Global Issues
CAMBODIA: Demining Efforts Trip over Donor Fatigue
On the first day of May, a deadly reminder from the turbulent past exploded in one of Cambodia’s provinces.
In Pailin province, a former stronghold of the genocidal Khmer Rouge that ruled the country in the seventies, unsuspecting farmers triggered an anti-tank mine that had been buried for years.
'A group of farm workers had come back at the end of the day,' said Cameron Imber, programme manager for British demining charity group The Halo Trust, reading a report of the incident. 'They were driving down a track between a field. Five killed, nine injured.'
It was the deadliest landmine accident in the province in at least two years.
The blast underscored just how much work there remains for this South-east Asian nation of 14.8 million people — one of the most heavily mined countries in the world — to reduce injuries and deaths caused by long-buried weapons of war.
But efforts to eradicate landmines in a country that is one of the poorest in the region are still dependent on financial support from the international community. That support, officials here say, has waned in the last year.
'We have had a problem with funding this year,' confirmed Leng Sochea, deputy secretary-general of the Cambodian Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority (CMAA).
Over the last three years, international donors offered up roughly 30 million U.S. dollars each year for mine clearance activities, he says. But in 2010, the amount has fallen short of that. 'Up to now, we have secured around 23 million dollars only,' he said.
The fluctuations in funding, he said, could have a direct effect on whether Cambodia is successful in meeting its international obligations to eradicate landmines.
'If the development partners keep their promises and give funds, maybe we can clear the land and meet our obligations,' Leng said. 'We need the development partners to be responsible.'
Cambodia has shown success in reducing casualties from landmines and other remnants of war. In 1996, as the country was in the early stages of rebuilding, Cambodia recorded more than 4,000 casualties. That number has been steadily dropping over the years. In 2008, 244 people were killed or injured by blasts from landmines or other unexploded ordnance left over from the country’s three decades of conflict.
But if that number is to continue to fall, advocates say the international community must do its part.
Imber said dwindling donor funding has also hit his organisation hard. Two years ago, the group counted on funding of roughly 7 million dollars. This year, that amount has dropped to roughly 4 million dollars, he said, forcing Halo Trust to cut back its operations.
So far, the non-government organisation has managed to absorb the cuts by slashing costs and holding off on major equipment purchases. If the funding continues to plummet, however, so could the amount of work Halo deminers are able to accomplish. 'Unless the funding comes in the next year, we could possibly be losing 40 percent of our staff,' Imber said.
He attributes the funding problems to 'donor fatigue', with Cambodia 'dropping slightly off the donor map.'
'At the end of the day, the more deminers out there, the more mines will be cleared,' he said.
There is no shortage of work.
A 2002 survey estimated that almost half of the country’s villages — around 46 percent — were affected by landmines. The threat of stepping on mines also scares villagers away from making use of crucial land for farming and basic sustenance.
Mine clearance represents such an important issue to Cambodia that the country has included it as one of its Millennium Development Goals, part of the global targets that U.N. member states have pledged to keep in order to reduce poverty.
Already though, authorities here acknowledge it will be impossible for the country to meet its goal of ending landmine casualties by 2012. 'The old goal was a bit too ambitious to achieve,' said the CMAA’s Leng.
The country has also revised its commitment as part of the 1997 Ottawa Treaty, which banned the use of landmines and compelled signatory nations to clear contaminated areas — in Cambodia’s case, by 2009.
Last year, Cambodia was granted a 10-year extension on that goal. 'Through the experience of the last two years, we have seen that this figure may be more realistic,' Leng said.
That experience has also played a role in holding Cambodia back from signing on to the global Convention on Cluster Munitions, which came into effect this week. Its signatory nations are banned from using cluster bombs, which are huge bombs that contain hundreds of individual bomblets and are dropped from the sky, of the type used during the U.S. intervention in Indochina decades ago.
Estimates suggest that between 1.3 and 7.8 million bomblets have been left unexploded in Cambodia, the result of the U.S. military’s bombing campaign between 1969 and 1973 in its fight against the communist movement in neighbouring Vietnam.
Cambodia has come under criticism for not signing on to the cluster munitions convention despite being one of its early proponents.
But officials here say they must conduct further research to figure out how the convention will affect the country’s military, how much contaminated land it can realistically clear — and how much time and money that will take.
Said Leng: 'If we sign it, it means we bind our hands.'
© Inter Press Service (2010) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service