Child soldier digs up the past to save lives in future

LONDON - The first time Aki Ra laid a land mine he was five years old. "I could barely lift it," he says. But he did, to cheers and applause from Khmer Rouge guerrillas. "They told me how handsome I looked. I was so proud."

The former child soldier was barely 3 years old when the Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh in 1975, a date etched in the minds of Cambodians as Year Zero. Two million people died during the terror that followed.

Aki Ra was trained to kill before he learnt to form a sentence. He looked on as his relatives were marched to the killing fields; he was made to watch as the throats of his friends were slowly cut with the sinews of palm leaves.

He set his first mine along the K5 mine belt, 700km long and 500m wide separating Cambodia and Thailand.

He returned there recently to disarm it. "It is one of many that I have come back to. I laid so many mines during the conflict, I couldn't count."

The hunter has turned gamekeeper to dramatic effect and Aki Ra is now a hero in his home country for his mission to clear the mines.

He is also gaining increasing recognition from the international land mine movement, and is in Britain this month to receive explosives training.

His work is recognised by the UN and the Cambodian Government, for whom he conducts training sessions.

The one-time guerrilla has cleared about 20 per cent of the unexploded ordnance in Siem Reap province with his bare hands. The Cambodian Mine Action Centre says five million unexploded devices still blight the countryside. They are difficult to find and pose a random threat.

The most prolific deminers employ 1000 people and shift 3000 devices a month. Aki Ra recently cleared his 50,000th land mine.

The Government has set itself the task of clearing all mines by 2015.

"With lots of help, it could happen," Aki Ra says. "But I think it will be more like 50 years."

Responding to tip-offs or returning to where he remembers laying mines, he uses nothing but a knife and his bare hands to unearth the small, black reminders of the conflict.

He laughs at the mention of protective shoes and jackets. But when he talks about his charges - the Bouncing Bettys, the remote-controlled Mon 50s and the Type 72s - it is with an enthusiasm bordering on affection.

"I will do anything to make my country safe," he says. "Sometimes I get nervous, but that is rare. In 20 years I've never been injured."

His friend Am might beg to differ. He lost his years ago when he stepped on a Type 72. He has since stepped on six more mines, but each time the wooden leg is blown off. "But that was before he met me," Aki Ra says with a grin as he prises TNT away from a Russian PMN mine.

"We burn this stuff, or carry out controlled explosions," he says, holding it out in his hands. "But sometimes we use it for fishing."

Aki Ra has named his youngest child "Mine". But there is no dark irony intended. "In Cambodia, everybody knows what the word means. [For me] it means long life, here for a long time."

- INDEPENDENT