Landmines in Cambodia: Past, Present, and Future By Wade C. Rober ...

all of them M18A1 Claymore varieties.¹⁷ Other contributing countries are not as willing to share information about the transfer of landmines to Cambodia’s government. Royal Government workers remember receiving approximately 2,000,000 antipersonnel and 6,500 antitank mines from western powers between 1971 and 1975.¹⁸

Landmines at the disposal of the Royal Government of Cambodia were primarily used to protect provincial capitals and the national capital from encroaching Khmer Rouge forces. It is likely, therefore, that the mines used by the Royal Government are by and large no longer existent.¹⁹ Provincial capitals were eventually all taken by the Khmer Rouge, pushing the surviving inhabitants toward Phnom Penh. Assuming some landmines survived the initial combative efforts of the warring parties, chances are good they also survived the Khmer Rouge domination period. When repatriation efforts were instigated following the fall of the Khmer Rouge, many Cambodians intentionally relocated to the provincial capitals, where food stock and supplies were to be found in greater abundance. Following the ousting of the Khmer Rouge, rapid population increases occurred from rural to urban areas, causing many to undertake informal demining initiatives in order to clear sufficient land to survive. When formal demining agencies came to Cambodia in 1992, they initially concentrated on demining urban centers and high-tourist areas. As evidence of the claim that landmines used by the Royal Government of Cambodia are no longer existent, landmine-related accidents have fallen to a near-zero level in urban centers since 2000.²⁰

1.6.3. Khmer Rouge

––Pol Pot, 1997