Thomas Cristofoletti for The International Herald Tribune
Johan Mars of Goteborg, Sweden, fires a semi-automatic rifle at a shooting range on a military base near Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Published: November 27, 2012
PHNOM PENH — Just after a Honda pickup truck screeched to a halt beyond
the decommissioned Soviet-era Antonov aircraft, four resolute-looking
Chinese men with a military escort climbed out, slammed the doors shut
and neatly arranged a series of firearms they had been carrying on a
nearby table.
Once the pistols’ magazines were loaded with shiny golden bullets, they
began emptying round after round into paper targets at a distance of 25
meters, or 82 feet.
Nearby, Johan Mars had just discharged 30 bullets from a K-50, a Russian submachine gun.
“That was quite badass,” said Mr. Mars, a 28-year-old electrician from
Goteborg, Sweden, striding toward a wall laden with Uzis, AK-47s and
assault rifles like the M-4 and M-16. “It’s a boy toy,” he said of the
K-50, which on full automatic fills the air with dark smoke and the
smell of gunpowder.
Mr. Mars, who has been traveling in Southeast Asia, added: “I spent two
weeks in Vietnam, and then I spend two hours here and I’m asked, ‘Do you
want to fire a gun?’ Where else can you do that?”
Tucked inconspicuously between rice paddies and recently built garment
factories, the operations base of the Airborne Brigade 911 is also home
to an open-air shooting range.
There are other shooting ranges in Southeast Asia, like the one outside
Ho Chi Minh City, close to the Cu Chi tunnels, and in the popular Thai
resort of Ko Samui. Here, the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces Brigade 70
also has a public range on a military base.
But the Airborne Brigade’s range is Cambodia’s original and the only one
where tourists can walk around with weapons and fire fully automatic
guns.
A tuk-tuk ride to the range, about 15 kilometers, or 9 miles, outside
the capital, takes a visitor along National Road 4, through Phnom Penh’s
industrializing outskirts.
Diesel-guzzling trucks spurt vast plumes of black smoke as they career
past entire families of four and five traveling on single motorcycles.
In the late afternoon, rickety old trucks move along, their flatbeds
packed with scores of young female garment workers who, standing up,
have squeezed themselves on for the trip home. And along the roadside,
vendors sell sugar cane, fruit and noodles from ramshackle mobile carts.
Eventually, glimpses of Cambodia’s serene countryside of rice paddies
dotted with coconut trees start to appear through the concrete buildings
on the city’s edge.
A right turn off the main road onto a dirt track, and the tuk-tuk
bounces along for nearly a kilometer past vendors and Cambodian-style
coffee shops with plastic chairs. Eventually it stops at a walled
perimeter, where, nearly 15 years after Khmer Rouge forces surrendered
and peace officially returned to Cambodia, the distinctive crack of a
Kalashnikov can be heard echoing into the distance.
The entrance to the operations base of the Airborne Brigade, a special
forces unit, is far from what you would expect. On a recent visit, the
entrance was unmanned, closed off by just a flimsy metal chain. This
time a young soldier waves the tuk-tuk through.
Inside, children of the military personnel living in the base’s modest
wooden homes wave and shout “hello” to visitors, while cows and sheep
graze the lush fields nearby. Before reaching the shooting range,
visitors pass a rappelling tower, armored vehicles, some heavy
artillery, and a cage of three crocodiles.
At the range, soldiers in fatigues escort guests to a wall of firearms
that includes framed portraits of Prime Minister Hun Sen and Lt. Gen.
Chap Pheakdey, who commands the brigade.
A few meters away, eight shooting booths face standing targets adorned
with perforated beer cans and, behind, a five-meter-high earthen wall.
The firing range “was originally created to train the military, but
sometimes we have guests, and sometimes we don’t,” Brig. Gen. Moun
Sameth, the brigade’s deputy commander, said by telephone.
Firing 30 rounds from an AK-47 costs $40, while a drum of 30 bullets for
a submachine gun is $50. (Prices are in U.S. dollars, which is not
uncommon in Cambodia.)
Visitors willing to spend $120 can fire 100 rounds from an M-60 light
machine gun, a model once used by the U.S. military, or a Russian-made
K-57 L.M.G. And for $350, soldiers will transport a customer about 30
kilometers to military land in Kampong Speu Province to fire a B-40
rocket-propelled grenade launcher.
Visitors often talk about the odd, somewhat uncomfortable juxtaposition
of coming to the range after a trip to the Khmer Rouge-era S-21 prison
in Phnom Penh, where thousands were tortured and sent for execution at
the Choeung Ek killing fields on the capital’s outskirts. Also, the
range is across the road from the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts
of Cambodia, where the U.N.-supported trial of three former Khmer Rouge
leaders is continuing.
But for some Western tourists, who come from countries with strict
restrictions on the use of firearms, the temptation to shoot an
automatic machine gun or throw a grenade is simply too hard to resist.
David de Wolf, 24, a chef from Knokke, Belgium, arrived in Cambodia in
late October. Three days later, he found himself paying $20 for a duck
that he shot with an M-4 rifle.
“It was glorious — it was like jumping off a bridge for the first time
and surviving it,” Mr. de Wolf said over an Angkor Beer at a Phnom Penh
bar frequented by tourists and expatriates on Street 51. He said that
once the duck had died, a soldier carved it up and fed it to the
crocodiles in the cage near the range’s entrance.
“The Belgian laws are very strict right now,” he said. “It’s hard to get
a gun or go to the shooting range. But here, of course, money buys
everything.”
In fact, Steve Lee, an Australian songwriter and gun enthusiast, came to
Cambodia in October with 10 of his friends and spent $7,000 at the
range. He even talked the soldiers into letting them use a Russian-made
RPG-7 antitank grenade launcher to blow up a car.
Mr. Lee, who wrote the popular YouTube hit “I Like Guns” and recently
released a 12-song album on guns, has traveled to Cambodia five times to
visit the shooting range.
“When I first went there seven years ago, it was really, really raw, and
there’s still something real about it,” he said by telephone from
Parkes, Australia. “They’re just real people having a good time and
they’re making a living, but it’s done Cambodian style.”
Mr. Lee, however, says he does not condone the killing of animals. “My
philosophy is that I wouldn’t do it,” he said, adding that guns should
always be used responsibly.
Mr. Mars, the Swedish visitor, fired five different weapons during his
visit, including exploding a coconut with an M-4 assault rifle.
So, why did he do it?
“You don’t have that many chances to fire a gun,” he said, “and that’s what I’m doing.”
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