Landmines and Unexploded Ordnance in Cambodia:

Today Cambodia is severely contaminated by both landmines and abandoned unexploded ordnance (UXO).  The story of how these devices came to be here goes back as far as the late 1960’s.

Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) History:

In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, the US Air Force secretly dropped hundreds of thousands of tons of general purpose bombs, carpet bombs, napalm bombs and dart-cluster bomblets on neutral Cambodia.  The action had been authorised by the then President Richard Nixon and his National Security Advisor Henry A. Kissinger.  Initially the campaign’s aim was to expose the Ho Chi Minh Trail used by Communist North Vietnamese troops.  Therefore, the areas in the east of the country bordering Vietnam were worst affected.  Later a massive countrywide bombing campaign was launched to support the pro-American Lon Nol government fight the communist Khmer Rouge.  As a result 600,000 Cambodians died out of a population of 7 million and another 2 million people became refugees.  Today unexploded ordnance still remains a risk.  Kicking or picking up unknown pieces of metal can have disastrous consequences.

For more than thirty years, it was generally accepted that 539,129 tons of bombs were dropped during Nixon’s four year campaign.  The number of air raids between April 1969 and March 1973 was put at 3,530 [1].  These figures, however, have come under scrutiny recently.  To explain, we must first go back to 1994.

Since 1994, the humanitarian demining offices in the Defense Security Cooperation Agency have been compiling a detailed database containing extensive Air Force data on all American bombings of Indochina between 1964 and 1975.  These combat missions were conducted in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam.  Included in the database is information about specific mission numbers, aircraft types and numbers, target locations, latitude and longitude coordinates, ordnance types, numbers of ordnance dropped, and additional information on downed aircraft.

The aim of the project is to help to speed up the clearance of unexploded ordnance that still litters the three affected Asian countries.  By making this information available to governments and demining organisations, it is hoped that the locations of this deadly debris can be accurately pin pointed [2].

Initially the data was shared with Laos.  As expected, it proved to be tremendously helpful.  Then in November 2000, during his historic visit to Vietnam, the then US President Bill Clinton shared the information with the Vietnamese government.  And again, it has been an invaluable tool.

It wasn’t until 2006 that external analysts began to study the data presented to the Vietnamese government more closely.  Buried amongst all the Vietnam War information are all the dates and figures from Nixon’s secret Cambodian missions.  The true scale of the US Air Forces bombing campaign had been vastly underestimated. 

The database shows that the bombing began in 1965, under Lyndon Johnson, and not in 1969 as had been believed.  It also reveals that from October 1965 to August 1973, the United States dropped a staggering 2,756,941 tons of ordnance on Cambodia in 230,516 raids [3].  This figure exceeds the 2 million tons of bombs dropped in the whole of World War II, including the two nuclear bombs.

Not bad going for a country that was never even at war.

Landmines History:

Mine contamination in Cambodia occurred after Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1978 to help oust Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime.  The invasion drove the Khmer Rouge forces to the Thai-Cambodian border.  Initially the Vietnamese and the Cambodian government laid mines as protection against possible Khmer Rouge guerrilla infiltration.  The Khmer Rouge in turn laid them to protect their receding boundary lines.  Neither side recorded the locations of the minefields.  The result of all this is that in the 12 year period between 1979 and 1991 an astonishing ten million antitank and antipersonnel landmines were laid, creating the infamous K5 belt.  This is a densely-mined barrier, from 10 to 150 meters wide, which stretches 700 kilometers along the Thai border [4].

Present Day Cambodia:

The 2007 Landmine Monitor Report (released in November 2007) stated that as of January 2007, the Cambodian Red Cross CMVIS database contained records on 62,653 mine/UXO casualties since 1979.  Of those records 36,537 are civilians.  The death toll is 19,337 and the number of injured victims totals 43,316.  Of the injured 8,589 required amputations. [5]

Ten years ago around 4,500 people were maimed or killed in land mine and UXO explosions every year.  Since 2000 this figure has dropped dramatically and has remained at the relatively constant value of 800 per year.  Farmers, wood collectors and school children are the most common victims.  Of the survivors, 25% require amputations.

It is impossible to accurately state how many landmines and pieces of unexploded ordnance still remain on Cambodian soil.  Today, estimates vary from anywhere between 1 million and 6 million.  Although month by month and year by year the statistics are improving, mine clearance is a painfully slow process.  Painfully slow!

References:

[1]        Lying for Empire - How to Commit War Crimes With A Straight Face by David Model    
[2]        Southeast Asia Air Combat Data by Tom Smith 
[3]        Bombs Over Cambodia: New Light on US Air War by Taylor Owen and Ben Kiernan (Japan Focus; May 12, 2007)
[4]        The Rough Guide to Cambodia by Beverley Palmer and Steven Martin
[5]        Landmine Monitor Report 2007

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