River Monsters

Every morning, the men who fish the cloudy waters of the Mekong River in Cambodia trawl for fish, crab, snails, and whatever else they can snag in their nets. The river is second in aquatic biodiversity only to the Amazon, so fishermen are used to catching – and selling – almost anything they can pull out of the mud. But there’s one thing lurking that no one wants to disturb.

In the river, bombs dropped more than 40 years ago still lie armed and undetonated.

Between 1965 and 1975, the heaviest bombing campaigns in human history were conducted in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Wars and skirmishes in the region lasted far longer. The cast-offs from these conflicts – land mines, spent shells and artillery casings – litter the countryside.

There’s so much shrapnel littering Cambodia that even though the shelling ended decades ago, the cleanup process is in its infancy. Every year, hundreds are still killed by unexploded mines and bombs. Reminders of the conflict are everywhere, and healing is an ongoing process, even decades after the last bombs fell. Anti-landmine NGOs proliferated in the spotlight shone by Princess Diana in the 1990s, but until recently, the responsibility to rid the river of its dangers fell to unlucky fishermen. But this is changing.

Blind Trust

Recently, the Cambodian Mine Action Centre (CMAC) finished training the first class of a brand new program. Ten graduates out of an initial class of forty completed the demanding, army-style training. Now, these highly skilled scuba divers work together to find, disarm, and recover bombs underwater – using only their sense of touch.

That training is paying off. In the summer of 2015, the team safely removed a live, 500-lb US-made aircraft bomb from the riverbed. The bomb had sat in the same position, undetonated, for 40 years.

This safe extraction was an auspicious way to begin, but the team has their work cut out for them. Bombs large and small still lie dormant on the riverbed. There is much left to do, but with every bomb extracted, the river becomes safer for wildlife, fishermen, and the communities on its shores.

 

Shaping the Future

Rajana, a fair trade workshop in Cambodia, operates perhaps the most inspiring recycling program in the world. The skilled jewellers at the workshop take in shell casings and bombs, sometimes recovered from the riverbed, and turn the debris of war into jewellery.

Locals deliver the weathered and tarnished scrap to the workshop, where makers methodically transform the wreckage into symbols of peace.

Khmer people own and operate Rajana. The workshop provides skills training, income and job security. The basic salary is well above the area’s minimum wage for garment labourers. It’s an organization that offers hope and healing as people get used to life in peacetime.

By turning the symbols of hate and war into their opposites, these makers are forging a brighter future with the ugliest parts of their past. For us, this is what Remembrance Day is all about.