MICHELLE COOKE
Fairfax NZ News
New Zealand aid money and two Wellingtonians are helping unearth a deadly scourge buried in Cambodia.
A recent $1.3 million Foreign Affairs Ministry aid donation to Cambodia to clear landmines "will save lives", Human Rights Watch arms adviser Mary Wareham says.
Buried beneath the Cambodian soil are thousands of landmines, planted both by the Khmer Rouge and by the Vietnamese and Cambodian Governments, which tried to push them out.
Some buried more than 30 years ago still lie waiting for a victim as landmine clearance workers - New Zealander Cameron Imber among them - try to get to them first.
About 20,000 people have been killed and 44,000 injured by anti- personnel and anti-tank mines in Cambodia since 1979.
Many are farmers, unsuspecting that their next step could be fatal or willing to take the risk because they are desperate for more land to farm on, which means more money.
When the price of metal rises, poor Cambodians seek out the mines for scrap and some pay with their lives.
Now the Cambodian Government is luring people to a heavily mined area in the dusty north with free land and houses. It is an area near the border with Thailand, and the focus of conflict between the two countries in recent years.
A stronger Cambodian presence in the area means stronger protection of the border.
It's an area Imber knows well. He reaches down into the dirt and picks up a tiny piece of innocuous metal.
"For every mine, you dig out 400 pieces of metal, " says Imber, the project co-ordinator of Cambodia's Halo Trust. "They spend their whole lives digging this stuff up, and they have to think that every time they dig it up it could be a landmine."
Many of those working to clear Oddar Meanchey, the northern province that was the last Khmer Rouge stronghold, are descendants of soldiers responsible for setting many of the mines, and for the deaths of about two million people during the Khmer Rouge regime.
They are paid a pittance by New Zealand standards, about $180 a month, but in Cambodia it's enough to provide for up to five people. Many do not think about the risk they are taking.
"For most of them it's just a job, " Imber says.
New Zealand's contribution will fund seven teams for three years.
It will help clear thousands of hectares of farmland, schools, roads and villages, and help people live without the fear of "getting blown up".
In November, Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry disarmament division head Joan Mosley announced New Zealand would contribute $1.3 million to the clearance work.
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