David Whitley learns how former Khmer Rouge soldier Aki Ra has dedicated his life to clearing Cambodian villages of landmines near Siem Reap.
A distressingly regular sight in Cambodia is someone trying to get by – often just a child – whilst missing an arm or leg. Despite plenty of money and effort from overseas donors, landmines and unexploded ordnance are a still a serious problem here.
In many ways, landmines are the most callous weapons of war ever created. They’re designed to maim rather than kill, working on the principle that it takes more resources to help an injured colleague on the battlefield than a dead one. Over the years, use of them has become gradually more evil – the intention being to cow civilian populations and make farmland unusable.
Cambodia has a recent history of war and genocide that is utterly heartbreaking, with the countryside being terrifyingly explosive from the moment the Americans decided to deluge supply lines within Cambodia in a bid to win the Vietnam War. Henry Kissinger, the US National Security advisor who authorised the secret bombing campaigns, is possibly the least deserving recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in history. Frankly, he should be serving a life sentence for war crimes.
Civil war, the genocidal reign of the Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese incursions followed, leaving rural Cambodia as one giant minefield.
Now the country is tasting peace at last, but the unexploded mementos of past horrors still remain. And Aki Ra is perhaps the most maverick of those trying to clear them up.
Aki Ra was a Khmer Rouge child conscript. He was given his first AK47 at the age of ten, and through most of his childhood and early adult life, he killed people. During that time, he became something of an expert in laying mines. And now he tries to clear them up.
This is the story behind the Cambodian Landmine Museum near Siem Reap. It’s not actually a particularly good museum, but the stories it tells and the information it displays should make you weep with anger. Art ‘boxes’ hang from the ceiling. They have been made by children who picked up what they thought was a pineapple-shaped toy, and have lost limbs in the process.
There’s an element of self-aggrandising – Aki Ra has long gone and removed mines from small villages on request, but has done so in controversial ways that don’t meet with the generally accepted guidelines. He’s recently come into the official fold and now does things by the book, but he claims to have removed thousands from ‘low-priority’ areas over the years.
Many of them are on display in the museum. In a see-through tower in the middle of a fishpond, stacks and stacks of them are piled up according to type and country of origin. The majority are from the United States, Russia, Vietnam and China.
Another room goes into the worldwide political efforts to eradicate landmines. The Ottawa Treaty banning them became international law in 1999. 156 nations have signed or acceded to the treaty, and of the few that haven’t, some familiar names pop up. These include the United States, Russia, Vietnam and China. Read into that what you will.
For more details visit CambodiaLandmineMuseum.org.
