of the demilitarized zone (DMZ), which are among the most heavily contaminated.

International operators active in 2017 included Danish Demining Group (DDG) (in Quang Nam and Thua Tien Hue provinces); Mines Advisory Group (MAG) (in Quang Binh and Quang Tri provinces); NPA (in Quang Tri and Thua Thien Hue provinces); and PeaceTrees Vietnam (who have been working in Quang Tri province since 1995).

Under an agreement with the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), VNMAC, KOICA, and the UNDP are collaborating on a US$20 million project for ERW survey and clearance, information management, risk education, and victim assistance in two central provinces (Binh Dinh and Quang Binh) for three years in 2018–2020. A Joint Project Management Unit (JPMU), with representatives of each of these three organizations, will be responsible for the daily and coordinated project management, supported by a UNDP chief technical adviser who joined in March 2018. A Joint Project Coordination Committee (JPCC), comprising representatives from the Ministry of Defense, VNMAC, the UNDP and KOICA, will provide overall strategic guidance and oversight.[33]

The project, which was expected to become operational in the summer of 2018, calls for ERW survey and clearance in the two provinces to be carried out by 73 provincial military teams (21 survey and 52 clearance teams), targeting survey of 200km² and clearance of about 80km². The project also provides for the development of information management resources and for capacity development in VNMAC and the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs in support of risk education and victim assistance.[34]

Golden West, with offices in Hanoi and three provinces, is providing EOD training to Provincial Military Commands in Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, and Quang Tri provinces, as well as advising VNMAC on technologies and training and supporting US military-to-military EOD training. Golden West is also partnering the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD) in a Management of Residual Explosive Remnants of War project to study the ageing of ERW, develop standards for the collection, cutting, and dissection of ERW, and to draw up and pilot a long-term risk management model.[35]

Land Release (landmines)

VNMAC did not respond to requests for details of mine clearance in 2017. Based on partial reporting, a total of 34 mines were destroyed in 2017.

Among international operators, MAG reported it destroyed three antipersonnel mines out of a total of 8,123 ERW items it cleared in 2017.[36] Operators in Quang Tri province cleared 31 antipersonnel mines in 2017.

In the five years from 2013 to 2017, the Legacy of War Coordination Center recorded clearance of 497 landmines, 4% of the total number of items cleared, but the number of landmines cleared annually has fallen steadily.[37]

Land Release (cluster munition remnants)

The total extent of land released through survey and clearance in 2017 is unknown. VNMAC provided no information on operations conducted by BOMICEN, the Army Engineering Corps, provincial military commands, and military-owned commercial companies, which together have by far the most capacity in the country.

The ERW impact survey report released in 2018 noted that “regulations on reporting demining activities have not been strictly followed” and authorities had received clearance data for only two provinces, Ha Tinh and Quang Tri, where international donors have supported operations. The report said that between completion of the survey in 2014 and the end of 2017 the estimate of contamination in Ha Tinh fell by 111km² and 321km², respectively.[38]

Four international NGOs cleared a total of almost 16.75km² of cluster munition-contaminated area in 2017,[39] approximately 0.5km² less than the previous year.[40]

Survey in 2017 (cluster munition remnants)

In Quang Tri, ranked as Vietnam’s most heavily contaminated province, NPA continued to work in a partnership with MAG, under which NPA conducted its cluster munitions remnants survey (CMRS) and MAG cleared the resulting CHAs.

NPA, confirmed almost 54km² of hazardous area in Quang Tri province in 2017, 15% more than the previous year. It attributed the increase to improvements in the CMRS methodology developed with MAG and to greater efficiency in information management.[41] NPA aims to complete survey of Quang Tri in 2019 and will then deploy survey teams for clearance.

The area confirmed by MAG in Quang Binh province in 2017 dropped to a little over 0.3km² from 5.47km²the previous year as a result of reduced capacity.[42]

Cluster munition non-technical and technical survey in 2017[43]

Clearance in 2017 (cluster munition remnants)

Most clearance is undertaken by army engineers but neither VNMAC nor the Ministry of National Defense provided information on the scope or results of clearance operations. In Quang Tri province, incomplete data provided by the Provincial Military Command to the LWCC database showed clearance of 1.5km²,[44] but it is not known whether this refers to general UXO clearance or specifically clearance of cluster munition remnants so it is not included in the national total.

International operators cleared 16.75km² in 2017, a little more than half a square kilometer less land overall than the previous year, mainly reflecting lower funding for clearance in Quang Binh.

Cluster munition clearance in 2017[45]

DDG more than doubled the area it cleared in Quang Nam province compared with the previous year, despite reducing clearance capacity to one BAC team at the start of 2017. In September 2017, it started operating in Thua Thien Hue province’s A Luoi district, working with three non-technical survey teams. In April 2018, it increased capacity in the province, adding two EOD teams and two BAC teams.[46]

MAG received less funding for operations in Quang Binh province in 2017, which resulted in reduced clearance capacity and clearance of only one-third of the area cleared the previous year. By contrast, in Quang Tri province, where it conducted only evidence-based clearance of polygons identified by NPA survey, MAG cleared 7% more area in 2017, though it destroyed fewer items. Since 2015, MAG had conducted clearance in the province’s central Cam Lo district but in 2018 it started taking on tasks in neighboring Trieu Phong and Hai Lang districts.[47] In 2018, MAG added four mine action teams specifically tasked with clearing CHAs defined by NPA’s latest version of CMRS.[48]

PeaceTrees, working with four clearance teams in 2017, cleared 0.1km² of cluster munition-affected areas tackling NPA polygons in Da Krong district, as well as 0.44km² of requested community-related development clearance, mostly in Hoang Hoa district.[49] LWCC data showed PeaceTrees more than doubled the amount of land it cleared in 2017 compared with the previous year.[50]

NPA worked with two clearance teams in two of seven districts in Thua Thien Hue province. It cleared 18% more area in 2017. Most of NPA’s EOD operations were conducted in Quang Tri and continued at much the same level in 2018 as the previous year.[51]

Spot/roving clearance and EOD in 2017[52]

The Monitor acknowledges the contributions of the Mine Action Review (www.mineactionreview.org), which has conducted the primary mine action research in 2018 and shared all its country-level landmine reports (from “Clearing the Mines 2018”) and country-level cluster munition reports (from “Clearing Cluster Munition Remnants 2018”) with the Monitor. The Monitor is responsible for the findings presented online and in its print publications.