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Being disabled in Cambodia
DISABILITY: CAMBODIA
Being disabled in Cambodia
n the year 2000, more daughter, and another child than 1000 people were waiting to be born. Deep injured by landmines. This despair engulfed me. I don't is a much smaller number want to live. I want to die[ Tun Channareth, Denise Coghlan than in previous years, but Others around me were still 1000 too many. These injured, some more seriously than I, but I could only think of my own grief. I lay there mines, produced in Russia, China, Vietnam, USA, and eastern European countries, were laid by all the factions spiritless. Even learning to use a wheelchair did nothing in the civil war which was waged in Cambodia from to lift my heart. All I saw was my body broken, given up 1970 until 1998. These mines litter large areas of for what? Cambodia, particularly in the northwestern provinces. Soon I had to leave the hospital and return to my hut T h e y make areas unsafe, hinder development and in another refugee camp. M y wife and child greeted me agriculture, and cause lovingly but I remained listless and depressed. The injury, death, and misery to thousands of villagers. Mine new baby c a m e - - a glimmer clearance is being done by of happiness, then blackness the Cambodian Mine descended again. My wife Action Centre, the Mines went to collect the food rations, the water, the Advisory Group, and the Halo Trust. Many agencies handouts. I stayed in our are involved with programone room doing nothing. mes for medical assistance, T h e n my small daughter rehabilitation devices, and braved the gloom and said psychosocial and economic "Daddy, I want 10 riels for integration and developa candy". I was jolted into m e n t programmes for suraction by this simple vivors and communities request. "I can't sit here affected by mines. doing nothing forever. I Night of peace, night of have children." So I rolled peace, night of peace! T h e out of the house in my words are ringing in my wheelchair and down to K ears as I roll my wheelchair o~ meet Kike from the Jesuit in the candlelit procession Refugee Service who was organising training for through the streets of Cambodian landmine victims waiting for artificial limbs disabled people. I learnt Lourdes. With Adolph mechanics and realised that I could mend and create Esquivel and Mairead Macguire, I had just spoken at the new things from scraps of metal. I also learnt what town centre calling for a world of peace, a world without friendship meant. violence, a world free from landmines for the children of T h e n in 1993, all Khmer people in camps around Asia the next decade. Hundreds of people in wheelchairs had had to repatriate to Cambodia to participate in the come to listen. I decided to follow them. T h e wheelelections which followed the Paris Peace Agreements. chairs and candlelight moved slowly towards a grotto H o m e I went with now five children and another one on where a little village girl called all the world to change the way, to nothing. My relatives could not help seven their darkness to light. more people; I had no job. For a while I stayed at a I think of another night--a night of deep darkness. I church but probably because I was depressed and angry lay in a minefield in north Cambodia. A huge explosion soon there was "no room at the inn!" Once again I was had shattered my legs. I looked for an axe, a gun, anything to end my life. I my own worst enemy, and once more I met Kike and Sister Ath. They helped my family and me to go to a wanted to chop off my leg. small village and that night my sixth child, Sella, was My friend shouted at me: born. Kike told me he needed my skills and invited me to "Don't! No, no!" He grabjoin a team making wheelchairs and later to create bed the axe, the knife, or special chairs for people with specific disabilities. whatever it was I had. Later I moved to Slem Reap, home of the fabled Somehow he managed to Angkor War, to assemble wheelchairs and help disabled drag me to the Khao-Ipeople. In the villages, I see disabled children, longing Dang refugee hospital, Thailand. for wheelchairs and a chance to go to school; disabled fathers with no food for their children unable to get I became aware of a jobs; families with rain pouring in through roofs doctor bending over me. and walls, disabled mothers with no money to pay He had tears in his eyes. for health care. With some friends, also injured by "Reth, I have to cut off mines, I have come up with a plan in which we ask your second leg", he said. people with more money than us to help improve our I wept too and remembered living conditions, our access to health, and sense of no more until I woke up. I dignity. I go by motorcycle to meet these village friends. looked d o w n - - h a l f a body. In serving them, and in campaigning for a ban on What had happened? I tandmines, I find new meaning in my life. But sometimes was handsome and strong. I still feel angry. I had a beautiful wife, a
I
