Clearing for Results allows community to live with peace in mind

In his search for a piece of land to settle on and raise his family, Liv Phoeun, a farmer, came across just what he needed – land which was conveniently close to the main road and where the soil was brown, wet and fertile.  Perfect, he thought. But there was one problem – it was contaminated with landmines. But he decided to take the risk, using a sharpened metal bar to poke the ground searching for the deadly devices to remove.

“As I poked harder and harder, the bar touched the side of a landmine and it gave a spark. I trembled and fell sick for days. My wife asked me what happened but I just told her that I had a fever,” the 51-year old farmer recalled the hair-raising moment in 1999 which almost cost him his life.

That was the past. Today, the back yard of his house is a small farm filled with custards, mangoes, coconuts, papayas, and cassava – thanks to the mining clearing efforts taken by the Cambodian government with support from development partners like UNDP.

ERWs, or explosive remnants of war, left over from more than three decades of armed conflict, remain a major bottle neck to socio-economic development in Cambodia. Since most of the country’s citizens live in the countryside and depend on subsistence farming, the government and development partners have made freeing contaminated land of these deadly devices a key priority to help improve livelihoods in affected areas. In 1999, the government also ratified the International Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Treaty. It also integrates mine action into the National Strategic Plan and established a Ninth Millennium Development Goal dedicated to removing and reducing the impact of mines and unexploded ordnance on Cambodians lives and livelihoods.

“Mines and ERWs not only cause deaths and injuries but they are also barriers to Cambodian economic development and good governance in the country. Many rural and national development projects such as irrigation, roads, agriculture and resettlement are impossible without demining support,” said Tong Try, UNDP Clearing for Results National Project Officer.

Since 2006, UNDP’s Clearing for Result project (CFR) has been working in partnership with the Cambodian Mine Action Center (CMAC) to clear ERWs in Pursat, Battambang and Banteay Meanchey, the three most heavily-mined provinces in the country. As a result, more than 43,000 people have directly or indirectly benefitted from the CFR’s mine clearance operations. Nearly 17,500 land mines, 280 anti-tank landmines and over 35,000 pieces of unexploded ordnance (UXOs) have been removed and destroyed. Nearly 15 million square metres of land have been cleared. The number of casualties has significantly reduced from 875 cases in 2005 to 243 cases in 2009. However, 427 square kilometres of high priority land still need clearance – a painstaking task which may take up to 15 years to complete.

In Battambang province’s P’chiev village where Liv Phoeun’s family lives, roads, schools and plantations now dot the landscape. The transformation has given peace of mind to the local residents to go about with their daily lives.

Opposite Liv Phoeun’s house there used to be an empty space contaminated with landmines. Now there stands a primary school where his children and those of his neighbors go to study. His backyard is now a small farm. This is all  thanks to the mine clearance efforts, Liv Phoeun said.

“Without the mine clearing project in the area, I would have gone far away from my family to be a labourer for someone else instead of working on my own land, growing my own trees,” he said, beaming broadly.