Land mine museum

We visited a land mine museum recently. This was started by a guy who is know as Aki Ra, a nick name he was given by some Japanese reporters.

Nicole at the entrance to the museum

Aki Ra was a child soldier who fought for the Khmer Rouge, then defected to the Vietnamese supported army. Here are some memories of his early life:

Aki Ra is known all over Cambodia. As a child soldier, his speciality was laying mines. (Incidentally, the child soldiers were the first to go through mine fields exploding any mines before the older/better fighters went through). At the end of the war he started clearing the mine fields. If a mine was found (often the hard way), Aki Ra was called by the villagers to de mine the area. In the old days he used to work in flip flops with a pointy stick and could clear hundreds of mines a day. Now, since receiving training in England, and in order to be a certified de miner which attracts NGO funding, he has to use all safety precautions and can only clear a fraction of the mines he could before.

These are some of the mines and munitions Aki Ra has made safe.

Aki Ra started this museum to support his de mining activities. He goes around Cambodia clearing mines and training others to do the same. There is also housing for children who have been effected by land mines behind the museum. They receive an education and a chance to go to trade school or university if they are interested.

We watched a documentary while we were there. In this documentary, a brave journalist had followed Aki Ra into the jungle to clear a mine field after a villager had been injured. There was jungle all around. They got to the spot where a land mine had gone off and you could see the shrapnel damage to the trees in the area. At this point the journalist realised they were in a mine field and you could see the camera shaking as he was so scared. Land mines are not easy to spot even when one is not in a jungle. This is an example minefield set up at the museum:

How many can you see? There is at least 10-15 there.

It is estimated there are still about seven million land mines in Cambodia. Most are located near the Thai border where the Khmer Rouge retreated to after the Vietnamese invaded in the eighties.