Cambodia's amputee volleyball league: The playing fields

Mar 8th 2011
By S.M.
The Economist
PHNOM PENH

RELEASED in 1984, “The Killing Fields” was an unforgettable glimpse into the ghastly hell of Cambodia under Pol Pot. For many moviegoers, it illuminated a largely unknown genocide that killed an estimated 1.7m people and ended only with Vietnam’s invasion in 1979. Even then another decade of civil war was to follow. The film won a slew of awards and lots of acclaim for its British director, Roland Joffe.

Pol Pot and the murderous Khmer Rouge are long gone, but the legacy of war lingers in Cambodia. Look no further than the ranks of amputees in towns and villages. Some are the victims of landmines, of which rival armies scattered at least 4m, along with other unexploded ordnance, during and after the Vietnam’s war of independence. The toll continues to rise. Last year, 71 people died and 215 were injured by leftover munitions, according to the Mines Advisory Group, a charity.

In recent years Cambodia has tried to turn this handicap to its advantage with a disabled volleyball league. The league has thrived, making heroes of its amputees, who also compete for their country on the international stage. This year’s World Cup for disabled volleyball will be held in Phnom Penh in July, for the second time in four years. North Korea and Egypt are among the contenders.

Cambodian land mine victims aim for volleyball victory

Saturday, November 17, 2007
The Associated Press

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: Yim Vanna contemplated suicide after a land mine blew off his leg. But then something came along that gave him hope and a sense of self-worth — volleyball.

Today, the 5-foot-2 (1.6-meter) athlete is the captain of Cambodia's 12-man national disability volleyball squad, determined to jump for gold at a special World Cup in Cambodia this month. He is one of thousands of land mine victims in Cambodia, including seven of his teammates.

"We see the tragedy of the land mines, but now we also see this beautiful irony that it's the land mine survivors who are leading the country's disability sporting development," says Chris Minko, secretary-general of the Cambodian National Volleyball League (Disabled), a nonprofit organization developing sports for the handicapped.

Although the country's three decades of war ended eight years ago, an estimated 4 million to 6 million land mines and other unexploded ordnance remain. The weapons killed or injured at least 418 people last year alone.

Se Pha, now 26, lost his left leg when he was 15 years old. He stepped on a land mine while herding cattle in a rice field.

"I woke up in a hospital. Some people in the village later used to make jokes about me. I became disheartened with myself," he says.

"But now I feel as normal and capable as anybody else thanks to volleyball," says Se Pha, who works as a motorcycle taxi driver in Battambang province, about 155 miles (250 kilometers) northwest of the capital, Phnom Penh.

Yim Vanna, who lost his right leg after stepping on a land mine in 1987, recalls his mother-in-law's reaction — not uncommon in a country where there is lack of care, and sometimes even sympathy, for the maimed.

"She even tried to convince my wife to leave me because she believed I had become worthless and had no future," says the 40-year-old former government soldier, a father of four and also a motorcycle taxi driver. His outlet is volleyball.

The event from Nov. 24 to Dec. 1 coincides with Cambodia's signing of the Ottawa treaty banning land mines 10 years ago, which the United States, China and Russia have yet to ratify. The Cambodian team will play against others from seven countries for a trophy with a ball riveted between two bent AK-47 rifle barrels.

The Cambodian volleyballers finished in 4th place at the 2004 and 2005 World Cups — an inspiring record and better than Cambodia's able-bodied athletes normally do at international sports events. Their prowess is even more striking because Cambodian players, unlike many in the West, don't have specially designed prosthetic legs that cushion impact on the stumps and increase speed.

To harden his men against the pain, coach Christian Zepp recently showed them Sylvester Stallone's "Rocky IV" movie, in which hero Rocky Balboa makes grueling preparations before fighting his seemingly superior Russian rival.

