The Complete Collection of Travel Literature

by Tahir Shah

  The British-based Mines Advisory Group (MAG) first came to Cambodia four years ago. After isolating the most afflicted areas, the charity began training teams of local people to clear landmines. Their three-month course offers a grounding in detecting and destroying all twenty-eight types of landmines commonly found in Cambodia.

  From the outset, MAG was eager to employ people whom had been directly affected by mines. They created a team of amputee de-miners, all of whom had lost limbs to landmines. And, in a society where a woman’s place is more usually in the home, they established the first all-female mine clearance unit in the world.

  The twenty-six women in the team are widows, their husbands all slain by landmines. Aged between twenty and thirty-five years, the women are playing a frontline role in tackling Cambodia’s overwhelming landmine problem. Accurate statistics are vague, but there’s at least one mine for every man, woman and child in the country. Each day, more than ten Cambodians lose one or more limbs when they tread on a mine; and every year hundreds of children are killed. Clearing the estimated ten million mines, a process which may take generations, is a necessity if any kind of development or normal life is to be achieved.

  Chris Horwood, director of MAG’s project in Cambodia, oversaw the establishing of the first all-female de-mining team.

  ‘We thought there would be enormous pressure against the idea from the local community,’ he says, ‘we expected that, by sending young women out into an active minefield, we would be harshly condemned. But the project has been a massive success. So much so that we’re just about to hire another thirty women de-miners. And, from now on, we’re planning to actively recruit amputee women to clear mines. The mine clearance instructors continually report how studious and careful the women are – far more so, it seems, than the men.’

  The struggle to clear landmines from rural Cambodia is likely to be longest war the country will ever face and, until the mines have been destroyed, Cambodia hangs in a state of limbo.

  ‘People can’t get to their fields, to their water sources, or to their schools,’ says Horwood, ‘while major roads, temples, and areas of housing, lie abandoned for fear of hidden explosives. Landmines, have almost single-handedly brought Cambodia to a standstill. It’s hard to imagine a more toxic form of pollution. Mines are “poverty creating”: once you’re in the poverty cycle, you’re forced to carry out highly hazardous risk-taking activities to break out of that cycle. So, although you know there are mines in the forest, you have to cut wood there – or else you starve.’

  Like other humanitarian groups working to clear the world’s hundred million landmines, MAG practices what they call ‘humanitarian mine clearance’. Quite different from military de-mining (which recognizes that casualties are an inevitability of war) the humanitarian approach strives for a hundred per cent clearance with no civilian casualties.

  ‘Military de-mining’, Horwood continues, ‘is only ever conducted to create a path through a minefield to get to the enemy. Fatalities are expected. But, our units have to ensure that each mine, every fragment of metal, is cleared from the ground – whether it be on a hillside, in woodland, or in rice fields. Conventions of war do state that minefields must be mapped – but, in Cambodia, such maps are unreliable or entirely non-existent.’

  The women clearing mines near Battambang – Cambodia’s second largest town – perform their de-mining work as well as attending to their endless household chores. Until recently, women in rural communities would tend to the family and raise the children, rarely holding down anything more than the most menial paid jobs. But the huge loss of male workers has led to rapid change. For the first time, Sokha Tun, and other young women like her, are finding themselves at the head of their extended families. As the sole breadwinners, they are winning new respect, and are gaining unprecedented levels of emancipation.

  When Sokha first saw the advertisement for women to become de-miners pasted to a wall, she quickly walked away.

  ‘My husband was killed by a landmine,’ she says sombrely, ‘so I didn’t want to have anything to do with explosives. But we were very poor, and my children were going hungry. I would sell fruit at the market. On some days I made as much as 1500 riels (25 pence). Without my husband life was very hard. When my family heard that I was thinking of clearing landmines, they said it was very dangerous, and they tried to discourage me. But I thought very hard about it. We all know so many people here who have been killed or wounded by mines. I wanted to help rid Cambodia of this curse – so that my children could play in the fields.’

