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Comment by cariaso | Hacker News Reader

In case the author doesn't show up, I'll offer

"There were more than 580,000 bombing missions on Laos from 1964 to 1973 during the Vietnam War. That's equivalent to one bombing mission every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, for nine years. Over two million tons of ordnance was dropped on the country, with up to 30 per cent failing to explode as designed."

http://www.maginternational.org/the-problems/the-uxo-problem...

More than 40 years after the war, one-third of the country is still contaminated by unexploded ordnance — an ongoing cost of war that affects the Lao people daily.

video at http://abcnews.go.com/International/americas-secret-war-laos...

also a worthwhile visit http://www.cambodialandminemuseum.org/

There may be many other violations, but I think that's a credible start.

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> also a worthwhile visit http://www.cambodialandminemuseum.org/

That doesn't appear to be about Laos though?

True, but the comment I'm replying to says

I'd be interested to hear the author explain what "regular violations of nearby Laos and Cambodia" actually means.

The same bombing campaign hit both countries similarly. Laos seems to have been slightly worse off, but the concept applies to both countries. The information at the museum in Cambodia will broadly inform the Laos situation. Besides if there is a similar resource in Laos I'm unaware of it.

Oh, I assumed the museum would be more about the Khmer Rouge. In fact Wikipedia says

> The landmines in Cambodia were placed by different governments and factions (including the Lon Nol, Khmer Rouge, the Heng Samrin and Hun Sen regimes, as well as the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea who, with international support retained the UN seat throughout much of the 1980s) that clashed during the Civil War in Cambodia in the 1970s and 1980s

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14873083

So it's not clear to me that has anything to do with the US presence in Vietnam.

I believe you are correct about the Khmer Rouge period being the source of the bulk of the Cambodian problem, however the museum's collection was quite comprehensive. It's been too long since I visited (and it seems they have since been forced to relocate) for me to be certain of what if any of the collection covers US secret war period, but I'm certain that I saw American made mines in their collection.

My visit to this museum sticks with me to this day, and my desire to promote it is perhaps out of place on this specific topic.

I stand by all of my other links as being directly relevant.

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