By Judith Martin
It's a memory that involves the Khmer Rouge, a helicopter, and being shot at from the ground in Cambodia. It still manages to make New Zealand Army officer Phil Morrison smile.
“I was in a helicopter with a New Zealand naval officer, Nick Quinn, in a place called Siem Reap. We suddenly realised we were being shot at (by the Khmer Rouge). There was only one flak jacket on the helicopter seat, to provide some protection for your backside if bullets came up through the helicopter. We both lunged at it - it was sort of like a game of musical chairs - and in the end I think we settled for half each, joint co-operation and all that. When we landed there were about three bullet holes in the tail section, but we were ok.”
Lieutenant Colonel Morrison, now commanding officer of the Royal New Zealand Engineers in Linton, talks easily about the bittersweet experiences members of the New Zealand Defence Force have had in Cambodia. The NZDF’s 15- year involvement in Cambodia, which has seen the deployment of hundreds of personnel, and the establishment of a flourishing demining programme, ended on April 30.
Cambodia’s ability to build and administer its own demining capabilities has developed over recent years to the extent that it is timely now for the New Zealand Defence Force to withdraw, says NZDF Strategic Commitments director Colonel Rob Hitchings. “Our withdrawal is a mutual decision between the governments of New Zealand and Cambodia, and is part of a reassessment of where the NZDF contributes throughout the world.”
When an uneasy peace descended on Cambodia in the early 1990s, New Zealand soldiers, sailors and airmen were at the forefront of the international effort to restore stability and help the local people restore their lives. Millions of landmines were laid in Cambodia by all factions involved in the war and the overthrow of Khmer Rouge regime. Unseen, deadly and indiscriminate about whom they kill, the mines claimed hundreds of casualties. The New Zealanders, all experienced deminers courtesy of their Army engineering training, soon realised they could pass that training on.
The NZDF demining specialists worked alongside the United Nations to help the UN establish the Mine Clearance Training Unit, which took over training and supervising Cambodian mine clearing operations on behalf of the UN, and the Cambodian Mine Action Centre (CMAC), which was responsible for mine clearing. The New Zealand engineers were among the first mine clearing specialists to arrive in Cambodia, and they set about developing training programmes, and teaching the locals how to develop standard operating procedures so that mine clearing could be done cohesively and effectively.
Lt Col Morrison, then a young engineering officer on his first United Nations mission, arrived in Phnom Penh in 1992.
“We started working in Siem Reap, which is a town near Angkor. It was pretty rough, just one guesthouse, and with local soldiers carrying grenade launchers and automatic weapons through town.
“We New Zealanders were running a mine clearance training team, which involved taking soldiers from the Cambodian military factions that were being demobilised, and training them into a 30-strong demining platoon. The course took about four weeks, and then we would hand them over to non-governmental organisations that would supervise their demining work. At that stage the aim of the demining was to clear tracts of land that could be used to resettle people from refugee camps on the Thai border.”
Lt Col Morrison, who went on to serve in various other NZDF missions, including East Timor and Iraq, recalls the Cambodian soldiers as being very keen to learn how to clear mines to ensure a degree of safety in the country. “We tried to make sure the people we were teaching had the right attitude and experience to begin with, and that took some effort as sometimes locals attempted to bribe their way into becoming deminers, as it was quite a well-paid job.”
The demining programme burgeoned, and in its wake huge areas of land were cleared and made habitable again. But the route to that state was not without tragedy, as can be expected when unseen killers litter the countryside, including where children play. Former New Zealand Army officer John Flanagan, whose demining experience was such that he went on the advise the United Nations in New York and Kosovo, remembers seeing a group of children just outside Phnom Penh, the oldest about eight, find a ball-like object, and begin throwing it to one another.
Suddenly the “ball” – a live mine – exploded, killing two of the children and leaving another six with horrific injuries.
Linton-based engineering officer Lieutenant Colonel Paul Curry, who also served in Cambodia, before providing demining instruction in Angola and Mozambique, says he has often been asked how a country such as New Zealand, with a small Defence Force, and no history of mines in its own soil, can develop a world-renowned skill set that has seen it supply advisers to every one of the world’s most heavily mined countries.
“I think it comes down to the way we train, and the empathy that our personnel seem to have with other cultures and people. We spend a lot of time in the minefields, and it took a measure of trust that the deminers were doing their job properly. But it also showed we had faith in them. Safety was always a major issue with us – for our own good and that of the local deminers. Sometimes people take shortcuts, and at one stage we closed down the whole region because of a training issue that needed to be addressed.
“On top of our military mine clearance skills, I think our non-commissioned officers are very good instructors. They’re trained to be good all-rounders in things like planning and logistics, and our officer courses prepare people well to plan operations and set them up. In the end though, I think Kiwis in general – not just those who are in the Army –are very accepting of other cultures. We seem to be able to adapt so that out style of doing things fits the culture we’re involved with.”
After the initial push to make Cambodia self-reliant as far as demining was concerned, the NZDF continued to supply a small team of technical advisers and logisticians.
The NZDF’s involvement in Cambodia has not been limited, however, to mine-clearance and training. In mid- 1992 the Army sent 40 communication specialists over to establish and maintain a communications network.
Working with their Australian counterparts, the signalers provided the UN with facilities which linked more than 50 villages and towns throughout the country.
In 1992 the Royal New Zealand Navy sent a 30-strong contingent to serve in Cambodia; its task was to patrol Cambodia’s inland and coastal waters, many of which were the thoroughfares for the locals in a country where much of the land was impenetrable. The New Zealand Navy contingent escorted large numbers of boats occupied by mainly Vietnamese down the rivers and back into Vietnam where they were repatriated.
It was an uneasy time, and by mid-1992 the Khmer Rouge began breaching the tenuous ceasefire, and displaying an increasing level of hostility towards United Nations workers.
That hostility came to a head one day for Upper Hutt man John Oxenham, who was then a Navy Chief Petty Officer observing troop movements from a vessel on Tonle Sab Lake in northern Cambodia. Captured at gunpoint by the Khmer Rouge, he, and the five British and Filipino personnel with him, was made to give up their boat and accompany the Khmer Rouge to their camp.
Philosophical about the experience now, Mr Oxenham, who left the Navy seven years ago, says while he realised the seriousness of his situation, he “never lost faith” in the abilities of his colleagues at headquarters in Phnom Penh to negotiate his freedom.
“We were in radio contact, and we just had to rely on them (in Headquarters) to get the job done.” He and the other hostages were not maltreated by the Khmer Rouge, nor were they guarded at gunpoint. “It was a small village and they’d confiscated the boat. The river was the only way out and it would have been a long, long walk on land. My biggest fear was mines - we were told they were everywhere.”
Eventually, what he believes was political pressure came to bear, and the hostages were freed into the hands of some UN peacekeepers.
“They (Headquarters) wanted me to go back to Phnom Penh because of what we had experienced. But I wanted to stay on the river, so they let me. When it was all over I realised I’d had a bit of a fright, but hey, life goes on doesn’t it?”
Hidden killer: Army engineers Warrant Officer Dean Esaiah and Lieutenant Colonel Phil Morrison, both of whom served in Cambodia, with a mine similar to those they worked to eradicate.