PODCAST: Leftover Land Mines

Solveig Rennan
Welcome to Under-Told: Verbatim. I’m Solveig Rennan for the Under-Told Stories Project. We report from all over the world for PBS NewsHour on the consequences of poverty and the work of change agents addressing them. We’ve done extended interviews with hundreds of experts and people making a difference in their communities. In this podcast, we’re revisiting those under told stories, so you can hear change makers around the world in their own words, this is Under-Told: Verbatim. When a war ends, the guns are set down and the soldiers go home. But the violence doesn’t always end there. Land mines and unexploded bombs are constant and hidden threat in Cambodia. These deadly remnants of the Cambodian Civil War were planted in the late 1960s and early 70s by both the genocidal Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian Vietnamese forces. They also include thousands of unexploded bombs dropped by the United States as part of the Vietnam War. Most of the minefields are in rural areas, where close to 80% of Cambodians live and depend on the land for farming or other natural resources.

Rebecca Letven
If an area is contaminated by landmines, sometimes they just don’t have a choice other than to enter that minefield in order to make a living.

Solveig Rennan
Rebecca Letven is the Cambodia country director for the UK based Mines Advisory Group or MAG, a non governmental organization that works to clear explosives and return land to communities. On a rainy day in Battambang, we sat down with Rebecca at the mag headquarters to learn how yesterday’s minefields are today’s problem.

Fred de Sam Lazaro
As a technical matter,

Solveig Rennan
That’s Fred, the reporter

Fred de Sam Lazaro
with the farther away you get from the conflict, the tougher it is to uncover literally, these land mines and unexploded ordnance.

Rebecca Letven
Well, it’s more difficult to get information on their location.

Solveig Rennan
And that’s Rebecca.

Rebecca Letven
Definitely, that’s just because of the time elapsed because the people who laid those mines perhaps aren’t living in the area anymore. Or perhaps they’ve passed away even in the case of Cambodia where the conflict was decades ago. So yeah, in terms of collecting information, and awareness of the exact locations of contamination, yeah, you could say the is easier to clear these items in the immediate aftermath of a conflict rather than waiting for a certain period of time before undertaking those activities. But at the same time, I mean, MAG was here during the conference in Cambodia, MAG was here in 1992. And we’ve been clearing landmines in Cambodia continuously since that date, so for around 27 years, so We were actually here in the immediate aftermath of the conflict. But that process has taken time, given that Cambodia was so heavily mined

Fred de Sam Lazaro
and still is, right?

Rebecca Letven
And still is. Yeah.

Fred de Sam Lazaro
Talk a little bit about the challenges, especially peculiar in Cambodia, in in, in doing your work.

Rebecca Letven
So I think the main challenge for us as an operator, I mean, Cambodia is a stable environments, it’s a developing country and certainly over the past decade or the past two decades, it’s made huge strides in terms of socio economic development. So in that sense, it’s not a difficult operating environment to work. We work with a National Authority, which is very permissive, very open to new ideas very supportive of both national and international mine action operators within the country. I think the main challenge for us at the moment is that there’s still a very high level of mine contamination, it’s the extent of the problem, the scope of the problem, and obtaining resources to be able to respond to that problem. Because as I say, a lot of resources have been allocated elsewhere. Because perhaps this part of the world has been a little bit forgotten by the international community. So yeah, for us, the main challenge is trying to obtain resources. We have very generous support from our donors from certain governments. And there are certain countries that have invested a lot into mine clearanc in Cambodia, and that’s really greatly appreciated. But for us, the important thing now and the important thing for the sector as a whole is to try to raise the necessary finance and the necessary resources to get Cambodia over the line and to clear that remaining landmine contamination.

Fred de Sam Lazaro
Is it primarily then a resource question?

Rebecca Letven
at this stage? Yes. So in Cambodia, Because the sector is so well established, because the conflict finished quite a long time ago, we’ve got a very good idea of the level of contamination. Nationwide surveys have been conducted. We know where the contamination is, we know the scope of the contamination, the extent of landmines within the country. So for us now, and for the sector as a whole, it’s a question of obtaining the necessary resources to allow us to set clear what’s remaining, and to clear that remaining, what’s estimated at around 880 kilometers squared,

Solveig Rennan
that’s around 340 miles squared

Rebecca Letven
but still contaminated with long lines. The figure that includes other explosive remnants of war is much higher.

Fred de Sam Lazaro
And you do both right? Land mines and UXO?

