Cambodia's Landmine Legacy Pervades Present

Carmen Gentile
26 Jan 2007 World Politics Watch Exclusive

SIEM REP, Cambodia -- Twelve-year-old Van Nak remembers like it was yesterday the force of the blast that took his right arm and his father."It hit me here," he says tapping his chest with his only hand, "and knocked me over."

Van was just 6 years old when he accidentally triggered a landmine near the Thai-Cambodian border while planting rice with his now deceased dad, one of the tens of thousands of victims of subterranean explosives that litter the countryside.According to the government-run Cambodian Mine Action Center, anywhere between four and six million mines and pieces of unexploded ordnance are still laying in wait.

Others estimate the real number to be much lower, around one million."How many are really out there? Pick a figure, because no one really knows," said one landmine activist here.

The use of landmines in Cambodia dates back to the 1960s, though their usage reached truly staggering proportions during the following decade, when the ruling Khmer Rouge planted mines throughout the country to thwart invaders from neighboring nations and eliminate dissidents from within.But by the year 2000, with the bloody Khmer regime long dismantled, the country's current government had ratified an international treaty banning the use of mines and, along with several non-government organizations, was tackling the seemingly Herculean task of de-mining the country.

The international organization Mine Action Committee (MAC), for example, claims to clear about 4,500 mines a year, as well as 18,000 unexploded bombs dating back as far as World War II, when the Japanese invaded Cambodia. While the government claims to remove thousands more per year than any independent agency, some anti-mine activists say Cambodia could be doing a much better job of ridding the country of the deadly explosives."We're making some progress, though the job is far from over," said Rupert Leighton, program manager for MAC.

Leighton predicted that by 2012 Cambodia would be landmine free if the current rate of clearance continues, a prediction based on the one-million-mine estimate. Others predict it could take several decades, perhaps even a century, to rid the country of all explosives. That's bad news for Cambodia's farmers and rural residents who make up the majority of victims.

Hoping to curtail the number of those killed every year, landmine groups have reached out to communities to teach landmine removal and avoidance, particularly to children, who make up a large percentage of the victims. The program is working, Leighton said. In 2005, 850 reportedly were killed by mines. But the following year, that number declined to around 400. But some Cambodians still aren't satisfied with the progress made by the government and NGOS and have taken mine-clearing matters into their own hands.

A self-taught mine clearer who spends weeks at a time roaming the Thai-Cambodian border looking for explosives, Aki Ra claims to have cleared 20,000 himself over the last decade or so.

Aki also operates a landmine museum on the outskirts of Siem Rep, home to Cambodia's internationally acclaimed Angkor Wat Temple. The outdoor museum is little more than a smattering of photos and a collection of deactivated mines and bombs, though it's impact on visitors is monumental. Visitors who came to take in the splendor of Angkor Wat peruse in somber silence the stacks of mines from Russia, China, the United States and several European countries. Watching over the testimony to the terrors of landmines is Aki's wife Hourt, who has joined her husband on landmine clearing expeditions."Sometimes I worry about him, but since he taught me how to clear I know how good he is at his job," said Hourt. Others though, aren't as confident in Aki's skills and motivation for mine clearing."He's not a certified clearer so he shouldn't be doing it. . . . One day he might end up getting hurt or hurting someone else," said Leighton.