Amputees are a routine sight on the road to Samlot–and all over Cambodia. Private relief groups estimate that since 1979, when Hanoi’s invading Army toppled the genocidal Pol Pot from power, land mines have left some 30,000 Cambodians missing one or more arms or legs. Some victims beg alms in the streets and temples, but thousands of farmers and laborers have endured the pain and kept working despite the loss of a limb. The homesteaders of Samlot know the local forests and hills are littered with land mines and booby traps, some planted no more than a year or so ago, others dating back decades, all as deadly as ever. Cambodia’s guerrilla war began here with an April 1967 peasant revolt. Skull-and-crossbones signs are posted everywhere, warning: DANGER MINES.
The homesteaders try not to think of the risk. The red-and-white minefield signs surround a patch of forest claimed by Chom Phat, 41, a former Khmer Rouge soldier with a Buddhist good-luck tattoo on his chest. One of the earliest arrivals in Samlot, he’s frantically trying to hack out a tiny farm before the May rains begin. A neighbor of his, a refugee named Leang Tim, 35, struck a mine in late January while clearing brush and trees with an ax. “I knew there were mines around,” Tim said from a hospital bed in the city of Battambang, some 85 kilometers from Samlot. “But this is the only plot of land I have.” The explosion tore off his right thumb, mangled the rest of his hand, fractured his skull and peppered his chest with shrapnel. The day of Tim’s accident, Phat discovered a booby-trapped 120mm mortar round hidden in a clump of bamboo, just behind the hut he’s building for his wife and three children. “If I don’t take the risk, I’ll remain landless,” Phat says with a shrug. His 7-year-old daughter is playing nearby.
Such scenes drive humanitarian officials wild with frustration. “Personally, I think it’s irresponsible to let refugees return without major new funding for mine clearance,” says Law. Instead of expanding their operations, however, his NGO and other de-mining specialists are forced to plead with contributors not to chop their budgets. Some donors believe it’s more economical to buy artificial limbs for mine victims than to support the slow, expensive and dangerous process of making minefields safe enough to serve as kitchen gardens and playgrounds. The Phnom Penh government’s Cambodian Mine Action Center has transferred 250 of its 3,000 mine-clearing experts to Samlot to begin emergency de-mining duty along roads, riverbanks and paths to public wells. But CMAC is feeling the pinch, too. Its chairman, Ieng Mouly, worries that his agency may not meet its $13 million budget for 1999. He says he’s getting signals that Washington may be planning to reduce its $2 million yearly aid payment.
Meanwhile Cambodian settlers are flooding into former battle zones all along the northern border. “I don’t blame the refugees for not waiting months or years for us to clear the land of mines,” says Mam Neang, head of CMAC’s 650-member demining unit at Battambang. “They’re desperately in need of land. We can’t stop them.” CMAC and its independent foreign helpers, notably Law’s Mines Advisory Group and the Halo Trust, another London-based NGO, have swept mines from countless highways, forest trails, villages, rice fields and bridges since 1992. But demolition experts say as many as 5 million deadly mines remain in the ground. Removing the threat from Cambodia’s most fertile soil at the present speed would take until 2020–if funding isn’t reduced. And that projection doesn’t include the job of de-mining less productive land.
Some NGOs aiding the survivors of land mines are also worried about money. In Battambang a new 60-bed war victims’ hospital opened last year, built and run by Emergency, an Italy-based medical NGO. “I’m not sure we could do this same project now,” says Susanne Eloffson, a surgeon at the hospital. “I think international attention is wandering away from Cambodia, mines and mine victims at a time when funds are still needed here.” Since January the hospital has been busy with emergency cases arriving from Samlot. In a bed near Leang Tim’s, a woman homesteader named Meng Phoeun was recovering from a mine blast. The detonation ripped open her stomach, killed her 5-year-old son and drove a piece of shrapnel into the skull of her 7-year-old son. He survived.
Until now the International Committee of the Red Cross and other NGOs could only guess the full extent of Cambodia’s medical needs. In areas that only a few weeks ago were off limits to outsiders, relief officials are discovering hundreds of mine survivors who were kept by poverty and the Khmer Rouge from traveling to seek medical attention. On any given day the ICRC’s prosthetics and rehabilitation center in Battambang has about 100 patients being fitted with artificial limbs or taught how to use them. A child named Say Salout stepped on a mine four years ago while he was tending his family’s cows in the northern district of Samrong. Now 16, he’s thrilled at learning to walk again with a new leg. The same goes for Non Huey, 19, a neighbor who lost his leg in a similar accident that year. “You can’t farm on crutches,” Huey says. “With this leg I’ll bet I can even plow again.”
He survives on hope and guts–like many Cambodians. Nuong An, 45, and his friend Chang An, 42, both former guerrillas, moved to Samlot in early February. The hike from the Thai border took them two hard days, each of them hobbling along on one leg and pushing a bicycle heaped with food, cooking gear and farm tools. On the road in, age set them apart more than their infirmity: many of their childhood playmates have long been dead as a result of the war. Both companions lost their legs to land mines 15 years ago. “We can’t wait for the de-miners,” said Chang. “I have to build a house and clear land.” Nuong agreed. “I’m terrified I’ll lose my one good leg to the mines,” he said. “But what can I do?” They survived the war. Now they can only hope to survive the peace.