Rebecca Letven
So yes, MAG is operational in the west of the country in the west of Cambodia where we conduct landmine clearance And we also have an operational base in the east and the Northeast, where we conduct clearance of cluster munitions. So they’re air dropped cluster munitions going back to the time of the Vietnam War.

Fred de Sam Lazaro
These are American bombs that have not exploded.

Rebecca Letven
Yes, so American air dropped cluster munitions, which haven’t exploded on impacts. And in addition to this across both operational areas in the west and the east, we have an explosive ordnance disposal capacity, which is a small mobile team that responds to reports of unexploded ordnance that are sent by the communities to dispose off and destroy individual items that are left over from the conflict .

Fred de Sam Lazaro
How frequently does that happen that you get a call from people and the second part of that question, are communities, including the younger people who have been born since the war, fairly familiar with the peril that this unexploded stuff poses?

Rebecca Letven
Um, so we get reports on a near daily basis of explosive remnants of war within communities in both western and eastern Cambodia. On average, I would say we do at least 15 to 20, what we call spot tasks per day. So destruction of items. So the problem is still, it’s still bad. These items do still pose a threat to communities, and we receive reports on a regular basis and we respond to them. Also on a daily basis. We currently have five teams working across western and eastern Cambodia, and their sole purpose is to respond to these reports, in terms of knowledge of the threat posed by landmines and other unexploded ordnance. Generally, yes, communities are well informed about the risks and about the threats posed by these items. I mean, They’ve lived alongside mine contamination for 30 years. So of course, they’re aware of the risks. They’re aware of the threats, MAG and other operators in country as well have been delivering mine risk education for around the same length of time for around 30 years. So generally communities are well informed. Of course, children in particular have to be re educated, if you like on a regular basis, because they’re intrinsically very curious. They can forget messages much easier than adults can. And but in general, the level of information is there. It’s just sometimes that people are forced to enter these contaminated areas quite simply because they don’t have a choice because their livelihoods depend on it. So in Cambodia, around 80% of the population lives in rural areas and depends primarily on agriculture and different natural resource extraction for their livelihoods. If an area is contaminated by land mines Sometimes they just don’t have a choice other than to enter that minefield in order to make a living.

Fred de Sam Lazaro
In other words, they can’t afford not to take some risk.

Rebecca Letven
That’s exactly it. So, as well as the issue of land mines, there’s also economic factors that out of sheer necessity out of economic necessity, they’re forced into these areas, to take the risk, to cultivate cultivate crops, to engage in livelihood activities, and primarily agriculture.

Fred de Sam Lazaro
So the place where we were today, the minefield that we were today, what is that land, who owns it? What was it? What is it? And what’s the goal beyond removing those mines?

Rebecca Letven
in terms of ownership, that’s something that we would have to check with the team. I imagine that its community owned , like the vast majority of clearance tasks that we engage in by it’s owned by a landowner within that community. Again, we would have to check records to find out exactly what the land is going to be used for. So prior to clearance MAG’s community liaison teams go into communities they meet with key informants, they meet with community leaders, and other members of that community in order to find out about the impacts that mine contamination has on that community and the families living there. As part of that process as well. They collect information on what that land is currently being used for. Often it’s not being used at all because of the fear of mine contamination, but they also collect information on what it’s likely to be used for in the future. So we use that information when we’re prioritizing and planning which tasks to targets. So we would have the information available on what the land will be used for, primarily in the area that we visited today. It’s generally used for agricultural production,

Fred de Sam Lazaro
in a more general sense. I mean, Is this land land that communities want to put to productive use agriculturally? Did they just want to restore forest land? That kind of thing?

Rebecca Letven
Yes. So the vast majority of clearance tasks that MAG’s working on at the moment are in Battambang and Pailing provinces and the main use of that land following clearance is for agricultural activities and also for natural resource extraction as well. A recent evaluation that was conducted showed that on average land is put back into productive use around two to three months following clearance by a MAG team.

Fred de Sam Lazaro
Cambodia has set a goal of eliminating land mines here by 2025. From your tone and I gather that you’re less optimistic that that’s a goal that’s achievable, is that depending on a lot more resources being poured into it?

