CAMBODIA: Learning platform

Students play in front of the new school building, constructed on land that had been cleared by MAG. (Photo: Nicolas Axelrod / MAG)

20 Apr 2010
Source: MAG (Mines Advisory Group)

Until March 2008, Veal village school in Pursat province had no proper building - because nobody dared to build one. There had been accidents involving landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXO) in the village, and community members suspected there must be more in the ground.

The school director, Meak Hun, got on with his job as best he could, but says: "Teaching was extremely difficult. I had to teach students under villagers' houses."

Eleven-year-old Buor Seiha recalls what those lessons were like: "Each time it rained, we almost got soaked. We didn't have chairs and tables. I had to put my chalkboard on the mat and crouch over it as I wrote."

One of MAG Cambodia's all-female teams came to the village in July 2007. It took more than six weeks to clear the land needed for the school. During the process, six items of UXO were found and destroyed.

Once the land was safe, a school was built with the support of two international non-governmental organisations, Sustainable Cambodia and Save the Children Norway.

Today, about 300 students attend classes there, a notable change from the way things were.

"The number of students [before the school was built] was only around 30 to 40, as the learning environment was not good," says Meak Hun. "Students faced a lot of hardship. Many students went fishing, cutting wood or picking bamboo shoots instead of coming to classes."

The local authorities and parents now cooperate to make sure that all children are now sent to school.

Another student, Phan Hoeurm, is happy to have the opportunity to study in a proper classroom. She says, simply: "Now we have a good school."

For more information on MAG's Cambodia programme please go to www.maginternational.org/cambodia.

View MAG photo galleries.

MAG thanks the following donor for funding the work mentioned in this article: Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement, US Department of State.

Japan Gives Equipment to Nation’s Deminers

By Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
17 February 2010

The Japanese government on Wednesday announced a donation of $5.5 million in equipment to aid clearance of the mines and unexploded ordnance that still plague parts of the country.

The donation includes 484 mine detectors and other equipment to help the Cambodian Mine Action Center.

The donation was part of Japan’s continued efforts at “peace building,” Japanese Ambassador Masifumi Kuroki said in announcing the aid.

Japan has provided $110 million in mine clearance aid since 1999.

Landmines and ordnance kill an estimated 200 Cambodians each year. Experts estimate it will take another 10 years to rid the country of mines laid during decades of civil strife.

Cambodia still strewn with landmines

February 17, 2010
AP

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen says it will take years to clear the once war-torn nation of landmines that endanger lives in nearly half of the country's villages.

An estimated four to six million landmines and other unexploded ordnance from more than three decades of armed conflict continue to maim or kill Cambodians each year.

Speaking to some 1,000 deminers at the handover of demining equipment from the Japanese government, Hun Sen said that some 670sq km of the country, or 46 per cent of its villages, still needs to be cleared of the explosives.

Since the setting up of the Cambodian Mine Action Centre 17 years ago, Cambodian and foreign deminers have destroyed 2.7 million mines and unexploded ordnance over about 520sq km.

Hun Sen said the number of mine casualties has dropped significantly but the explosives remained a major threat.

A report from Cambodian Red Cross said in 2004-2005 the number of victims was as high as 800 people per year but in 2008-2009, this number dropped to just over 200 victims annually.

At the ceremony, the Japanese government donated 588 mine detectors, 44 deep-search detectors, spare parts for mine clearance machines and a mobile repair unit. The equipment is worth about $US5.5 million ($A6.1 million).

Demining equipments donated by Japan

A Cambodian deminer shows demining equipments during a hand-over ceremony of them from Japanese government in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2010. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Wednesday that some 670 square kilometers of the country's land are still cover by landmine and would take several years to be removal. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)
A Cambodian deminer tries out demining equipments during a hand-over ceremony of them from Japanese government in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2010. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Wednesday that some 670 square kilometers of the country's land are still cover by landmine and would take several years to be removal. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)
Cambodia deminers try out demining equipments during a hand-over ceremony of them from Japanese government in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2010. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Wednesday that some 670 square kilometers of the country's land are still cover by landmine and would take several years to be removal. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Number of Cambodian landmine casualties shows further annual drop

Thu, 11 Feb 2010
DPA

Phnom Penh - Official figures released Thursday showed the number of Cambodians injured by landmines and unexploded ordnance dropped 12 per cent last year from 2008 although the number killed remained constant at 47 in each year. A total of 243 people were killed or injured in 2009 by explosive remnants of war (ERW), down from 271 the previous year, the Cambodian Mine/ERW Victim Information Service said.

The number of victims has shown a steady decline year-on-year since 1994 when almost 3,000 people were killed or injured.

Chhiv Lim, a project officer for the service, said a survey undertaken four years ago showed several reasons behind the annual decline in deaths and injuries.

"We found the number one reason was demining activities, and that's because we have a lot of people involved in demining," he said. "The second is that people [have been educated] to understand the dangers of mines and ERW."

Other experts have previously said a further factor in Cambodia's predominantly agricultural society has been farmers earning better prices for crops. Improved incomes mean less need to forage for supplementary products such as bamboo and firewood and a lower risk at coming across unexploded ordnance.

More than half of last year's deaths and injuries came from three provinces in the country's north-west. The majority of victims were men while around one-third were children.

