The assistance, which would be used to fund a national survey and clearance project with the Laos government over the next three years, was announced by Obama during a meeting with Laos’ President Bounnhang Vorachit.
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On 6 September, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte expressed regret for his expletive-laced tirade against US President Barack Obama. The other male Southeast Asian leaders were dressed in dark business suits. Rolled-up sleeves are considered too casual for any formal setting, let alone a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN. “He’s the most powerful president of any country on the planet”, Duterte said.
“Many of the bombs that were dropped never exploded”, Obama said.
“There is a need for us to closely follow these developments and continue to enhance ASEAN cooperation and collaboration with the global community”, he said.
Obama, on his final visit to Asia as USA president, insisted Tuesday renewed American engagement with the region would endure after he left the White House.
During an address to the Lao people in the country’s capital, Obama pledged $90 million in a joint three-year project with the country’s government to clear tens of millions of unexploded United States bombs. Duterte also arrived Monday night.
Duterte has bristled repeatedly at criticism over his “war on drugs”, which has killed about 2,400 people since he took office two months ago, and on Monday said it would be “rude” for Obama to raise the question of human rights when they met. The White House said President Obama would be raising the extrajudicial killings with Duterte at their planned meeting, but Duterte reacted strongly, saying: “You must be respectful”. You just don’t throw question and statements. “Son of a whore, I will curse you in that forum”.
Obama later canceled a bilateral meeting he was scheduled to have with Duterte in Vientiane.
On Tuesday, Duterte met the leaders of Singapore, Japan and Vietnam.
Then, in response to a question on extrajudicial killings, Duterte lost his temper.
The shoal is part of the larger dispute in the South China Sea between China and some ASEAN countries.
An arbitration court in The Hague in July invalidated China’s territorial claims after a case was brought by the Philippines, a ruling Beijing refuses to recognize. “There’s a protocol for that”, Duterte said. One of the Chinese vessels had what appeared to be a crane, according to a Philippine official who did not want to be identified because he was not authorized to discuss classified intelligence.
It is also the first visit by a sitting U.S. president to Laos, which the United States secretly carpet bombed for almost a decade in the Vietnam War, killing tens of thousands of people.
He has also taken on a more conciliatory position with US rival China.
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He pointed to the killing of Muslim Moros more than a century ago during a US pacification campaign in the southern Philippines, blaming the wounds of the past as “the reason why (the south) continues to boil” with separatist insurgencies.
