|
Every human heart
wrestles with its attraction to and its repulsion of the horrible.
If this weren’t the case, there would be no horror movies and no
splatter films. If we didn’t have a love affair with the terrifying
there would be no roller-coasters. And so it is in Cambodia, where
the remnants of war and atrocity can be found, and are even being
converted into tourist attractions.
In the large,
overgrown field behind the Siem Reap War Museum, you will find a
collection of heavy weapons and war machines, most of which were
Soviet made, and came to Cambodia as gifts from Vietnam. They have a
T-54 Russian tank, massive Soviet anti-aircraft guns, which never
saw action because the Khmer Rouge didn’t have airplanes, and an M58
Armored Personnel carrier.
Lon Nol had
received most of his support and weaponry from the US. So, I asked
my guide, Mr. Sinit, a long time soldier of several regimes, where
all of those weapons were.
“Recycled.” Said
my guide, bluntly. “Most of the American stuff was made of aluminum.
It was very valuable, so the villagers cut it up and sold it.”
But the Russian
weapons were all made of iron. They survived until today, although
they showed advanced degrees of decomposition, as a result of years
of neglect in a tropical climate.
Just like the
ancient royal palaces of Cambodi,a which were made of wood, today
not a single piece remains. Probably the beautifully lacquered walls
of the king’s house were used to stop the rain from washing into
some poor farmer’s hut. Planks of royal lumber most likely found its
way into a cooking fire as well. Much of the history of Cambodia has
simply been washed off of the jungle landscape. A war heritage is
not necessarily something to be proud of. But in a way, having a few
old relics, downed airplanes, sunken ships or disabled armor pieces
lets you know that your people once existed.
They lived,
loved, fought, and died on a battle filed which is now a rice farm.
But in Cambodia, almost no hardware is left from the many years of
war. Most of the souvenirs are the sad, walking kind, people maimed
and dispossessed by a war they wish had never happened.
Cambodia is at
once a country mired in its past, and a country without a past.
Large-scale
European style engagements, between uniformed armies, supported by
artillery and airplanes just weren’t common in the Cambodian wars.
For me the small arms exhibits were much more authentic, and more
telling of the horrors of war.
There was a
display showing how explosives were made from fertilizer and sugar.
Nails were added, as shrapnel. There were numerous variations of the
AK-47, the standard Russian military weapon. Sinat told me that most
of the ones on display at the museum were actually Chinese copies of
the famous Russian weapons. They were manufactured in China, and
donated to the Khmer Rouge. Most were smuggled through Thailand into
Cambodia. There was a Chinese Rocket launcher made entirely of PVC
pipe. It was less than half a meter in length, and looked very
dangerous.
“That one made
you deaf for forty minutes.” Said Sinit. “The back-blast was also
very big, and you had to clear a big area behind you before you
fired it.” Because of the small design of the weapon, Sinit
explained that many soldiers tried to fire it from the hip, as they
would a shotgun. “Burned alive.” He told me, sadly.
At the same time
that China was supporting the Khmer Rouge, the US was giving weapons
to Lon Nol’s republican army, who was fighting the communists. The
US may or may not have known, but corrupt Lon Nol officials were
reselling the weapons to the Khmer Rouge. So, American weapons were
used on both sides of the war.
For a former
American GI, the small arms display was like a walk through American
history. They had a few Vietnam era M-16s and M-14s. I found an M-79
grenade launcher and a PRC 77 platoon radio, and a collapsible
entrenching tool. Apparently the America just dumped their surplus
Korean War weapons on the new regime. They had a Korean War era .30
Cal, also, M1 Grand, M1 carbine, and grease. There were US gas masks
from WWII. Going further back, there were weapons predating WWII. I
found several BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle). The best find of all
was an old style, gangster era Tommy Gun, complete with pistol grip
and snail-drum.
“I carried a BAR
for a while.” Said Sinat. “It was a good weapon.”
How many American soldiers today would even recognize a BAR, much
less tell about taking one into combat?
Mr. Sinat was a
prime example of the horrors of war, and the years of suffering
which Cambodia is struggling to emerge from. Blind in one-eye, Sinat
told me the doctors expected him to become completely blind in a few
months time. Sinat pulled up his shirt and showed me three hug
scars, where he had been hit by AK-47 rounds. Sinat bore additional
scars from where a friend fired a rocket, without first clearing the
back-blast area. Sinat’s whole body had been engulfed in flames.
