Contamination and Impact

Cambodia is affected by landmines and explosive remnants of war (ERW) left by 30 years of conflict that ended in the 1990s. The precise extent of contamination is not known. Cambodia’s Article 5 deadline extension request submitted in 2009 estimated the total area containing antipersonnel mines and still requiring clearance at 648.8km².[1]

Mines

The antipersonnel mine problem is concentrated in, but not limited to, 21 districts of northwestern Cambodia along the border with Thailand, which accounted for more than 90% of casualties in the past three years. Contamination includes the 1,046km-long K5 mine belt installed by the Vietnamese-backed government in the mid-1980s to block insurgent infiltration, which constitutes Cambodia’s densest contamination with, reportedly, up to 2,400 mines per linear kilometer.[2] Operators also encounter significant antivehicle mine contamination, which has accounted for about one-third of mine casualties in recent years.[3] The first phase of a Baseline Survey covering the 21 districts was due for completion by the end of 2010 and is expected to provide a more precise definition of the residual mine problem.[4]

Cluster munition remnants

The United States dropped at least 26 million cluster submunitions on Cambodia during the Vietnam War, mostly in eastern and northeastern areas bordering Lao PDR and Vietnam. The bombing is estimated to have left between 1.9 million and 5.8 million cluster munition remnants, including BLU-24, BLU-26, BLU-36, BLU-42, BLU-43, BLU-49, and BLU-61 submunitions.[5] Mines Advisory Group (MAG) reported that in northeastern Stueng Traeng province unexploded submunitions constitute up to 80% of the ERW encountered by its clearance team.[6]

A clearer understanding of the extent of unexploded submunition contamination is expected from the second and third phases of the Baseline Survey, which will cover eastern and northeastern districts.

Other explosive remnants of war

The US also dropped more than a million tons (one billion kg) of general purpose bombs during the Vietnam War, mostly in eastern Cambodia. In other parts of the country, operators encounter mainly land-fired ordnance, including artillery shells, rockets, and mortars. A 2006 study of ERW in Cambodia found that more than 80% of the ordnance being cleared was ground artillery and munitions, and less than 20% was air ordnance.[7]

Mine Action Program

Key institutions and operators

The Cambodian Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority (CMAA), set up in September 2000, regulates and coordinates mine action, responsibilities previously assigned to the Cambodian Mine Action Center (CMAC).[8] The CMAA’s responsibilities include regulation and accreditation of all operators, preparing strategic plans, managing data, quality control, and coordinating mine/ERW risk education (RE) and victim assistance.[9] Prime Minister Hun Sen is the CMAA President, and a senior government minister (Secretary of State of the Council of Ministers, Prak Sokhonn), brought in as second CMAA Vice-President in June 2005, leads the dialogue with donors as the chair of a Mine Action Technical Working Group.[10]

The CMAA’s day-to-day management is in the hands of its Secretary-General, Chum Bun Rong, who was appointed in December 2008.[11] A sub decree (92) issued in August 2009 specifies that CMAA has five departments: regulation and monitoring; socio-economic planning and database management; mine victim assistance; public relations; and general administration.[12]

UNDP has supported mine action through “Clearing for Results,” which included technical assistance to CMAA management, planning and funding for clearance, and for the Baseline Survey. In 2009, UNDP also recruited a technical advisor to support CMAA’s quality assurance and in drafting standards. “Clearing for Results” was due to finish at the end of 2010 and UNDP was in the process of negotiating a new approach to its program in Cambodia expected to focus on CMAA capacity strengthening and mine clearance in support of local development.[13]

In August 2009, Cambodia submitted a request for a 10-year extension to its Article 5 deadline committing itself to identify all remaining contaminated land and to release land through survey and clearance “with a primary focus on casualty reduction and poverty alleviation.” To fulfill its treaty obligations, it also committed itself to a series of actions, including a Baseline Survey, developing a policy on land release, and finalizing a new National Mine Action Strategy (NMAS).^[14]

The CMAA, in consultation with mine action stakeholders and with support from UNDP and the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD), drafted the NMAS for 2010–2019, setting out a framework for tackling both mine and ERW contamination as well as for RE. It also provided for support to the national plan of action for persons with disabilities.^[15] The CMAA told a Mine Action Technical Working Group in May 2010 that the strategy, which will provide the basis for preparing annual workplans, had been submitted to the Council of Ministers for review and was expected to receive their approval in the third quarter of 2010.^[16]

The draft NMAS set out a vision of “Cambodia free from the impact of mines and ERW” and identified four strategic goals and four enabling objectives:^[17]

·         Reduce mine/ERW casualties and other negative impacts; allocating demining assets to the most impacted communities and promoting RE.

