Digging Up the Past

Clearing Mines in Cambodia
By Chris Kenning | World Ark Contributor
Photography by Geoff Oliver Bugbee

 PAILIN, Cambodia— It’s nearly noon in the scrubby fields outside of remote Ban Hoy village as we pull on flak jackets and blast helmets to prepare to walk into the minefield. 

“Don’t throw anything, don’t pick up anything, and follow my steps exactly,” warns Nhek Sergsokhom, a supervisor with U.K.-based Mines Advisory Group, which works to remove the mines.

Threading past ominous red skull-and-crossbones signs reading, “Danger!! Mines!!” we enter a thicket dotted with painted sticks marking land mines laid by the Khmer Rouge and its enemies. So many mines remain in this region near the Thai border, it is called one of the most dangerous places on Earth.

More than a dozen trained locals in helmets and bulletproof vests pause from their work with metal detectors, picks and hand tools. We walk up behind one worker, crouched low to the ground, gingerly digging away the dirt from a mine he’s just found. Radios crackle with orders as he plants a stick of dynamite and we retreat to a sloping field nearby.

Three long and three short warning whistles later, the crack of dynamite booms through the hills and sends a small mushroom cloud into the air. Among those watching with satisfaction is Pham Bunsont, 43, who lost a leg from a land mine in the 1980s and is now paid by the Mines Advisory Group to remove them.

“It’s a dangerous job,” he says. “But I don’t want mines to hurt others like they hurt me.” 

Digging Up the Past

A DEADLY LEGACY

Cambodia remains one of the most heavily mined countries in the world, the legacy of decades of conflict including Pol Pot’s long guerilla war after the fall of the genocidal the Khmer Rouge in 1979. Although the fighting ended years ago, land mines still litter farm fields, pastures, trails, rice paddies, riverbanks and villages.

Mine clearer Reab Rim, 22, went through a lengthy, rigorous training process before going into the field to work for the U.K.-based Mines Advisory Group

Some of the mines here date back to the 1960s, but most were planted during the 1979-1989 Vietnamese occupation. As the Khmer Rouge retreated to camps along the northwest border, both sides laid massive amounts of mines as they lost and reclaimed land. In the 1980s, Vietnam drove many into camps in Thailand and planted a mine field barrier along the border, hundreds of miles long.

By the 1990s, Cambodian government forces and the Khmer Rouge were battling in a civil war, with both sides using land mines to defend villages and roads or make land unusable by their enemies. By 1999, much of the fighting subsided as the Khmer Rouge were captured, gave up or sought amnesty. The nation banned land mines in 1999, but millions remained in the ground. Some estimate 4 to 10 million mines are still buried, but no one is sure.

Mines and unexploded ordnance killed or injured 63,000 Cambodians since 1970, most of them farmers and rural villagers. Roughly one in 290 Cambodians is an amputee, giving the poor nation one of the world’s highest amputee rates. The presence of mines steals valuable land from impoverished farmers and limits development. And many of the nation’s 43,000 mine-accident survivors can find little social-service help. Some eat by begging on the streets of Phnom Penh or relying on their children to work.

The Cambodian government and nongovernmental mining groups including the Mines Advisory Group and the HALO Trust began clearing land mines in the early 1990s. So far, they’ve destroyed more than 433,000 mines and a million pieces of unexploded ordnance, according to the Cambodian government.

In 2002, there were 1,724 square miles of land heavily contaminated by mines in Cambodia, according to a Landmine Monitor Report put out by the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. Today, that figure is down to an estimated 177 square miles—the result of mine clearing and the reclassification of formerly suspected areas.

Skull-and-crossbones signs warn not to leave the road.

In 2006, about 450 Cambodians were injured or killed by mines or unexploded ordnance. That number represents a significant decrease from the 2,700 casualties in Cambodia each year in the 1980s and 1990s. While mine clearing gets some of the credit, more awareness, an economic upswing that reduced the need for risky farming and a growing number of aging, inoperable mines also helped, experts say.

Nevertheless, land mines are still “a massive problem” in Cambodia, said Suzanne Fiederleine, a senior researcher at the Mine Action Information Center at James Madison University in Virginia.

Nearly half of Cambodia’s 13,908 villages are plagued by land mines, and reaching the national goal of removing them by 2015 isn’t likely to happen at the current rate of mine removal, said Chea Sarim, a regional Mines Advisory Group manager.

Since international donor countries and groups funded about $30 million worth of mine clearing in 2007, compared to the Cambodian investment of $1.5 million, there is a critical need for more funding to speed removal.

“It needs more attention,” Sarim said.

While the problem of land mines is especially acute in Cambodia, the country is hardly alone. Despite a 1997 anti-personnel mine-ban treaty signed by more than 150 countries, an estimated 50 to 70 million land mines are still buried in more than 70 countries, from Mozambique to Croatia to Afghanistan. These weapons kill 15,000 to 20,000 people each year— about one person every 30 minutes, according to The International Committee of the Red Cross. Most victims are civilians. The United Nations estimates that one-third of victims are children. Most of the estimated 300,000 mine accident survivors worldwide live in developing countries where health care is poor and rehabilitation facilities rare.

Digging Up the Past

PAINSTAKING WORK

Removing mines is notoriously slow, expensive and dangerous work, especially in Cambodia’s remote terrain like the minefield outside Pailin, a longtime stronghold of the Khmer Rouge.

Getting here requires an hours-long, bone-rattling, seat-jumping drive over pocked and dust-choked roads in a military-grade jeep. On the way, skull-and-crossbones signs warn not to leave the road.

Workers march toward a command tent after long hours spent scouring the dangerous landscape.

