A few days in Vientiane

We spent a few days exploring the sights of Vientiane. A lovely city with lots to see. Also I replaced both my front and back tire.  

Night Market

Sunset at Vientiane

A VW diner

We also spent several hours at the COPE Centre. This is an organization dedicated to helping Laos people missing arms and legs. Most of the clients are recent cluster bomb victims. This subject just does not go away. And it shouldn’t.  This country is affected daily by unexploded bomblets.  Below is only a light sampling of what we have researched. By no means is it complete or can grasp this in a few days of research.

In 2012 when we toured the killing fields we were proud to see Canada leading the way on global legislation about the use of land mines. Today at the COPE Centre we were totally embarrassed being Canadian. To get the picture, start with this article. 

          CBC Article 

Below is a photo that shows a bit more about cluster bombs. It appears that worldwide production in 2014 increased for cluster bombs. 

USA and other current manufacturers of cluster bombs

It was just announced two days ago that the Ukraine used cluster bombs provided by the USA. Now let’s start connecting the dots. Our very brave Military people have been asked to go in harms way on our behalf. Of course we support them. What is difficult to understand is how we can go to conflict with extremely unclear mandate and no obvious plan and no exit strategy.

 If you recall in he fall of 2014 President Obama clearly stated that he had no intention of bombing Isis.  After extreme political pressure he reversed his decision one week later and all of a sudden he has a plan but did not share details. Somehow Prime Minister Harper decides we need to be a part of that plan and we are at war. Although we are not dropping cluster bombs, we are part of a machine that makes them and provided them to the Ukraine. 

As the Chancellor of Germany once said, “The best way to kill women and children is to use cluster bombs”. 

I believe yesterday Prime minister Harper said we may have to provide arms to Ukraine. This is why we have not totally ratified the cluster bomb agreement, so we can go to war with the USA. 

This is Sickening. Our reputation as a peacekeeping nation is gone. It is no longer an advantage to carry a Canadian flag when travelling abroadabroadabroad (a sign of the times) As we are no longer on the UN Security Council we can’t even influence global peace policy. 

Below is a map showing who stockpiles cluster bombs and we are one of the nations that does. 

Canada stockpiles cluster bombs 

The map below shows that Canada had two financial institutes supporting cluster bomb manufacturers.  They were Royal Bank of Canada and Sun Life Financials  It appears that RBC has a policy to stop this  I am not sure of the status of Sun Life Financials.

Countries with Banks supporting cluster bomb manufacturing

Below is a link to an award winning Canadian documentary – Bombies (59 minutes)

          Bombies – The Documentary

Just want to be very clear, Canada appears to stockpile Bombies but have signed on to not use them.  Canada reserved the right to partner with countries who did not sign (USA).  This year Ukraine used USA provided cluster bombs that could have been Partially financed by RBC and or Sun Life Financials.  Is Canada quacking like a duck?

bye for now