BEHEADED STATUES OF DISGRACED ARMY

One of the few paved highways in Cambodia

I'm on a rare road today, a Cambodian highway, paved, smooth, and brand new. This used to be nothing more than a bumpy dirt road laced with landmines. Somewhere near here my friend Mali stepped on a landmine and lost her leg. We're about 70 miles north of Angkor Wat, in what was dangerous Khmer Rouge turf, one of their last holdout zones.

The roadside here used to be dotted with intimidating war refuse: abandoned Khmer Rouge tanks. Late in the war, when the communists had an old unfixable Chinese tank, they just pushed it to the side of this road, and pointed the turret south towards the enemy. That gave them an instant armored bunker, useful for keeping the Cambodian Army away. Those menacing metal hulks were left there for years.

Thankfully those metal monstrosities are gone, and after the peace agreement, foreign funding built this modern two lane highway. If the Khmer Rouge ever rebels in this area again, it will be much easier, and quicker, for the government to rush federal troops here on this new blacktop road. Even better, this national highway has a more beneficial use: commerce. With this road going all the way to the Thai border crossing, there is increased trade, and an improving peacetime economy.

Cruising north, I see a long ridge stretching across the horizon. These are the Dangkrek Mountains, a long mountain chain stretching from northwest Cambodia, all the way east to the ancient temple of Preah Vihear, and beyond. Beyond that mountain ridge, is Thailand.

Monument to radical Khmer Rouge, surrounded by spirit houses

The flat road starts to curve, and we start climbing the first set of hills. Coming up the Sa Ngam Pass, the road splits, as it rounds a large boulder. Carved into the boulder itself, is the last monument left to the murderous Khmer Rouge regime. Or what’s left of it anyway. There are two small soldier like statues, and both have been decapitated. One has lost a hand, an arm, and both legs. A taller statue of a Khmer woman has lost both arms. She still balances a stone food bundle on top of her now faceless head.

“Thai (people) do this. Take to Thailand and sell,” explains my driver Shanghai. Maybe that's true, but it’s also possible that poor Khmers chopped off the heads and sold them, as happened at Angkor Wat. Or maybe Khmers did it out of revenge, for all the murders that the communists committed.

Examining the smallest, legless torso wearing military gear, it appears that this was a statue of a child soldier. The extremist Khmer Rouge had no ethical problem with turning innocent children into murderous soldiers. They thought their young minds were more ‘pure’, and more accepting of radical communism. They believed that most adults, had been ‘poisoned’ by exposure to the old regime.

Two beheaded statues of fighters

In contrast to the dark stone of the ruined statues, the monument is surrounded Buddhist spirit houses on pedestals, made of many colors. There are so many, they nearly block the statues from view. Thousands of Khmer Rouge soldiers died fighting the Vietnamese and Cambodian armies. Given there murderous history, there never has been, nor will there ever be, an official memorial to their dead soldiers. The remains of these old communist carvings have become a memorial to them, by default. With no graves or headstones to pray over, these spirit houses and incense were left here by their mourning Buddhist families.

Continuing on we drive through the border town of Choam, and turn off the highway. Up ahead, the road is closed. Cheap red and white fencing blocks the road. It's spooky; there's nobody in sight.

“That the new border crossing, but no use,” Shanghai tells me. The crossing is closed today, due to ongoing border disputes. “The Thai build on Cambodia land. Now big problem with Cambodia and Thailand.” My driver goes on to explain how Thailand is taking a little more Cambodian land each day. In Pol Pot’s time, the border was further away. Apparently the Thais respected the Khmer Rouge more than they respect the current Cambodian government.

Moving down side roads, we pass small shops and shacks. Then we take a garbage strewn road east out of town. The garbage thins out, tuning into a bumpy rural road. We're not traveling far, but Shanghai has to drive slowly to make his way over this rutted, potholed road. Going up the small hills, his old car strains for traction on the reddish dirt.

