US in ‘moral obligation’ to help Laos heal
Print Edition
ACKNOWLEDGING the scars of a secret war, President Barack Obama said yesterday that the United States has a “moral obligation” to help the Southeast Asian nation of Laos heal and vowed to reinvigorate relations with a country of rising strategic importance to the US.
Making the first visit by a sitting US president, Obama said too few Americans know of the covert bombing of Laos during the Vietnam War.
As a first sign of a new relationship, Obama announced he would double spending for clearing up unexploded ordnance, committing US$90 million over three years.
Still, he offered no apologies, calling the campaign and its aftermath reminders that “whatever the cause, whatever our intentions, war inflicts a terrible toll.”
“Given our history here, I believe that the United States has a moral obligation to help Laos heal,” Obama said, as he addressed an audience of more than 1,000 students, businesspeople and officials in Vientiane, the country’s capital.
For nine years, the US conducted a punishing, covert bombing campaign on landlocked Laos in an effort to cut off communist forces in neighboring Vietnam. The bombardment 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.
The bombing left deep scars, millions of unexploded cluster bombs across the countryside and decades-worth of cleanup.
Obama is one of several world leaders attending a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
For Obama, the visit serves as a capstone to his yearslong effort to bolster relations with Southeast Asian countries long overlooked by the US. The outreach is a core element of Obama’s attempt to shift US diplomatic and military resources away from the Middle East and into Asia.
Obama’s project — dubbed his Asia pivot — has yielded uneven results, as conflict in the Middle East has continued to demand attention and China has bristled at what it views as meddling in its backyard.
Obama said America’s interest in the Asia-Pacific isn’t new and is not a passing fad.
“The United States is more deeply engaged across the Asia-Pacific than we have been in decades,” Obama said.
“Our position is stronger and we’ve sent a clear message that as a Pacific nation, we are here to stay.”
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