  Sokha applied, was accepted into MAG’s first six-woman team, and was sent to Phnom Penn for a month for training.

  ‘It was so exciting,’ she whispers, ‘I had never left Battambang before. We were trained at the Cambodian Mine Action Centre and were taught about all types of explosives. There are many different types of landmines in Cambodia – made in the former USSR, Vietnam and China, as well as Czechoslovakia, Belgium, and even America. We had to learn about the problems that each kind of mine poses, and about booby-traps.’

  The second stage of training took place beside a live minefield, in Battambang Province itself. It’s there that the women practiced using high-tech metal detecting equipment.

  ‘When I started the training course,’ says Sokha, I met Sophia Sien. She became my partner, and we’re now best friends. Working in a minefield teaches you to trust, and rely on your partner totally: we’ve become closer than sisters.’

  Landmine clearance teams are subject to a series of rigid, unyielding rules designed to minimize risk, and to keep members alive. Danger is ever-present and can strike with the smallest lapse of concentration. When preparing to clear a new tract of ground, the team – which is always split into pairs – cordon off a ‘safe lane’. The lane, one metre wide, is cleared first. It is via this corridor that the de-miners enter the minefield.

  Each morning, before setting out into the cordoned zone, the de-mining teams are given a briefing by their supervisors. They’re continually cautioned about safety, and warned about ground conditions: the level of moisture in the soil alters the sensitivity of the metal detector. After the briefing, the teams assemble their detecting equipment. Austrian-made Schiebel AN-1912 detectors are used, selected for their simplicity and general ruggedness. The units can detect metal down to fifteen centimetres, depending on the type of ground and the conditions. The morning ritual of testing the metal detectors is conducted with great care. A plastic testing block containing just seven millimetres of metal is used to check that all the detectors are in prime working order.

  When working in the minefield, the de-miners scan the ground an inch at a time. They are trained to watch out for the latest generation of blast-mine, for some of the world’s most lethal, yet undetectable landmines lie in Cambodia’s new killing fields. The modern breed of minimum metallic mines can contain no more metal than the tiny ball at the tip of a Bic biro.

  Sokha and her partner Sophia, take it in turns to enter the minefield. Sophia goes in first, holding the detector at arm’s length ahead of her. As she sweeps the circular twelve-inch head of the unit slowly across the ground, she listens out for the detector’s piercing screech. No sound is overlooked. It may be a harmless bottle top, but is just as likely to be a POMZ fragmentation mine – powerful enough to tear her body apart. When a metallic object has been isolated, Sokha puts on her RBR Kevlar jacket, and helmet. A bayonet in one hand, and a pair of gardener’s secateurs in the other, she approaches the suspect device.

  The threat of distraction is a constant worry for Russell Bedford, MAG’s director at Battambang. Like the other ex-British army instructors working in Cambodia, Bedford has seen casualties arise from momentary lapses in concentration.

  ‘There’s always the danger that a de-miner will lose an arm, a leg or, will be killed,’ he says, ‘if he or she stops concentrating. We supervise the teams closely and have regular rest breaks. It’s important to switch round jobs often, if yo
u want to keep concentration levels at a peak.’

  And, when a mine is located, no risks are taken.

  ‘We never remove mines from the ground,’ says Bedford, ‘we always destroy them in situ. What’s the point of putting someone’s life on the line to disarm an explosive device? Worse still is the possibility of a disarmed mine being re-armed and laid again. There’s always the chance that the landmine is booby-trapped. Small mines can be linked to a much larger explosive charge – like an anti-tank mine. Remove an anti-personnel mine and you could trigger the anti-tank mine: so increasing the danger radius, and widening the killing zone.’

  Freeing Cambodia from the scourge of landmines is an unrelenting, pitifully slow, and expensive task. A team of thirty de-miners can take a month, or longer, to clear a single acre of land. The cost to seek and destroy each landmine is put at between $250 and $1000. Ironically, mass production of anti-personnel mines make them one of the cheapest and most effective military tools available.

