IT AIN’T ALL BAD!!!
Despite the landgrabs and resource poaching my Cambodian friends are moving ahead! Way fewer landmine causalties, for instance, WAY fewer. Way better healthcare too. Way less war, which means something too.
A huge amount of super-dangerous ground has been successfully cleared by the dangerous and meritorious efforts of the various international and home-grown mine clearing orgs. Injuries due to any kind of UXO is drastically lowered, also, it must be enforced, due to efforts by many parties to educate villagers on what and what not to do when they encounter explosive devices. Shit is still out there and, so, shit still happens… so give a warm welcome to the ‘Hero Rat’. CMAC (the Cambodian Mine Action Center) has been working with a Belgian NGO training African Giant Pouched Rats at the subtle task of demining. We all know how smart they are and they are ‘very readily trained to food reward’. I would somehow also rather blow a rat, say, than a nice Alsatian.
40 people died in Cambodia in 2012 due to landmine and other UXO explosions. A big hungry well-trained Giant Pouched Rat could have saved many of them. You Go!
64,202 people have been killed or maimed by landmines in Cambodia alone since the fall of the Khmer Rouge in ’79.
Plenty of them are still kickin’ tho’ with a leg blown off. I’m going to go help them on December 14th . Just me and my bike.