“I also have
grenade shrapnel in my behind.” Said Sinat. It would have been
comical if Sinat’s life weren’t so tragic. “My friend and I were
fishing with hand-grenades. I threw a grenade into the water, but it
didn’t go off.”
So, the friend fished out the grenade, and explained to Sinit that
he had to pull the pin first. “My friend pulled the pin, he threw
the pin in the water, not the grenade.” Sinit turned away, just as
the grenade went off.
Sinit was permanently injured. The friend was dead.
Sinat’s story
illustrates the difficulties faced by a nation torn by war, where
two entire generations missed out on even the most basic education.
Sinat’s whole
family had been killed by the Khmer Rouge. He joined the army at age
13.
“I didn’t care
about fighting. I just needed food and clothing.” He confessed.
His wife died two
years ago, and now he was completely alone in the world.
Sinit was born
the same year as me, 1967. When he joined the army, I was on my high
school swim team. Sinit never went to school. I used my GI benefit
to finance my college education, and eventually got the opportunity
to travel and study all over the world.
“I’ve only been
abroad once.” Said Sinit. “A few years ago, I was completely blind.
An NGO took me to Bangkok for medical treatment.”
“What did you
think of Thailand?” I asked.
“I didn’t see
anything.”
“Why not?”
“because I was
blind.” He said simply. He should have said, “because I was blind,
dummy.” Because that was how I felt.
“I was a beggar
for several years.” He told me.
A few months
earlier, my friend, Mr. Samban, form Phnom Penh Tours was
instrumental in arranging this job as museum caretaker, for Mr.
Sinit. “Now he can get some tips from the tourists.” Explained
Samban. The problem was, there just aren’t that many tourists at the
museum.
American soldiers
are used to being well funded and well equipped. But the Cambodian
soldiers had to be very creative in arming themselves. The museum
had a few ox carts, which were used as caissons, to carry ammunition
to the front. Sinit showed me how they fired rockets without a
rocket launcher.
First they built
a stand of crisscrossed bamboo posts. Then they laid the rocket on
the stand, and used a batter to detonate the firing pin. Another
piece of homemade ordnance comprised of a light bulb, with a small
hole drilled in it. The light bulb would be filled with gunpowder.
Nails would be packed in around the light bulb. When a battery was
connected to the light bulb, the filament would spark, detonating
the gunpowder. The bomb would explode, throwing nails in every
direction.
The most terrible
display was the landmines. This was also the most personal for Sinit,
who had lost hi leg to a Vietnamese mine. “I heard the mine click,
when I stepped on it. I looked down. When my leg exploded, my own
bones became shrapnel, making me blind.”
The display
contained an array of landmines, horrible devices designed to maim,
rather than kill. An army is much more likely to try and remove a
wounded soldier from the battlefield, than a corpse. It requires two
men to carry one injured person. So, by wounding one man, you have
removed two or three from combat. Later, doctors and medical
supplies will be used to treat the amputation, further exhausting
the army’s resources.
Sinit showed me
an amputation mine, a wooden box filled with TNT. The detonator
stuck out, between the lid and the box. When someone stepped on the
lid, it caused the detonator to explode, setting off the explosive.
Another
improvised mine consisted of a mortar round, buried just below the
surface of the road, upside down. A board with a nail driven through
it was laid on the firing pin of the mortar shell. The board was
then camouflaged with dirt and leaves. When someone stepped on top
the board, the nail pierced the firing pin, and the mortar round
exploded.
After showing me
the weapons themselves, Sinit showed me hundreds of photos of modern
land mine victims. “They all lost limbs, just like me.” Said Sinit.
“But no one cares abut us.” For his nearly twenty years of military
service, all of which was spent in combat, Sinit receives a pension
of zero dollars and zero cents. For his injuries, he receives a
disability payment of the same amount. And a few months from now,
when he finally goes completely blind, at age thirty-eight, he will
receive nothing. Even worse, he will lose his job at the museum, and
hav no income at all.
“Now, I have no
money for food.” Said Sinit. “I live in a temple. After I am
completely blind, I don’t know what I will do.” Sinit shook his head
sadly.
“The government
doesn’t care about us.”
Contact the
author at: antonio_graceffo@hotmail.com
You can reach
Long Leng of Phnom Penh Tours at
sales@phnompenhtours.com
www.phnompenhtours.com
You can find all
of Antonio’s books at amazon.com
|