  Although they often kill children, landmines tend to injure adults rather than kill them, burdening an army on the move. Wounded soldiers need transport and medical attention, and the constant fear of mines lowers overall morale. A 72A type mine is thought to cost less than two dollars to manufacture and lay. But, for Russell Bedford and the other supervisors, the speed and cost of de-mining is irrelevant.

  ‘We’re returning land to the community, so it can be used for housing and be farmed,’ he says, ‘so that it doesn’t lie as a permanent killing ground. So what if it takes a month to clear a square metre? At least that one square metre is positively a hundred per cent clear – it’s far better than clearing ten thousand square metres to ninety per cent safety levels!’

  A shift clearing mines in western Cambodia is one of seven strenuous hours in asphyxiating tropical heat. But, for Sokha, Sophia, and the other widows who work for MAG, the day starts long before they arrive at the minefield. Sokha’s day begins at 4.20 a.m. with the sound of her Chinese-made alarm clock ringing in the darkness. After washing with a bucket of cold water, she puts on the pair of light green army fatigues and matching green jacket. Then, having stoked the fire, she cooks a small meal of rice and fish. Her children, fast asleep under a billowing mosquito net – a great luxury in Cambodia – are reluctant to get up.

  ‘They’re very lazy in the morning,’ Sokha grins, ‘they don’t like getting ready for school. When they’re older, I will tell them about my work in the minefields. At the moment, they are still too young to understand.’

  At six a.m., Sophia arrives at Sokha’s large, thatched house, which is built on stilts. In a country where women are rarely seen riding a motorcycle, Sokha’s brand new Honda is an impressive status symbol.

  Each morning, she and Sophia make the hour-long ride together, out through some of Cambodia’s most magnificent scenery to the minefield. When the de-mining shift is over, and all the equipment is dissembled, the couple rides back to Battambang together. Sokha’s afternoon is filled with chores as well. She shops for groceries at the market; washes her uniform and her children’s clothes; cooks an evening meal; cleans the motorcycle; supervises her eldest daughter’s homework; and studies English, before going to bed, at midnight. Most evenings, Sophia’s two daughters come to play at Sokha’s house. The two women have become inseparable. As widows, it’s unlikely that they will ever get married again. Not because they don’t want to, but because teenage brides are generally preferred.

  ‘If anything ever happened to Sokha in the minefield,’ Sophia says tenderly, ‘I would be devastated. We try not to think of accidents, but of course we know that the danger of triggering a mine is always there. Nothing matters to us more than clearing Cambodia of the mines. It hurts me to forbid my children from playing out in the fields. How can they understand what a PNM-2 blast-mine is capable of doing to them?’

  Sophia is angry at the Khmer Rouge for laying the mines so densely. But she apportions equal blame to the companies that manufacture anti-personnel mines.

  ‘Dozens of countries are getting rich by developing new and more terrible kinds of landmine,’ she says, as she loosens the laces of her hobnailed boot, ‘sitting in their offices in England or China, the arms’ makers haven’t seen what their weapons are doing! They’re maiming our children and killing innocent people.’

  Leng works in the same unit as Sokha and Sophia. When her husband was killed by an anti-personnel mine while searching for firewood, she thought she and her baby daughter would starve to death.

  ‘There’s almost no work for a widow in Battambang,’ she says despondently, ‘times are very hard, and women are generally thought to be too stupid to do a technical job. People used to say that I was just a woman, so I ought to sell bananas in the market.’

  Leng now makes more money than almost anyone else in her community.

  ‘I support my family, and take care of my parents, who are very old,’ she says. ‘They rely on me totally. My salary pays for our rent, for our food, clothes and firewood. My parents worry continually for my safety, but I worry about getting sick myself – that would mean I’d be unable to work. Losing my job would effect us all.’

  Leng’s partner in the minefield, is Sabun. Taking turns in sweeping with the detector, and prodding for booby-traps, they have a lot of time to mull over the life-threatening nature of their work.

  ‘When I get up and leave for work,’ says Sabun gingerly, ‘it’s still very early and my three children are still asleep. I look at them each morning all curled up together and, before I close the door behind me, I realize that I may never come home that evening.’