The minefield itself is in a wooded area between farm fields. Nearby, chickens peck in the dirt yards of simple huts and concrete-block homes with corrugated tin roofs. The mines are planted thickly in this remote border region, and most are invisible, buried just a few centimeters below the surface.

At least 14 Ban Hoy villagers have been killed by land mines, and another 18 have lost limbs or been otherwise injured. One man died when his tractor ran over an anti-tank mine. Another died after he stepped on a mine while clearing brush. Another died while using a shovel to try to remove mines, which were killing his pigs and cows.

Sim Ry, 53, who lives in a thatched-roof house sided with weathered bamboo slats, has a stump where his hand used to be. The former Khmer Rouge soldier tripped a land mine while cutting down trees to plant corn several years ago. He survived, but his injury, and the presence of more mines, made it difficult to earn enough for his wife and five children. Each time his children leave the house, he worries they might not come back alive.

“It’s very hard,” Ry said.

Others who work as subsistence farmers say the mines make crucial land unusable.

“We can’t farm the land that we own,” said Ouch Ouy, 40, a leather-faced villager who was also a Khmer Rouge soldier. He said he wasn’t involved in planting the mines, and called the Mines Advisory Group to request the area be cleared.

Because many villagers were involved in the fighting on one side or another, mine-clearing groups send interviewers to find out where mines were planted, or where battles took place, or where injuries occurred. Yet many were placed haphazardly and without any records kept.

At a command tent in Pailin, Mines Advisory Group officials showed the types of mines they look for: antipersonnel mines of all varieties—ones that pop up before exploding for maximum casualties, trip-wire mines, directional-spray mines set alongside trails and unexploded mortar shells and grenades. Most here were made in Russia, Vietnam and Hungary. Some are the size of cigar boxes, others casserole dishes and others small hockey pucks.

The Mines Advisory Group, which works in current and former war zones in 35 countries, came to Cambodia in 1992 and now has 476 people working in seven provinces. Of its 56 field teams, many are Cambodians and nearly one in 10 is an amputee. With international groups and the Cambodian government’s efforts, about 4,000 people are working to remove mines.

Bunsont said he does it partly for the good pay, which beats raising vegetables, but also to help others. He was on patrol with the government troops near Siem Reap in 1988 when he tripped a wire that set off a mine, slicing off his leg. He said the benefits are worth the potential danger.

Though such instances are rare for trained mine clearers, in January of last year seven men from a Cambodian clearance team were killed when a series of anti-vehicle mines blew up. Several weren’t wearing protective gear or were stationed too close together, according to one report.

Digging Up the Past

HELPING THE VICTIMS

On the streets of Siem Reap, Teng Dara, 42, who lost both legs to a land mine in 1990, pumps hand pedals on a makeshift bicycle, inching past tourists in shady cafes who start at his sign announcing his injury and offering black-market books for sale. Adjusting his straw hat and camouflage jacket, he says he isn’t alone in his struggles as a double amputee.

Pham Bunsont, 43, who lost a leg from a land mine in the 1980s, is now paid to remove mines. "It's a dangerous job," he said. "But I don't want mines to hurt others like they hurt me."

“I get some money from the government, about $30 a month, but it’s not enough,” says Dara, a former Khmer Rouge conscript. “It’s a big problem for poor families, farmers and soldiers.”

Because Cambodia is a poor country, services for the nation’s 43,000 survivors of land mines are limited. Prosthetic limbs are available to some, but social services are scarce. Many victims are unable to do manual labor, often the only work available. And victims are often ostracized and discriminated against.

“There is not much in terms of disability awareness and certainly not much in terms of equal opportunity or discrimination [protection],” said Martha Hathaway, director of Clear Path International, which supports mine victims with aid such as prosthetics and adapted houses for the disabled.

The Mines Advisory Group, meanwhile, helps affected communities by partnering with World Vision, Church World Service and other nonprofits to build schools, roads, canals, refugee housing and health centers, and to develop farmland on old minefields.

At Ta Krouk village, outside of Battambang, for example, children scurry across the dirt courtyard of a school. It is made of concrete and is well-equipped compared to many Cambodian schools. Just a few dozen yards away is a water pump, installed so villagers don’t have to go great distances for water. A concrete marker obscured by weeds testifies to when the area was cleared of mines.

“This has a big impact for the people,” said Say Sameth, a Mines Advisory Group officer.

Education is also crucial. The Mines Advisory Group sends teams into villages to urge them not to go to suspect areas. But keeping people safe can be a challenge. Digging up mines to sell for scrap metal still causes many injuries.

“The people know it’s dangerous, but they have no income.” Sarim said. “So they … need to go into the forest to collect food and wood.”

Despite the remaining challenges, Cambodian officials say removing land mines is crucial to the country’s future, especially for the rural poor.

In 2006, Cambodian deputy prime minister Sok An said that “contaminated land cannot be used for agriculture or resettlement, people cannot travel or access basic social infrastructure. Getting rid of land mines is a prerequisite to lift affected populations out of poverty.”

Fiederleine, the mine researcher, said the work of the Mines Advisory Group and others is providing hope that land mines won’t always plague Cambodia.

“They are really making some progress,” she said.

Chris Kenning is a newspaper journalist based in Louisville, Ky., who has written on global issues from Central America, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. He can be reached at ckenning2@gmail.com.

Geoff Oliver Bugbee has focused on global health, basic human needs and social justice issues for 14 years. In 2007, he photographed stories in more than 15 countries, including Syria, Egypt, Kosovo, Rwanda, and Tanzania. He can be reached at www.geoffbugbee.com.