In 1999, Cambodia ratified the Ottawa Treaty, which bans the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of anti-personnel mines. While more than 150 countries have signed the treaty, China, Russia and the United States are among those that refuse to do so.

The treaty gave countries 10 years until 2009 to clear all mines from their territory, but Cambodia missed that goal. In December, Cambodia was granted a 10-year extension on the deadline although it is still thought unlikely to reach that revised target.

This week, Germany pledged 1.4 million US dollars for demining in Cambodia's north-west, adding to around 10 million dollars it has provided for demining in the country since 1999.

Cambodia has one of the highest disability rates in the world, a legacy of the country's decades of civil war that started in the 1960s and finished in the late 1990s.

Palm Springs man helping to clear Cambodia of explosives

Bill Morse, who helped set up the Landmine Relief Fund in Cambodia, holds a Cambodian sign telling people to stay away from land mines. Morse used to own a marketing and sales consulting business, but now focuses his efforts on helping to clear land mines. (Omar Ornelas, The Desert Sun)

How to help

For more information, or to make a donation, visit www.landmine-relief-fund.com or www.cambodialandminemuseum.org.
Landmine Relief Fund
P.O. Box 4904
Palm Springs, CA 92263.

December 26, 2008
Stefanie Frith
The Desert Sun (Palm Springs, California, USA)

The humidity is intense. More than 80 percent, on top of the 90-degree weather. He uses a kroma — a thin scarf — to wipe the sweat out of his blue eyes and over his closely cropped gray hair. He carries rice, water, Spam, Cup of Noodles, coffee and tea on his back. Maybe tonight there will be something else to eat with it other than rat.

Ahead of him in the Cambodian jungle, one of the metal detectors goes off with a “wow, wow” sound. A land mine has been found. Palm Springs resident Bill Morse never thought he would be running a charity to help clear the unexploded bombs and land mines in Cambodia.

Read Bill Morse's mydesert.com blog about his work in Cambodia.

He owned a marketing and sales consulting business, which he closed last year to focus his efforts in Cambodia. Now he spends up to eight months a year working in Cambodia, in the Landmine Relief Fund office or in the jungle, clearing land mines, eating whatever he can catch, and sleeping in huts or on the ground.

“There is a perception that Cambodia is handling it,” Morse said recently, sitting in his living room, surrounded by artifacts from his trips around the world. “Our objective is to clear land mines in low-priority villages.”

The land mines and bombs are from when the United States infiltrated the country and when the Khmer Rouge was in power in the 1970s, Morse said.

More than 500 people were injured from exploding land mines in Cambodia last year, Morse said. An estimated one in every 250 Cambodians has been injured since the 1980s, he said.

Finding Aki Ra
Five years ago, Morse traveled to Cambodia. He had heard of a man named Aki Ra from a friend who had raised money to buy him a metal detector so he didn't have to search for land mines by hand.

Aki Ra has cleared 50,000 land mines — and still has all his limbs. By age 5, he was orphaned. By age 10, he was fighting with the Khmer army, laying the land mines he would later seek to eliminate. When he was a soldier, he could lay 1,000 land mines a day. “Nobody kept a record,” Morse said.

He survived the genocide that killed 1.7 million Cambodians between 1975 and 1979 — more than 20 percent of the country's population, according to Yale University's Cambodia Genocide Program.

It wasn't easy finding Aki Ra. He ran a land mine museum on a dirt road, but the hotel concierge either didn't know of it, or wouldn't tell Morse where it was. When he did find him, Morse said he was overwhelmed by this man, and knew he had to help.

Morse not only set up the Landmine Relief Fund and became its director, but he returned to Cambodia to help Aki Ra with international certification. He joined Aki Ra in the jungle, hunted for meals as they looked for land mines, and stood by his side as he located them in the ground.

“You dig the hole at an angle, so if you hit the land mine, you hit it on the side,” Morse said.

Land mines were never designed to kill, said Morse, who spent a year in the U.S. Army. Injuring people was more effective in the war — as the injured had to be carried by at least two people. This is not to say the mines haven't killed.

Recently, Aki Ra was clearing land mines in a village when the government ordered him to stop. Shortly after, five people were killed when their truck went over one.

Morse spends several months a year in Cambodia, working in the Landmine Relief Fund office and in the jungle with Aki Ra and a five-member crew. When land mines are found, the area is roped off and the devices are blown up. Morse said he used to stand next to Aki Ra as he did his work.

Now, with recent government accreditation, Morse said he goes into the area last and documents what the team does. It takes a team of five to clear the mines — four people are needed to carry a stretcher — he said.

There are several land mine clearing organizations in Cambodia. The issue gained prominence when Princess Diana campaigned for the clearing of devices. There are also several groups affiliated with the cause. Project Enlighten provides educational opportunities for children in Cambodia, including those living at the Landmine Museum run by Aki Ra.

Project Enlighten Founder Asad Rahman knows Morse well and said he is one of the “most honest and driven men” with whom he has worked.

“His vision and passion to help eradicate the land mine issue is unparalleled. He is a saint,” Rahman wrote in an e-mail from Laos to The Desert Sun.

Morse only wishes he could do more. Donations have dribbled recently and he said he would like to have a celebrity step in as a spokesperson to help gain publicity for the cause.

He wants to raise $45,000 to put another team of five into the Cambodian jungles. “I couldn't think of a better way to spend my money and my time. We are going after the stuff we left there. I'm (just) a janitor.”