s 17
The Lancet Perspectives • 356 • December • 2000
Being disabled in Cambodia
n the year 2000, more daughter, and another child than 1000 people were waiting to be born. Deep injured by landmines. This despair engulfed me. I don't is a much smaller number want to live. I want to die[ Tun Channareth, Denise Coghlan than in previous years, but Others around me were still 1000 too many. These injured, some more seriously than I, but I could only think of my own grief. I lay there mines, produced in Russia, China, Vietnam, USA, and eastern European countries, were laid by all the factions spiritless. Even learning to use a wheelchair did nothing in the civil war which was waged in Cambodia from to lift my heart. All I saw was my body broken, given up 1970 until 1998. These mines litter large areas of for what? Cambodia, particularly in the northwestern provinces. Soon I had to leave the hospital and return to my hut T h e y make areas unsafe, hinder development and in another refugee camp. M y wife and child greeted me agriculture, and cause lovingly but I remained listless and depressed. The injury, death, and misery to thousands of villagers. Mine new baby c a m e - - a glimmer clearance is being done by of happiness, then blackness the Cambodian Mine descended again. My wife Action Centre, the Mines went to collect the food rations, the water, the Advisory Group, and the Halo Trust. Many agencies handouts. I stayed in our are involved with programone room doing nothing. mes for medical assistance, T h e n my small daughter rehabilitation devices, and braved the gloom and said psychosocial and economic "Daddy, I want 10 riels for integration and developa candy". I was jolted into m e n t programmes for suraction by this simple vivors and communities request. "I can't sit here affected by mines. doing nothing forever. I Night of peace, night of have children." So I rolled peace, night of peace! T h e out of the house in my words are ringing in my wheelchair and down to K ears as I roll my wheelchair o~ meet Kike from the Jesuit in the candlelit procession Refugee Service who was organising training for through the streets of Cambodian landmine victims waiting for artificial limbs disabled people. I learnt Lourdes. With Adolph mechanics and realised that I could mend and create Esquivel and Mairead Macguire, I had just spoken at the new things from scraps of metal. I also learnt what town centre calling for a world of peace, a world without friendship meant. violence, a world free from landmines for the children of T h e n in 1993, all Khmer people in camps around Asia the next decade. Hundreds of people in wheelchairs had had to repatriate to Cambodia to participate in the come to listen. I decided to follow them. T h e wheelelections which followed the Paris Peace Agreements. chairs and candlelight moved slowly towards a grotto H o m e I went with now five children and another one on where a little village girl called all the world to change the way, to nothing. My relatives could not help seven their darkness to light. more people; I had no job. For a while I stayed at a I think of another night--a night of deep darkness. I church but probably because I was depressed and angry lay in a minefield in north Cambodia. A huge explosion soon there was "no room at the inn!" Once again I was had shattered my legs. I looked for an axe, a gun, anything to end my life. I my own worst enemy, and once more I met Kike and Sister Ath. They helped my family and me to go to a wanted to chop off my leg. small village and that night my sixth child, Sella, was My friend shouted at me: born. Kike told me he needed my skills and invited me to "Don't! No, no!" He grabjoin a team making wheelchairs and later to create bed the axe, the knife, or special chairs for people with specific disabilities. whatever it was I had. Later I moved to Slem Reap, home of the fabled Somehow he managed to Angkor War, to assemble wheelchairs and help disabled drag me to the Khao-Ipeople. In the villages, I see disabled children, longing Dang refugee hospital, Thailand. for wheelchairs and a chance to go to school; disabled fathers with no food for their children unable to get I became aware of a jobs; families with rain pouring in through roofs doctor bending over me. and walls, disabled mothers with no money to pay He had tears in his eyes. for health care. With some friends, also injured by "Reth, I have to cut off mines, I have come up with a plan in which we ask your second leg", he said. people with more money than us to help improve our I wept too and remembered living conditions, our access to health, and sense of no more until I woke up. I dignity. I go by motorcycle to meet these village friends. looked d o w n - - h a l f a body. In serving them, and in campaigning for a ban on What had happened? I tandmines, I find new meaning in my life. But sometimes was handsome and strong. I still feel angry. I had a beautiful wife, a
I
s 17
The Lancet Perspectives • 356 • December • 2000