AKIPRESS.COM - U.S. President Barack Obama pledged $90 million on Tuesday to help Laos recover millions of unexploded bombs secretly dropped there by U.S. planes during the Vietnam War, saying the clean-up was a "moral obligation", reported The Telegraph.
Obama is in Laos for a summit of Southeast Asian leaders, making him the first sitting U.S. president to visit the Communist country, which is sandwiched between Thailand and Vietnam.
He said it was time to at last acknowledge the toll American bombing had taken on the people of Laos.
“Villages and entire valleys were obliterated. Countless civilians were killed. That conflict was another reminder that, whatever the cause, whatever our intentions, war inflicts a wrenching toll, especially on innocent men, women and children,” he said.
Per capita, Laos is the most heavily bombed country on earth. The covert U.S. bombing campaign – aimed at cutting off Communist forces next door in Vietnam – dropped more than 2 million tons of ordnance on the small nation, more than "we dropped on Germany and Japan, combined, in all of World War II," Obama said.
Around 30 percent of the ordnance, including an estimated 80 million cluster munitions bomblets, failed to detonate, leaving a lingering threat.
Obama said the U.S. would double the aid it gives Laos to recover and destroy unexploded bombs to $30 million per year for three years.
He did not though apologize for the bombing campaign.