By Ker Munthit
Associated PressFebruary 23, 2000
Phnom Penh - Cambodia's mine-clearing agency, once widely praised for its efforts but recently plagued by scandals, says it must close its doors at the end of this week because it is out of money. The Cambodian Mine Action Center will stop work Friday and remain closed for a month or two while it waits for foreign donors to contribute more money, Director-General Khem Sophoan told The Associated Press.
The suspension could cripple Cambodia's drive to rid itself of the estimated 10 million mines left in the early 1990s by decades of war. The center had been hailed internationally as a model for other war-scarred nations as it worked to clear former battlefields. The center, which evolved from mine clearance efforts during a major United Nations peacekeeping operation here in the early 1990s, receives about $12 million annually. Nearly all major donor nations, however, suspended funding last year when it was revealed that more than $1 million was spent to clear land in southwestern Cambodia that was ultimately turned over to government officials, wealthy businessmen and army generals.
Quick reforms seemed to placate donors, and in December the government-run center said it had some new pledges. In a new blow, the Phnom Penh Post newspaper reported last week that Canada pulled its mine clearance advisers from the field when it found that Cambodian site managers were designating some mined areas as cleared land when no work had been done.
Khem Sophoan said Tuesday the center was quickly running out of money. The center has only $200,000 left, and needs $800,000 more to cover normal operational costs through the end of March, he said. Japanese Ambassador Masaki Saito called the CMAC's suspension ''a pity,'' saying he hoped donor nations would follow Tokyo's lead and disburse new funding. He attributed the funding shortage to donors' frustration with the scandals.
Since 1991, intense surveying and mine clearance by several organizations has reduced the number of mines in Cambodia to an estimated 4 million to 6 million. The CMAC has been responsible for nearly two-thirds of professional mine clearance since UN peacekeepers left Cambodia in 1993. Most of the mines were laid during the 1980s, when the Khmer Rouge and other guerrilla groups resisted Vietnamese occupation of the country.
