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| An old tank rusts among mango trees near Siem Reap |
It's
sad but true, that a 500 lb bomb is not an uncommon sight in
Southeast Asia. During my travels here, I've seen them used as door
stops, and as decorations. They've even been disarmed, hollowed out,
and reformed to use as bells for Buddhist temples. The heavy bomb
before me standing on it’s end, has a long pole sticking straight
up out the nose where the detonator used to be. Atop the pole, is a Cambodian flag. This old American bomb, has become a
flagpole base.
“Your
country have war?” one of the staff asks me as I look.
“Yeah,”
I answer. “We have war.”
Although
my country now fights a war in Afghanistan, (where I worked as an aid worker) it occurs to me that our war is not fought at home, like happened here. The Afghanistan war
is fought in a faraway land, while most at home in America go
about their normal lives. But
here in Cambodia, war engulfed the entire nation. Every family
suffered terrible losses, and Cambodia would never be the same. The
tools used to destroy Cambodia and its people surround me here, in the Military
Museum near Siem Reap.
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| Old Chinese and Soviet armor, stripped of parts |
Unlike
the usual stuffy indoor museums, this is outdoors. Here in
between the grass and leafy green trees, are brownish, rusting steel hulks of old
military armored vehicles. These are from the cold war era, built in
China or the former Soviet Union. There are numerous tanks and
armored personnel carriers. Many are stripped of their parts. Without
its wheels, one armored carrier looks more like an odd metal boat, rather than a
threatening land vehicle.
Some
of these heavy beasts had long histories. One Soviet made T-54 tank here was built in 1954. It was later given to North Vietnam; used during
the war against the US and South Vietnamese armies. After that war,
it was used by the Vietnamese Army when they invaded Cambodia. Next,
it was given to the new Cambodian Army. Finally, it was damaged
beyond repair by a Khmer Rouge landmine in 1994. Soviet built
vehicles had a reputation for mechanical breakdowns, and somehow,
this one remained in use for 40 years. That may be some kind of
record for a Soviet built tank.
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| Some tanks here were used by several different armies |
I
climb onto another old armored carrier parked under a tree. It’s
been thoroughly stripped, with the turret and all the hatches
removed. I stick my head within for a look, and find many mango laden
tree branches reaching inside. The fruit hang down through open steel hatches. So this place isn’t just a military museum, it’s also a
mango orchard.
As
far as high tech weapons go, there's little here. There's only an old
MiG jet, and a Russian built Mi-8 helicopter outside in the parking
lot. But the fact is, most of the fighting in Cambodia took
place on the ground, not in the air. It was just too expensive to use
jets and helicopters in this dirt poor country.
Unlike war museums that I've seen in Laos and Vietnam, this museum
has no propaganda. It's simply lots of weapons, with simple, hand
written captions. A notable example, is the caption for the only
unarmored vehicle on display: a wooden wagon. The caption reads:
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| Old disarmed weapons from Cambodia's wars |
“COW
CART
Cow
Cart used to transporte the
Ammunition
Weapons by Khmer Rouge
Since
1970 ~ 1998”
Well,
if your tanks or trucks ran out of gasoline, I suppose it’s better to have a
cow cart than nothing.
Entering
a shack, I'm surprised to find a wide range of assault rifles lying on a shelf in
front of me. Gun fanatics would absolutely wet themselves here. There
must be nearly 50 machine guns on hand. There are weapons made in Russia, China, USA, UK, and more. There's even an Israeli
made Uzi. Some look relatively new, some look ancient, including
World War II era guns. There is a Browning Automatic Rifle, and a
Thompson submachine gun. Surprisingly, these aren’t in display
cases, and there are no locks either. I pick up the Thompson, and
feel it in my hands. This is the infamous 'Tommy' gun, preferred by
American gangsters way back during prohibition. For a small machine gun, it’s surprisingly heavy.
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| Old Rocket Propelled Grenade Launchers (RPGs) |
I
pick up a Kalashnikov, with its signature curved ammunition clip. I
remove the clip, and pop it back in. Unlike the others, this one
isn’t so rusty, and the bolt still works. I pull back the bolt and
release it. It's now cocked. I pull the trigger.
Click.
Dry
fire. I’m surprised at how light the AK-47 is. The M-16 they have
here is very light too. These
deadly weapons are so much lighter and easier to handle than the
older weapons. It's no wonder they were used by so many child soldiers in Southeast Asia before, and in Africa and the Middle East today.
I have another sobering thought. With so much violence in Cambodia over the decades, there’s a
good chance that many of these weapons here in front of me have killed people,
including innocent civilians.
Finally,
they have rocket propelled grenade launchers, M-79 grenade launchers,
and a heavier .30 caliber machine gun on a tripod. I’ve
never seen such a wide variety of weapons, in such a small place. I
notice there aren’t any pistols on display though; they would be
too easy to steal. It would be more difficult to walk out the
exit, with a Kalashnikov under your shirt. I
notice two old red flags here too, from the hated Khmer Rouge. I
wonder if they were captured in battle, or if they were turned in
after the 1998 peace agreement.
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| Chinese terror weapon: 177 mm rockets |
Walking
outside, four long metal cylinders are sitting on small stands. They
look like tank shells, but are even longer. These are Chinese made
107mm rockets. These can be launched without the use of any tube. As
such, they're very inaccurate. Since these rarely hit any military
target, they are principally a terror weapon. The Khmer Rouge used
these to target civilian neighborhoods of Phnom Penh in 1975. They
are still in use today. When I was in Afghanistan, the Taliban used
them frequently, firing them at Kabul a few times a week. Just like
here, they rarely hit anything military. It was the civilians who
suffered casualties.
A
couple of well manicured, grassy areas are more chilling. They are
strewn with various types of anti-personnel mines, and unexploded
mortar rounds. All these have been disarmed. This isn’t
a realistic display of landmines though. Landmines are usually
invisible to the naked eye, buried just beneath the surface. It’s
only after stepping on them that their exact location is known, when
an explosion is triggered. By then someone has lost a limb, or a
life.
Nearby are disarmed landmines. Stack after stack,
all brown with rust, these have been unburied from Cambodia's
footpaths, roads and rice paddies.
I
find one positive thought, among all these weapons of destruction.
None of these deadly weapons that I see here, will ever hurt anyone
again.
Never,
ever again.
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| Mangoes grow inside this defanged, disabled war weapon |