Rebecca Letven
Absolutely. So landmine free 2025 in Cambodia is something that we very much strongly support. It’s outlined in the national mine action strategy that’s been put together by the National mine action authority. And MAG works very closely with the National mine action authority in pursuit of that objective. Having said that, it is an ambitious goal. I think all mine action operators in the country would recognize that it’s a very ambitious targets, but also with the right level of resource allocation, and it would have to be a significant increase in resource allocation

Fred de Sam Lazaro
on the global scale. And you’ve worked in several theaters, several countries, as does your organization. Would you say that Cambodia’s commitment to this cause is, is as good as it gets globally? Is Cambodia, you know, solidly committed, where others may not be quite there yet.

Rebecca Letven
Yes, absolutely. So Cambodia and the government of Cambodia and the Cambodian national mineC Authority are very much committed to landmine free 2025, but also to the sector in general

Fred de Sam Lazaro
In the global context, what are some of the hindrances to doing this work? In other words, what does Cambodia have that other countries that are riddled with these unexploded objects lack?

Rebecca Letven
So I think it’s a wide range of factors that can cause issues with mine national program in, in various contexts. issues such as security, access, the legislative environment, the capacity of the national authorities, and all those negatives that sometimes you do find in other countries. Certainly you don’t find in Cambodia, the environments in general is stable. We very much gone beyond that immediate post conflict stage. So we don’t have perhaps the security concerns the access concerns, that mine action operators would have in other environments in in other countries, or the legislation is in place to enable us to operate here. The authorities are very supportive in terms of issues such as equipment inputs, and issues such as registration, accreditation. So really, it’s it’s a very positive environment in which to be conducting mine action activities. And a lot of that is down to the support that we have from the national authorities

Fred de Sam Lazaro
You need political stability, and a commitment from from the government. I know you’ve sort of implied it, in some ways have not actually said it. But could you talk about what lessons the world can learn from Cambodia in terms of mine action activities?

Rebecca Letven
Yes, so I think that Cambodia has a lot to teach the world in terms of mine action activities, national and international operators have been working in Cambodia now for 25 years for more than 25 years. And there is a lot of experience here in country of the mine action sector of managing a mine action sector of overseeing and coordinating that main action sector as well.

Fred de Sam Lazaro
There’s some people watching this would say, you mean there are governments in the world that would not support this work?

Rebecca Letven
It’s not necessarily there are governments in the world that don’t support

Fred de Sam Lazaro
Or would interfere with it in some way? Or hinder it?

Rebecca Letven
I wouldn’t go so far as say, hindering mine action activities. I think you’ve got to look at every context individually, you know, and in Cambodia, like I say, we’re lucky in that we’re living and working in an environment that is very much beyond that post conflict stage. It’s stable. We don’t have the same security issues that operators have to worry about in other countries and also that governments have to worry about.

Fred de Sam Lazaro
Very serious. It’s a long ago conflict. And you can have a Khmer Rouge guy working alongside a Cambodian soldier, which you probably do.

Rebecca Letven
It’s so important that we don’t forget these legacy conflicts and these legacy contexts, especially when there’s so much else going on around the world and the so many urgent pressing matters that are grabbing the world’s attention. It’s important that we don’t forget what happened here in Cambodia. And we don’t forget that, whilst the conflict might have finished two decades ago, the country itself is still very heavily contaminated by land mines, and that doesn’t go away. And that’s something that impacts on the communities who live in those areas. The country is very strongly committed to a landmine free 2025 in Cambodia, and it’s something that we as an organization are very strongly supporting. I think it’s very important that the sector as a whole supports this objective to try to get Cambodia over the line and to achieve landmine free 2025 status.

Fred de Sam Lazaro
I think we got it. Thank you so much for your time.

Solveig Rennan
Our interview with Rebecca Letven was originally featured in our story called Hero Rats, which aired on PBS NewsHour on September 10 2019. To check out the full story and a virtual reality 360 experience in a MAG minefield head to undertoldstories.org. Coming up, our next few episodes will explore Zola Nene’s post apartheid kitchen.

Zola Nene
You know you can’t help if you know if your your lights don’t work. Forget loving people around you, you’re going to be angry.

Solveig Rennan
And how heart surgeon Devi Shetty has changed the healthcare game.

Devi Shetty
If a solution is not affordable. It is not a solution.

Solveig Rennan
You can find every Under-Told: Verbatim episode, virtual reality 360 experiences and our entire library of Under-Told news reports from around the world at undertoldstories.org. This episode was hosted by me, Solveig Rennan, and produced and edited by Simeon Lancaster. The interview is conducted by our director Fred de Sam Lazaro. Under-Told: Verbatim is brought to you by the Under-Told Stories Project at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. As always, thanks for your support.