The border crossing to Thailand is closed

Shanghai explains, “Since last year, road more bad.” Rural roads here are rarely maintained. As the kilometers go on, we pass shacks and Khmer farm houses. A few settlers are clearing land for planting. We come to a picturesque field, a wide open space, bordered by lush jungle. It’s a prime location for a homestead or farmer’s field, but its unplanted.

There’s a small red sign right in the middle of the field, with a skull and crossbones. This is no 'Pirates of the Caribbean' joke. What that sign means, is that this whole lovely looking field of several acres, is one big minefield. Until somebody comes up with a couple thousand dollars to clear it safely, this prime field will remain uninhabited.

Since this was one of the last Khmer Rouge strongholds, this whole mountain ridge was heavily mined. That makes this part of Cambodia a very dangerous place to settle. Along the bumpy road, I see numerous signs posted by demining organizations. One sign reads, “Humanitarian Mine Clearance, Minefield cleared by CMAC, Police Batallion Headquarters”.

Passing shacks, I note a few soldiers lounging about. Many of these men are also ex-Khmer Rouge, now wearing Cambodian Army uniforms. As part of the peace agreement that ended the war, some men kept their territory, changed uniforms, and became part of the Cambodian Army. Many of these shacks belong to them and their families. It is a difficult place to homestead though. With many thousands of mines still buried in this area, there is little agricultural land available to turn these ex-soldiers into farmers. 

EX-CHILD SOLDIER SAVES CHILDREN

“The landmine is eternally prepared to take victims. It is the perfect soldier.” 

- Jody Williams, Nobel Peace Prize Winner, International Campaign to Ban Landmines

A massive number of landmines and explosive munitions are in this gazebo. All are disarmed.

I'm looking at a lovely gazebo. With a red tiled roof, it situated in the middle of a placid pond. The shallows surrounding it are filled with green water plants, which sprout bright purple flowers.

But despite its outward appearances, this is the deadliest gazebo on earth. The interior is absolutely filled with landmines. There are landmines of so many kinds. There are anti-personnel mines, and anti-tank mines. There are plastic mines, and metal mines. Most are made for below ground, others for above ground. There are primitive mines that look like drums, cooking pots, and tin cans. Some cost as little as $1 to manufacture.

Then there are the military munitions alongside them. There are mortar rounds of many sizes and styles. There are rockets, grenades, shell casings, and a Kalashnikov rifle. Hanging beneath two of the mortar rounds, is one of the only items inside the gazebo not made of metal. It is a small, simple, wooden cross.

Thankfully, all of these bombs and munitions have already been defused. This gazebo is located in the Cambodian Landmine Museum & Relief Center.

The story behind this center's founder, is almost unbelievable. Some stories you hear about in Cambodia you couldn’t make up. They are beyond fiction. They seem beyond the human capacity to endure. One of those stories involves a child. We know him today as Aki Ra.

When he was young, Aki Ra's mother and father were killed by the radical Khmer Rouge. With the chaos of those years, he’s unsure exactly when he was born. An older acquaintance thinks it was in 1973. Aki Ra was sent to a Khmer Rouge camp for children. By age ten, they had made him a child soldier.

Former child soldier, Aki Ra (Wikipedia photo)

Aki Ra received communist indoctrination, and was given his own rifle. As a child soldier, he was cannon fodder. Like other cowardly armies of the world, the Khmer Rouge sent their child soldiers out in front to fight their battles, ahead of adult soldiers. That way, the children would be the first ones shot, or the first to step on landmines. Aki Ra learned to kill. He saw many of his friends die during the war, and many civilians too.  Knowing conflict all his young life, he grew up thinking that war was normal.

The Khmer Rouge soon taught Aki Ra to lay mines and booby traps. They discovered he had a talent for it, even as a small child. He came to like mines. They protected him from enemies. Wild animals would step on them and die, providing him with food.

As a child soldier, he first fought with the Khmer Rouge fighting the Vietnamese Army. In 1987, he switched sides, joining the Vietnamese against the Khmer Rouge. When the Vietnamese left, he joined the Cambodian Army, continuing to fight the Khmer Rouge. All this time, he continued to lay landmines. He personally laid thousands of mines with his own two hands. He doesn’t know how many. It will never be known how many soldiers and civilians died, or lost limbs from all the mines he laid during his many years as a child soldier.

