Things didn’t end up too well at the NGO. Many of my fears were realised early on and I decided to seek pastures greener. NGOs are fairly thin on the ground in this Communist state, but that doesn’t mean opportunities are.
I rattled off emails to as many organisations as I could find and despite the scarcity I did receive some fairly interesting offers. One very tempting one was to live up in the hills in the far north of the country writing an old hippy’s biography. It sounded like it would make a good chapter for my own yet-to-be-published equivalent, but nevertheless I held out.
The hesitance soon paid off, as none other than the UN came knocking and a meeting was hastily arranged. I didn’t exactly look the part, rolling up on my Chinese bicycle in sweat-soaked shorts, a 10 year-old Next shirt and a pair of £5 Sports Direct slip-ons. I made a mental note to start dressing in the way expected of a modern-day imperialist; or aid worker, as we are otherwise known.
The meetings at UN House turned out to be a ruse, as the position for which I was wanted was actually a marital favour. The next day I received a phone call which began, “Darren, we need to meet.” By morning I was joined for tea by an Englishman with an accent of deepest Henley-on-Thames.
I was handed some documents and told to read them thoroughly. Mr Home Counties worked for a regulatory authority on Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) within the Lao Ministry of Labour. He was no mid-Atlanticist and took great pleasure in implicating the US for its war crimes against the Lao people. In summary:
- In excess of 260 million sub-munitions (bombies) from cluster bombs dropped between 1964 and 1973 by the US in a secret war
- 30% is the estimated failure rate of sub-munitions under ideal conditions
- 78 million is the estimated number of UXO across Laos
- Over 2,000,000 tonnes, a tonne of explosives for every Lao alive at the time, were dropped
- All bombing flights were against the Geneva Convention
- Laos is the most heavily-bombed nation on earth, per capita
- Someone is killed or injured everyday, almost half a century later
- Some people never stop talking
Convention on Cluster Munitions
These sub-munitions, or bombies, are like lethal nail bombs waiting in playgrounds, schools and fields. They splinter into flesh-destroying shards of lead and disfigure and maim any living thing within reach. Years exposed to the elements have made them highly volatile. They are shaped like baseballs and children pick them up thinking they are toys. Many lose hands, legs or bleed to death in remote villages.
All this became a bit of a blur and I wondered what I had got myself into. It sounded a lot better than the glorified begging that is the bread and butter of NGO work, but I wasn’t sure I was ready for actual responsibility. I had spent the last 4 months on the dole in London and felt even the bi-weekly signing-on an assault on my liberty.
I finally stopped Mr Home Counties mid-flow, which is a bit like trying to cross the North Circular on foot – every attempt inevitably recoils back to safety as a renewed tsunami of verbiage rushes by.
“What exactly is my role in all this?” I asked.
“I’ll get to that…” Mr Home Counties clipped.
Cue tsunami. I ducked below the proverbial parapet and sat it out. Then there were signs of retreat.
“In November major Heads of State from around the world will be coming to Vientiane to attend the States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions. For this we need to produce strategy documents on the level of service provision across the country for victims of UXO. You will be researching this service provision,” Mr Home Counties summed up.
And thus began my 6 months working for the Communists.