"We have to fight during every training session," Zepp told his team. "I'm pretty sure every one of you will give 100 or 200 percent."
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On the Net: Cambodian National Volleyball League (Disabled)
http://www.standupcambodia.org/

Prosthetic Prowess

Thursday, Nov. 01, 2007
By Simon Montlake
Time (USA)

Cambodia hasn't excelled at much lately on the world stage, unless you're ranking countries for genocide and undetected landmines, of which it has an estimated 4-6 million. But the latter, grim though the connection may be, are the reason that the country is competing for a world title at the 2007 Standing Volleyball World Cup, taking place in its capital Phnom Penh.

Planned by World Organization Volleyball for Disabled (WOVD), the event runs from Nov. 24 to Dec. 2, and is open to disabled athletes capable of standing, with or without a prosthesis (the WOVD also holds "sitting" volleyball tournaments for wheelchair-bound players). Ranked top in Asia, Cambodia is one of eight national teams competing for a trophy that local artists have fittingly sculpted from melted-down AK-47 assault rifles. Canada, the reigning champion, is the team to beat. The German squad is also highly rated. Out of the running are Afghanistan and Rwanda, who pulled their teams at the last minute, pleading lack of funds.

Like those troubled nations, Cambodia has been ravaged by civil strife. The poisonous aftermath still lingers in mine-strewn soil, where the nation's farmers scrape a living. One of the consequences is that there's no lack of amputees keen to strap on an artificial limb and hit a ball over a net. Since 2002, a wet-season disabled volleyball league has nurtured a squad of high-flying semipro athletes who came fourth at the 2005 World Cup in Canada and are gunning for gold on home soil. Christian Zepp, 26, the team's German coach who arrived in September, reckons a place in the finals, or even victory over the favorites, is within reach. "This is our moment," he says.

Not all of Cambodia's volleyball players lost limbs to land mines. Some suffered polio or other childhood diseases, or were maimed by motorbike wipeouts on dangerous roads. Others are ex-combatants with nowhere to go: the Hawks, in the notorious Khmer Rouge stronghold of Pailin, field a mixed team of cashiered former rebels and government soldiers. From eight teams in 2002, the local league has grown to 16 sponsored squads in two divisions who compete for an annual $3,000 prize — a sum that goes a long way in rural Cambodia.

Disabled volleyball might sound like a charitable exhibition sport, but don't be fooled, says Neil Wilford, a British adviser to the Cambodian league. When an Australian Navy ship docked two years ago at the southern port of Sihanoukville, its volleyball team agreed to a friendly game against a local disabled squad. Before it started, one of the Australians took Wilford aside and asked how easy they should go on their opponents. "Just play as normal," Wilford smirked. The Cambodians trounced the Australians, spiking ball after ball past the red-faced servicemen. The game has since become an annual fixture.

The National Sports Complex, completed in 1964, is the venue for the WOVD tournament. Designed by the nation's architectural doyen, Vann Molyvann, the Modernist facility was one of the high-tide marks of Cambodia's post-independence achievements, but the nation slid into civil war before it could be properly put to use. Today, the complex is hidden from view by a garish Chinese shophouses that obscure its perimeter walls, but the facilities have been restored. All the matches in the WOVD competition will be played in an indoor stadium and are free to the public. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, the patron of the disabled league, will preside over the opening ceremony.

Staging a successful World Cup is symbolic of Cambodia's sporting rebirth, says Chris Minko, 51, the league's full-time secretary general. Back in the 1960s, then Premier Norodom Sihanouk promoted Phnom Penh as the sporting hub of Southeast Asia, until Indonesia stole his thunder by staging a nonaligned version of the Olympics. Secret U.S. bombings and the Khmer Rouge did the rest. But Minko, a combative, shaven-headed Australian, wants to see Phnom Penh back on top. The first step is victory on Dec. 2, which Minko hopes will help reclaim Cambodia's stature as a sports power to be reckoned with in Southeast Asia. "We're going to bring that back," he says.

