I am not a mine expert, but the thought of digging up a mine, moving it, storing it, and moving it again, sounded terribly dangerous.

“No, we are careful, to hold them upright when we move them and not jiggle them from side to side.”

If he had only told me that at the beginning I would have been glad to help.

Aki Ra explained that the airport location had been heavily mined during fighting between the Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese, in 1985. “Many of the mines are American, taken from the Lon Nol Republican forces or from the Americans in Vietnam.”

A group of soldiers were waiting for us at the camp, near the disposal location. The camp was nothing like the well-appointed and organized camps of American GIs. The Cambodian soldiers slept in hammocks. Most were out of uniform, a few were wearing sarongs. Some even had their families with them. Just a few meters away was the pit where the mines and munitions were stowed until they are moved to the detonation site.

The pit held an array of unexploded ordnance, mortars, mines, bombs, claymores, Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPG), and baseball grenade and pineapple grenades.

“The M-79 (a grenade fired from an assault rifle) is the most dangerous.” Pronounced Aki Ra.

When I asked a question about mines, Aki Ra was quick to answer.

“We don’t use the word mine. The government will get angry, because I don’t have a de-mining license.”

For years, the government and a number of other organizations had been trying to shut Aki Ra down. The charges against Aki Ra were often non-specific. The most common ones were that he was stock piling munitions, or that he was de-mining without a license.

Would either of these charges be a good enough reason to take the prosthetic limbs away from the orphans and toss them back on the streets?

Stuart explained that the new land mine museum is part of an NGO, called the Land Mine Relief Fund. “This is a real, legal NGO, with transparency and proper licensing and papers. Now, that we have the NGO, all of Aki Ra’s demining efforts are his private affair, outside of the NGO. We have nothing to do with that.”

This separation should protect the children and the museum. As for Aki Ra as an individual, steps are being taken there as well.

“When the disarmed munitions were moved to the new museum, all the pieces were checked, numbered, and tagged by an expert NGO. And now, no one can say anything.” Said Stuart.

This should alleviate the issue of stockpiling munitions.  But what about the second charge, demining without a license? Aki Ra has applied for a demining license, but has not been approved. Meanwhile, he is often asked to speak at conferences around the globe, as he is recognized as a leading authority on landmines. If the world accepts that he is an expert, why can’t the local government and demining NGOs? One theory is that the reason is purely financial.

Five years ago, it was estimated that there were 6 million mines in Cambodia. Aki Ra has been known to take as many as 36 mines out of the Earth in an hour. He is personally credited with having removed tens of thousands of mines. The average cost for an aid organization to remove a mine is $500. Said another way, someone earns $500 for every mine that comes out of the ground. Aki Ra demines for free. Every mine he takes out of the earth is denying $500 income to someone. If there were no Aki Ra, the people who have a monopoly on the demining business could be looking at an income of $3,000,000,000 (6 million mines times $500).

No one has come out and admitted that human suffering is a big business, but NGOs have justified shutting Aki Ra down on the grounds that “he will get someone killed.”

Aki Ra has removed tens of thousands of mines from the ground. By doing so, he has saved countless lives. Even if he blew himself up tomorrow, why should the NGOs care? He would stop demining if he were dead.

Professional demining teams normally remove one mine per day. Aki Ra, working alone, with a stick and a knife, makes the big boys, with their expensive equipment look bad. No one wants to look bad.

One final, profit related motive that people may have for wanting to close Aki Ra down is that he is successful.

“People don’t like you when you are successful,” said Stuart.

Cambodian society is prone to what Pol Pot and Mao called “tall poppy syndrome.” In a field of poppies, the tall poppy, the one who stands up or stands out, gets his head cut off.

Aki Ra’s landmine museum may be seen as a direct competition to the government owned war museum in Siem Reap, a collection of rotted out and rusting mix and match military paraphernalia dating back to the French colonial war. All of the pieces lie exposed to the elements, with little or no information available. Aside from the fact that the war museum is easily the least impressive tourist attraction I have ever seen, apart from the museum of barnyard oddities, another reason to give it a miss is that the money is not going to help orphans or disabled people. The rumor is that a high ranking general gets the money from the museum. Rumors aside, Aki Ra now has a legitimate NGO, which is helping people. The war museum is only an attraction. When I asked the guide at the war museum if they were associated with an NGO, he was quick to point out, the donation box. “You can put money in there for the Cambodian Red Cross.”

Maybe I had judged them too harshly, clearly their humanitarian activities rival even Aki Ra’s.

Although the government still does not officially support Aki Ra, he has some support from the army.

“I have fifty men working for me here. Another group works over there. They destroyed mines earlier this morning. I call the two groups Khmer Rouge team and Vietnamese team.”

I didn’t envy the soldiers working in the hot Cambodian sun. The enlisted men wore uniforms of coarse, horrible cotton, which didn’t breath. The rich officers wore uniforms of horrible polyester, which didn’t breath.

“The soldiers only earn $30 a month, so I have to buy food for them.”

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At the detonation site, more than one hundred pieces of explosive ordnance were piled in a hole, about a meter and half deep.

“We don’t have det-cord, so I make myself. We use a car battery, plus and minus, and at the other end is a detonator from a Chinese Bouncing Betty mine.”

The hole full of explosives was filled in. Then we hiked twenty meters up a hill back to the road. I thought we would crouch behind the vehicles like in a war movie.

“We have to go far away because of the fragments.” Said Aki Ra, getting into the vehicle. Thinking of all of those scary explosives I wanted to suggest we go even further away.

The Japanese guys set up their cameras to fire from remote, so they could get a video of the explosion. I, however, couldn’t risk my camera. So, I took it with me, to our safe place about a kilometer away. Now the Japanese had a lead on me, two to one.

After the explosion, the smell of cordite was overwhelming. “I love the smell of cordite in the morning.”

Although the hole had been filled in before the detonation, all of the dirt had been blown out, and the hole was now a smoldering crater, about two meters wide.

Back at Aki Ra’s old house, he suddenly produced four mines which he and the Japanese guy would disarm. After removing the detonators, they had to cut off the outer casing. This they did with a hatchet. When I tried to take a photo, Aki Ra warned me, “No photos. This is not legal because I am not wearing a helmet.”

I didn’t want to tell anyone their business, but if you are hitting a mine with a hatchet, a helmet probably isn’t going to save you.

Then they used a nail and a hammer to chip of the bottom plate. They sprayed the housing with a lot of WD-40 spray oil to ensure it slipped off.

Next, they put the mine in a vice and tightened it till their muscles bulged. When they began banging the mine with a hammer, I remembered another appointment, and made my exit.

If you visit the Land Mine Museum you can donate money to the NGO and help keep the children fed and in school. You can also make donations to the Land Mine Relief Fund or contact them by email: info@cambodialandminemuseum.org.