Cambodia Landmine Museum

Yesterday I got back to Chiang Mai from a week long trip to Siem Reap, Cambodia, to visit the temples of Angkor. Pretty incredible – but more on that later. What really made an impression on me was learning more about Cambodia’s civil war, and learning at a personal level more about what the Cambodian people have endured.

The most educational place I visited was the Cambodia Landmine Museum, near Siem Reap. (It was featured in a National Geographic article from this past January, which you might like to read if you haven’t already.) Cambodia is one of the most heavily mined countries in the world, and is also littered with UXO (unexploded ordnance), much of it from the U.S.’s Operation Menu and other bombing campaigns from 1964 to 1973. Cambodia has made a lot of progress, but it is estimated that 3 – 5 million landmines and UXO still remain, and clearing will take 10 – 20 years at the present rate of progress.

Bombs line both sides of the museum's entrance

The number of casualties per year has declined, but around 200 people were killed or injured in 2011. Eight people were killed in one accident just recently, in February of this year.

Anti-personnel mines are designed to maim, and as a result some 40,000 amputees live in Cambodia.

Sign says: MD 82 B, Anti-Personnel Blast Mine, Operating Pressure 5kg, from Vietnam

An interesting display at the museum is a pagoda in the center of a pool, which contains mines and ordnance that were found and defused by the museum’s founder, Aki Ra. (I won’t go into detail about Aki Ra and the work he has done to clear landmines and UXO from Cambodia; there’s more about that in the Nat Geo article, and here.)

My visit to the museum left me feeling very sad, and also ashamed of the U.S.’s part in the horrors that have been visited upon this country. The Cambodians that I met were kind and gentle and smiling, despite the suffering they have endured, and despite the fact that Cambodia is one of the poorest countries in the world. I greatly admire these people.