Cambodian war victims find new pride on the volleyball court

A Cambodian landmine victim plays volleyball (Photo: AFP/File/Tang Chhin Sothy)

Sunday, August 05, 2007

As a young soldier battling the Khmer Rouge along the border with Vietnam, Puch Sarum knew the war would end some day and dreamed of having a good life in a peaceful Cambodia.

KEAN KLEANG, Cambodia (AFP) - One wrong step nearly 20 years ago changed all of that. Puch Sarum's left leg was destroyed by a landmine.

Mutilated, he found himself shunned; unable to work, Puch Sarum soon was destitute -- impoverished in an already desperately poor country that was unable to cope with the tens of thousands of victims of its brutal civil war.

But in 1993 Puch Sarum began playing volleyball, joining dozens of other men with similar disabilities who, on the court at least, had found a place again in society.

"I was reborn," says Puch Sarum, now 38, glancing at his prosthetic leg which hangs in the window of his one-room house on the outskirts of the capital Phnom Penh.

Turning around the tragedy of war, Cambodia has pulled together one of the world's best disabled volleyball teams comprised almost entirely of landmine victims.

Late this year, it will host the sport's World Cup, the first major international team sporting event to be held in the battered country.

Cambodian landmine victims play volleyball (Photo: AFP/File/Tang Chhin Sothy)

Ranked number one in the Asia-Pacific region, the Cambodian men's team hopes to clinch the title when it competes against at least 12 other international teams from November 24 to December 2.

Current champions Canada have already confirmed their attendance along with Australia, Germany, India, Malaysia, Poland, Rwanda and Slovakia.

Negotiations are also under way with Afghanistan, Myanmar and Sri Lanka to participate, while China is sending a team of observers.

"This is a very important step," says Chris Minko, secretary-general of the Cambodian National Volleyball League (Disabled), or CNVLD, which he founded in 2002 for amputees.

Not only does the tournament put Cambodia on the path to host more sporting events, Minko says, but it also draws attention to the plight of the country's 40,000 amputees, many of whom are still forced to the fringes of society.

"Most (of these) athletes are landmine victims -- their participation at international sporting competitions and their success can raise the awareness of the terrible injuries these weapons cause," said Cambodian national team coach Christian Zepp.

Cambodian landmine victims play volleyball (Photo: AFP/File/Tang Chhin Sothy)

Despite feverish demining efforts that began in the early 1990s, Cambodia remains littered with millions of landmines and other unexploded munitions that continue to kill or maim an average of two people each day.

Some 160 amputees currently play on the CNVLD's 17 teams. A decade ago, some were on opposite sides of the frontline, fighting for either the government or the communist Khmer Rouge, which existed as a rebel movement into the 1990s.

"But we are friends now," says Som Chok, a 42 year-old former soldier who told AFP he wanted to commit suicide after losing his right leg while fighting the Khmer Rouge near the Thai border.

"Now I've become normal because the people here are all disabled," he says, adding of his former enemies: "We play volleyball happily together and sometimes we forget we are disabled."

Except for the tell-tale prosthetic limbs, observers might also forget they are watching amputees, as the players jump, lunge and dart around the volleyball court with surprising skill and agility.

"I want to win the World Cup with this very special team," says Zepp, who will spend nine weeks here training the squad -- currently ranked fourth in the world -- for what will likely be a stiff competition.

"We really have a chance to be the world's new number one," he added.

Since Minko started the CNVLD, his teams won gold at the 2002 FESPIC Games, Asia's equivalent of the Paralympics.

"Cambodian athletes are recognised as reaching a new level of agility amongst amputees," says Minko, who sees sport as important for re-integrating the disabled.

"Sport is a powerful tool in the process of rebuilding post-conflict societies ... sport can be seen as a symbolic blueprint of social values and cultural norms," the CNVLD says on its website.

Puch Sarum agrees, saying that he has finally rejoined the peacetime world he dreamt about so long ago.

"Although we are landmine victims, we have to stand up," he says.