The Land Mine Museum, Siem Reap, Cambodia by Susan Miles

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My dear friend Paul sums it up best, “we humans do terrible things to one another”. How these words rang loud and clear as I wondered from display to display at the Land Mine Museum in Siem Reap, Cambodia. The simple sign at the entrance appropriately uses the plural of the word “Mine”, as it is the sheer volume, variety and diversity in anti-personal devices on display that first hits you.

The museum is approximately 4 kms from the World Heritage ruins of Angkor Wat and only 2km from the construction boom of luxury hotels in the city of Siem Reap. However on this bumpy, unsealed road amongst a small, young rural community, the Cambodian tourism boom feels a million miles away.

The museum is only a few years old, having opened to the public in 1999. It consists of a simple corrugated iron building, surrounded by a handful of roughly built sheds and open air sleeping and eating quarters. Its founder and director, the quiet and unassuming Mr Aki Ra, is a 31 year old mine clearer. A former child soldier conscript with both the Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese armies, Aki Ra, along with his young combatants were made to lay the various anti-personal devices that covered Cambodia. As an adult, he worked with the United Nations during the early 1990’s to detect and clear the mines that until only 10 years ago, surrounded the now tourist packed grounds of Angkor Wat. This clearing exercise is far from complete, it is estimated that 6 million mines remain in the soil of Cambodia. These uncleared mine fields are primarily located along the Thai/Cambodian border, and it is here that Aki Ra regularly journeys to continue the work, unaided by support, external funding or the most basic of detection devices.

It is still a regular occurrence that local farmers, women and children are mamed or killed by landmines that come with “manufactured in” labels reading China, Russia, US, Vietnam and Germany and date stamps from the 1940’s right through to the 1970’s. The devices have proven to be horrendously affective, exploding immediately on contact with its unfortunate victims, and proving remarkably resilient, remaining in active condition many decades after they were first placed in the ground.

When Aki Ra first moved to the region in the late 1990’s, it was an isolated and lonely rural landscape, as the local people were too fearful of the mines remaining in the ground to farm and settle. The local village of 500 that has grown up around the museum site is a testament to Aki Ra’s extraordinary work in not only clearing the mines, but in educating his neighbors on mine awareness, safety and first aid.

For its simple layout and structure, the museum is a total success in its goal to educate and raise awareness of the continued devastating affect of anti-personal devices not only in Cambodia, but in other war-ravaged regions of the world.

As first Aki Ra and then an English volunteer leads us through the various mines on display, the sickening variety of ways to hurt, maim or kill a fellow human being becomes more apparent. It appears in the manufacture, design and placement of landmines, we humans have thought of everything. From the technique of laying mines in water, where a greater impact on the body will be caused by the imploding water, to the lightweight plastic construction of later models that are both cheaper (approximately $5US) and easier to carry. The directional Claymore mines that are designed to spray ball bearings in a specific direction coming conveniently labeled with the instruction “Front facing enemy”. With most of the mines, they are designed to pinpoint a specific bodypart ie: blow off a hand, a leg or cause shrapnel injury rather than to kill. This strategy to mine design ensures a more effective strike against the enemy, as an injured soldier requires his comrades to care for and carry him to safety.

If visitors are in any doubt of the reality of the consequences of the mines on display, the human reminder is ever present by the handful of child amputee victims that live at the museum. A very practical and logical program has been put in place to provide these children with much needed assistance. The museum supports them to go to the local school as well as providing them with English/Japanese lessons courtesy of the international volunteers. The goal being to give these kids the education that will save them from a life as beggars. While the museum can house and care for 8 to 9 kids at a time, the regular rotation of students back to their farms and families ensures as many as possible can be part of this program.

There appears to be few true heroes’s left in the world. However, on meeting Aki Ra and learning of both his horrendous wartime experiences (depicted in both story and paintings throughout the museum) and his continuing dangerous mine clearing activities, you are left in no doubt how remarkable this young man really is. Having lost his parents during the dark days of the Khmer Rouge rule, it is amazing that he survived the starvation, cruelty and danger that he was forced to endure as a child soldier. His continuing land mine clearing activities defy belief.

Several times a month, for up to 5 days at a time, he works without sophisticated detection or safety equipment, usually solo, clearing mines on the Thai/Cambodia border. Providing his own food during these expeditions by hunting, he uses nothing more than his own foot, a stick and his extensive knowledge to safely locate and then with his hands, detonate the landmines. Aki Ra clears up to 30 mines per day, an amazing feat when compared to the 2-3 per day of an official United Nation mine clearer.

The “Bouncing Betty” mine that he showed us during our visit, an insidious device that is designed to jump upwards to waist height on detonation was found and detonated the previous day during one of Aki Ra’s expeditions. The video footage taken by one of the English volunteers showed the delicate art of locating and detonating the device that Aki Ra employs. It is truly heart-stopping exercise to watch, even on film.

It would be usual to associate museums with the preservation and recording of significant historical events. What sets the Land Mine Museum apart is the fact that the displays are, (and there is no other word for it) “fresh”!.