·         Contribute to economic growth and poverty reduction; supporting local, subnational, and national development priorities, supporting access to care for survivors and securing the land rights of intended beneficiaries of clearance.

·         Promote international and regional disarmament and stability; supporting the Mine Ban Treaty, and signing the Convention on Conventional Weapons Protocol V on explosive remnants of war and the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

·         Ensure sustainable national capacities to adequately address the residual mine/ERW contamination; review the institutional framework to address the residual problem, plug gaps, and maintain sustainable capacity.

The CMAA is to prepare annual workplans in consultation with development partners to fulfill the NMAS objectives. The NMAS also describes itself as a “living document” and provides for a mid-term evaluation in 2013 in order to align NMAS with the 2014–2019 National Strategic Development Plan.^[18]

The CMAA, with UNDP support, drafted a new Cambodian Mine Action Standard (Chapter 15, CMAS) on land release in 2009–2010 laying down guidelines for non-technical survey (referred to as Baseline Survey) and technical survey. This Standard supersedes Cambodia’s 2006 policy on area reduction and reiterated the need to “target the available resources onto the areas with the greatest need through clearly defining the actual contamination status.” The draft includes a statement for the first time in Cambodia accepting that “no liability shall rest with an accredited operator for land that is released” provided they have complied fully with the new CMAS and the land released had been subject to CMAA quality assurance. As of August 2010, the CMAS on land release had been translated into Khmer and was awaiting final government approval.^[19]

Eight provincial Mine Action Planning Units (MAPUs) have been responsible for setting and prioritizing clearance tasks, under guidelines laid down by a subdecree issued in November 2004, and operational guidelines issued by CMAA in February 2007.[20] MAPUs work with local authorities to identify community priorities, and with operators to prepare annual task lists which are reviewed and approved by Provincial Mine Action Councils. In provinces without MAPUs, mine action is coordinated with provincial authorities. However, more than half the clearance tasks in 2009 were outside the MAPU workplans.[21] The NMAS calls for the planning and prioritization system to be “enhanced” to incorporate results of the Baseline Survey and ensure demining assets are concentrated on worst affected villages.[22]

Consistent with that goal, the CMAA in April 2010 issued a draft “Interim Directive on targeting demining resources for clearance in 2011.” The directive said demining for development should not be overlooked but “more weight should be given to the demining for casualty reduction and it should be directed to the villages where casualty rates are highest.” The directive proposed that CMAA would issue a list of high-priority villages based on analysis of casualty data and that MAPUs should assign 80% of clearance resources to listed villages and 20% to support development priorities in the province.[23] The directive was incorporated in policy guidelines for socio-economic management of mine clearance at a workshop with stakeholders in May 2010.[24]

UNDP also assisted CMAA in developing partnership principles with a view to achieving greater harmonization between donor funding, CMAA objectives, and operators’ clearance activities.^[25]

Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) supported the CMAA database in consolidating and auditing data ahead of the submission of its Article 5 deadline extension request in 2009 and in preparing the database to receive the results of the Baseline Survey. In 2010, it continued to support the database in developing a planning and monitoring capacity.[26]

Recent program evaluations

A Capacity Assessment of the CMAA, written by an external consultant in November 2009 and based on stakeholder perceptions and expectations found that “although the majority of stakeholders accept CMAA as the national mine action authority they believe it is seriously lack[ing in] enough trained staff and under-resourced.” The assessment recommended that CMAA should have:

·         A clearer leadership mandate in order to remove conflict between CMAC (set up by a law) and CMAA (set up by decree) over which exercises authority, that “impedes effective coordination and orderly work processes.”[27]

·         A “tighter organizational structure aligned to the National Mine Action Strategy.” This should include four departments: Planning; Regulation and Monitoring; Mine Risk Education; and Administration and Finance. It also recommended setting up a Public Relations and Mine Advocacy Unit under the CMAA Secretary-General.[28]

·         Additional and highly qualified staff. The assessment notes a consensus that “CMAA was established without analysis of its human and funding resource needs, and without a funding strategy.” Strengthening the technical and management capacities of CMAA staff is “a major requirement.” [29]

·         Stronger coordination mechanisms, including stronger linkages to MAPUs, frequent coordination meetings with operators on a formalized basis, and a revision of the Mine Action Technical Working Group process to provide for follow-up action to resolve issues identified in its meetings. The assessment also suggests that “in order for it to ensure that mine action priorities are being followed, proposals from donors and NGOs should be submitted to CMAA to check planned mine actions against priorities.”[30]

Land Release

Humanitarian demining operators released 44.73km² through mine and battle area clearance (BAC) in 2009, 18% more than the previous year.[31] CMAC also reported that it had “identified for release” another 384.73km² through what it called “technical survey using integrated tools” in the first half of the year.[32] In the previous two years all three operators had sought to identify and record land shown as suspect in the Landmine Impact Survey (LIS) that was now under cultivation, which had led to removal of 1,039km² from the CMAA database. In 2009, however, the survey priority for CMAA and all three operators became the Baseline Survey.