  Surprising the widowed de-miners of MAG’s female unit is no easy task. Each of them has become an expert on the main types of landmine and unexploded ordinance. They can tell the difference between a Chinese 72A & a 72B type anti-personnel mine (the former is virtually undetectable, while the latter is fitted with a distinctive tilt-switch mechanism). They know the dangers of a Soviet-made PNM-2 model (which tends to lead to an above-the-knee amputation). And, they’re wary of anything unusual in the field: a cigarette packet, a discarded tin can, or a child’s toy may be a booby-trap. They know too that, if they survive, theirs is a profession with considerable longevity.

  Cambodia is a country where one of the most booming industries makes artificial prosthetic limbs. The country claims the prize for having the largest minefield on Earth. Stretching for six hundred kilometres along the south-western coast and up the Thai border toward Laos, the Kor Bram, or K5 Barrier Belt, is said to contain no fewer than three million anti-personnel mines. With the technology for detecting mines about twenty-five years behind the technology which is creating them, Cambodia’s new killing fields are set to kill and maim many, many more innocent civilians.

  Although the NATO, the UN, and even NASA, are said to be developing anti-landmine equipment, the results so far have been unimpressive. Mine clearance devices may look fine on paper, but they rarely take into account the varying types of minefield encountered. There is no quick, cheap way of destroying mines. It’s not as easy as setting fire to a mined area. A partially burned, or ‘deflagrated’ mine, is extremely dangerous, as is any ordinance that’s been left exposed to the elements for years on end.

  Amazingly, it seems that only now we are discovering what a long term problem landmines can be. Areas of the Libyan Desert in North Africa are still heavily mined from World War II. In Flanders, there are tracts of land still sealed off because of unexploded ordinance, a legacy of the First World War. And, in Laos, BLU 3/B fragmentation mines, scattered from aircraft by American forces over forty years ago, are still very much alive.

  As MAG, Greenpeace, and the United Nations, call for a moratorium on the production of landmines, two million new antipersonnel mines continue to be deployed each year, with many more millions being produced and stockpiled.

  ‘The situation we have right now is absurd,’ says Paul Davies, author of War of the Mines. ‘Landmines don’t
recognize cease-fires: so when the heavy weapons of war have been carted off, they remain in the ground, praying on innocent civilians for decades to come. And, with each new generation of landmine far superior to the last, the future for Cambodia and other countries like it, is set to be a turbulent one.’

  Far from the wrangling of diplomats at the UN and from the high-level talk of moratoria, the female de-mining unit near Battambang continues with its work. As a detonation charge is attached to Sokha’s most recent find – the 72B anti-personnel mine, the women rest in the shade of a sprawling apple tree.

  ‘This was once a beautiful orchard,’ declares Sokha, ‘but for twenty years the apples have rotted. No one has dared to pick them. Now that the area is almost cleared, a new village will be built here. There will be houses, a new temple, a school and a market. But best of all,’ says Sokha softly, casting an eye across the minefield, ‘children will play in this orchard safely once again.’

  TWENTY-ONE

  In Search of King Solomon’s Mines

  AN INKY HAND-DRAWN MAP was hanging on the back wall of Ali Baba’s tourist shop, deep in the maze of Jerusalem’s Old City.

  Little more than a sketch, and smudged by a clumsy hand, the map showed a river and mountains, a desert, a cave, and what looked like a trail between them. At the end of the trail was an oversized ‘X’.

  ‘Is it a treasure map?’ I asked.

  Ali Baba, an old man with a pot-belly, glanced up from his newspaper.

  ‘It shows the way to the fabled gold mines of Suleiman,’ he said.

  After an hour of negotiation, I slid a wad of Israeli shekels across the counter and left with the map. Anyone else may have scoffed at the object, or laughed at my gullibility. After all, Jerusalem’s Old City is cluttered with Holy Land bric-à-brac. I had a feeling from the start that Ali Baba’s map was suspect, for it had no place names or co-ordinates.