Aki Ra is short, by western standards, his growth was stunted as a child from malnutrition during his growing years under the Khmer Rouge. But he’s muscular for his size. Not surprisingly, he has a serious face.

Khmer Rouge boy soldiers. Many died. (Arch photo)

Aki Ra doesn't know his original birth name. Like most children during the Pol Pot years, he was forced to change his name.  After he became a child soldier, his name was changed multiple times. His first Khmer Rouge name was ‘Yeak’; chosen for him by a communist cadre. It translates as ‘dirty giant’. But other Khmer Rouge soldiers called him ‘Lo’, meaning ‘cry a lot’. When his reputation as a fighter grew, his name became ‘Clay’, which is a strong, legendary animal. After he joined the Vietnamese, he was called ‘Teov’, meaning 'cute', due to his small size. He finally met a Japanese film crew, who nicknamed him ‘Aki Ra’. He liked that name, and kept it ever since.

In 1993, Aki Ra went to work for the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) as a deminer. He already knew a great deal about landmines, and now he had a real peacetime job defusing them. He also learned to disarm unexploded munitions. When UNTAC ceased their work, he continued demining in communities where he had previously fought as a soldier.

I once ran into a grey bearded English deminer named Robert from Siem Reap. An explosives expert, he knew all about Aki-Ra.

"He's an absolute nutter!” Robert told me. He disapproved of Aki Ra's unorthodox, reckless style of demining. He refuses to wear the hot, bulky body armor and helmet that other deminers use for safety. Aki Ra is more content working in loose clothing, like he did when he was a child soldier. Often, the only tools he uses for demining are a sheath knife, and steel probing rod. Using only these two simple tools, he could locate and disarm many types of mines.

Landmines in his museum. Millions are still buried in Cambodia.

Eventually, Aki Ra married. In 1997 he bought a small amount of land near Siem Reap, and built shacks to store some of the mines and explosive shells that he had disarmed. Soon after he began allowing visitors to see his collection, and his compound became known as the Cambodia Landmine Museum.

As years passed, Siem Reap officials pressured him to relocate his museum. They may have been embarrassed to have a landmine museum nearby. So Aki Ra moved his museum far from town, in the protected rural region that includes the Angkor temples, where I am today. Before building began, Aki Ra had to use his expertise here as well. Unexploded artillery rounds and grenades were found here on this site, and he removed them.

Seeking to help others, Aki Ra opened his new home to a few children who had lost limbs to landmines. Others from very poor families soon joined them, and he found himself running his own home for children. Today, his home cares for more than 20 kids. Meanwhile, he continues to work as a deminer for his own organization known as Cambodian Self Help Demining.

Aki Ra's reputation has grown, and numerous stories and documentaries have been done about him. Incredibly, he estimates that he has cleared more than 50,000 mines and unexploded bombs over the years. With more than 5,000,000 landmines left to clear in Cambodia, Aki Ra has plenty of work ahead of him. It will take decades for him and all the other deminers in the country to clear them all.

Visitors examine uniforms from demobilized soldiers.

Exploring the museum, I enter a room with a pile of military uniforms scattered on a table. The caption reads, “ALL THESE CLOTHS, HATS, SHOES, BAGS WERE USED FROME 1970 – 2000 BY KHMER ARMY, LON NOL, POL POT AND VIETNAM (ARMIES).

Young Khmer visitors are picking up the shirts, and trying on the helmets. They youth are lucky. Unlike their fathers, they are not being forced to become soldiers. They will not have to go to war, to kill, or die a senseless death.

Along another wall, I find the happiest part of the museum. Here are the photos of happy, smiling Khmer kids that live in Aki Ra’s home for children. The landmine victims now all have prosthetics, they eat balanced meals, and receive an education.

After I depart, I ponder on what Aki Ra has accomplished here. American society tends to write off child murderers. Some end up spending most of their lives in prison.

Aki Ra is proof that children raised in a violent environment, somehow can grow up to lead productive lives as an adult. He is proof positive that people can change.