Five-year summary of land cancelation and release[33]

* Figures in brackets show results including clearance reported by the RCAF

Survey in 2009

Cambodia’s Article 5 deadline extension request outlined plans for a Baseline Survey to determine more precisely the extent of remaining mine contamination and end the uncertainty that has existed since the discredited findings of the LIS. The CMAA’s new standard on land release indicates the Baseline Survey data will supersede the LIS and other surveys, which will be deleted from the database. The outcome is expected to provide a platform for future planning and prioritization and to allow much more focused application of clearance assets.[34]

The CMAA and operators agreed to common standing operating procedures, and after training survey teams, operators started a pilot survey in June 2009 to field test the agreed survey methodology. In August 2009, operators started the first phase of the survey covering 21 districts in western Cambodia that have accounted for most casualties (93%) over the preceding five years. Survey data collection was expected to last about a year and CMAA expected analysis of Phase 1 would be completed by the end of 2010.[35]

HALO, which surveyed six districts, reported that one of them, Thmar Puok, had 350km² of suspect land in the CMAA database at the start of the Baseline Survey and that survey reduced the area to 75km², a 78% reduction.[36] In Malai, another district HALO surveyed, the Baseline Survey resulted in a 70% reduction of the suspect area.[37] CMAC (13 districts) and MAG (two districts) also said the Baseline Survey had resulted in some reduction in polygons.[38]

Phase II of the Baseline Survey covering 42 districts in central, northern, and southeastern Cambodia, was due to start in 2010 and also to last about a year. CMAA allocated CMAC five districts and HALO four districts to survey in 2010 and expected to assign the remainder at the start of 2011 when it became clear what funding would be available to operators. During Phase I, CMAA also amended the land classification matrix to disaggregate the type of contamination encountered.[39]

Mine and battle area clearance in 2009

The overall 18% increase in area clearance by humanitarian demining organizations in 2009 was largely a product of better results by CMAC, the biggest of the three operators with some 2,400 personnel, but it occurred against a background of financial constraints that limited clearance. CMAC reported a funding shortfall of more than US$1 million in 2009 that resulted in temporary suspension of some teams.[40] 

CMAC’s mined area clearance of 24.25km² marked an 8% increase from the 22.42km² of mined area it cleared the previous year. CMAC, however, almost tripled the battle area it cleared from 3.16km² in 2008 to 9.28km² in 2009, when it also cleared an additional 1.99km² through spot clearance tasks.[41] CMAC reported that it also responded to 11,559 calls for explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) interventions in 2009, accounting for nearly half (47%) of the total number of landmines it destroyed, and more than three-quarters (79%) of the UXO it destroyed. [42]

The results reflect growing recognition of the long-term problem posed by UXO, which account for more casualties than landmines, and CMAC’s growing commitment of human resources to BAC. The third of its six demining units was trained in BAC in 2009 before being moved from western to northern Cambodia (Preah Vihear). CMAC has cross-trained about half its deminers for BAC and in 2009 had six teams and four UXO detection dogs working in eastern Cambodia, which was heavily bombed during the US wars in Indochina.[43]  

 HALO and MAG were also forced to cut capacity because of reduced funding and saw a danger that this would continue into 2010. MAG cleared almost one-fifth less area in 2009 after a 40% drop in overall funding resulted in a proportional drop in capacity from March 2009, losing 11 mine action teams, two EOD teams, one technical survey team, two Tempest scrub-cutting teams, and three community liaison teams. MAG also closed a field support office in Siem Reap and runs all operations from Battambang. Like CMAC, MAG has also deployed to northern and eastern areas, operating two teams in Stueng Traeng and Kampong Cham.[44]

HALO reported a 26% cut in overall funding in 2009 and thought 2010 could see a further 20% drop. In 2009, it managed to keep the resulting capacity cuts to about 100 staff, from 1,200 at the beginning of 2009 to 1,100 at the end of the year, and the area cleared dropped by 10%. The number of antipersonnel mines destroyed by HALO dropped by more than half in 2009 because of restricted access to the densely mined K5 mine belt that resulted from border tensions with Thailand.[45]

RCAF’s National Centre for Peace Keeping Forces, Mine and ERW Clearance (NPMEC) accredited one demining platoon with the CMAA in 2009. However, it made clear “we are not under CMAA control but under government control.” The platoon had gained training and experience working with the UN peacekeeping mission in Sudan and said it had undertaken commercial tasks in Cambodia under contract to the Ministry of Public Works and Transport. NPMEC said it had never received funding to undertake any humanitarian demining and did not report publicly details of tasks undertaken for the government.[46]

 Demining and battle area clearance in 2009[47]

* Operators do not distinguish in their reporting between UXO and abandoned explosive ordnance.

** It is not known how much of RCAF’s reported mine clearance is a result of area reduction or cancellation.

Compliance with Article 5 of the Mine Ban Treaty

Under Article 5 of the Mine Ban Treaty (and in accordance with the deadline extension request granted in 2009), Cambodia is required to destroy all antipersonnel mines in mined areas under its jurisdiction or control as soon as possible, but not later than 1 January 2020.

At the Second Review Conference of the Mine Ban Treaty in November–December 2009, Cambodia said that in the preceding 17 years it had cleared more than 515km² of land of some 850,000 antipersonnel mines, 20,000 antivehicle mines, and two million items of UXO but “the size and complexity of mine problems in our country did not allow us to fulfill in time our obligations under the Mine Ban Treaty.”[48]

In the past decade, humanitarian demining organizations have cleared 266.4km² of mined and UXO contaminated areas[49] leaving 648.8km² of mined areas to be released, according to Cambodia’s Article 5 deadline extension request. That figure will be revised by the findings of the Baseline Survey but the impression of CMAA and operators from initial results was that Baseline Survey results would not dramatically alter the estimate of remaining contamination.[50]

Community liaison

At the end of 2009, MAG had six two-person (one male, one female) community liaison teams collecting pre-clearance data through village surveys and liaising with local authorities and development agencies to identify community needs and pass this information to clearance teams. The teams were also supporting local authorities in determining priorities and in specific projects delivering RE.[51]

Quality management

The CMAA is responsible for quality management with support from a UNDP Technical Advisor. By the start of 2009, CMAA operated with four quality assurance (QA) teams, two of them based in the provincial capitals of Battambang and Kampong Cham. The CMAA added two more QA teams to monitor the Baseline Survey and was considering adding two more teams intended to focus mainly on quality control of land release.[52]

Safety of demining personnel

HALO reported three demining accidents in 2009 but none resulted in serious or long-term injury.[53] A MAG supervisor received minor injuries during the excavation of a Vietnamese MD82 B mine.[54]

Other Risk Reduction Measures

RE is conducted by CMAC, the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, National Police, RCAF, as well as by the Cambodian Red Cross (CRC), clearance operators, and NGOs, including Handicap International-Belgium and Spirit of Soccer. At the provincial level, the Provincial Mine Action Committee prioritizes and coordinates messages.[55] Cambodia Mine/UXO Victim Information System data informs operator activities.[56]

The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport continued to provide short training sessions for primary schoolchildren targeting the worst mine-affected provinces in the west and Kampong Speu, Kampong Cham, and Kratie reaching a total of 4,171 children. CRC also made presentations to schoolchildren reaching around 62,588 students. Spirit of Soccer organized five tournaments to promote RE messages and engaged in 121 schools in 2009, reaching 12,089 students and donating footballs, T-shirts, sport kits, and school books.[57]

CMAC’s 36 community-based mine risk reduction (CBMRR) teams in the northwest reportedly conducted 3,334 sessions reaching an audience of 175,478 people in 2009, and its 40 community-based UXO risk reduction teams (CBURR), located mainly in the southeast, held 11,792 sessions for audiences totaling 233,414. Teams worked closely with a network of community volunteers and Mine/UXO Committees providing a link to government officials and local authorities. CBMRRs worked at the commune and village level on delivering RE messages and facilitating access to services for survivors and community development. CBURR teams helped local communities to address UXO contamination and prepare requests for EOD interventions. These activities also generated information on the whereabouts of UXO, and CMAC operated six five-person RE teams that also conducted spot EOD tasks.[58]

The National Police delivered RE in seven provinces[59] reporting holding 1,077 RE sessions that reached an audience of 16,279 people. The police also reported receiving 1,094 calls resulting in clearance of 11,654 items of UXO.[60]