3.5 Village Survey Procedures

Each village was visited by one two-man survey detachment. One member of the detachment conducted the interview while the other recorded information in a diary and produced sketches when required.

Procedures are documented in the project's Standard Operating Procedures.

In most villages, the village chief was the first person interviewed. When absent from the village the deputy village chief was interviewed. If both were absent the detachment moved to survey the next village and returned to conduct the interview on a day when the village chief was present.

Kampong Chhnang Province: (Translated by Kan Vibol) A village chief in Pong Ror Commune reported suspected mined areas in his village. But when we surveyors asked the villagers about these suspected areas, all of them said there are no minefields anymore as they had all been cleared. The village chief was lying. The reason he did not tell the truth was because he wanted CMAC to clear the trees and vegetation from the land he owned. Clearing trees and vegetation is always the first step to take before mines can be cleared from the land. (By: Thy Bunthon, Team Leader T3)

Uncontaminated Villages

If the village chief informed surveyors that the village did not contain mine or UXO contaminated areas, the information was recorded on the Village Survey Form and confirmed as true or false by interviewing two additional residents of the village.

If the additional respondents confirmed that the village was uncontaminated, suveyors used hand-held GPS units to record the UTM co-ordinates of the village chief's house (referred to as the 'village point') as well as co-ordinates of a more permanent feature in or near the village such as a pagoda, school or large bridge (referred to as the 'village landmark').

Surveyors also questioned the village chief and two additional respondents as to any spot UXO contamination in the village. Descriptions of the type of UXO and quantities present were recorded on a Spot UXO Form prior to moving on to the next village to be surveyed.

On average, approximately 45-60 minutes were required to complete the survey in uncontaminated villages.

If one or both of the additional respondents interviewed disagreed with the village chief and stated that the village was contaminated with mine or UXO areas, a full survey was carried out in that village.

Otdor Mean Chey Province (Translated by Keo Vuthy) We went to survey one village in Konn Kriel commune of Samrong district. After we arrived at the village we started to interview the chief and some other villagers. They told us there were a lot of mines, but they didn't want to tell us where minefields are unless we gave them Thai Baht 10,000 (about US$250.00). We continued talking to them and told them that that if they didn't want to make a report to us about the mines, they would have to keep them in their village. We did remind them the victims are the village people. After that, the chief of the village and many of his neighbours did tell us where all the minefields are located, but still there were some who refused to inform us about the minefields. These people said that if we wanted to know about minefields, then we should recruit them to work with us. To these people we said goodbye and looked for other people to report to us, including the deputy chief of the village. He was very cooperative so that in the end we did get a complete report for this village despite the selfishness of some of the people living there. (Mith Sarith and Chhoun Samnal, DT33)

Contaminated Villages

If the information provided by the village chief indicated that the village did contain mined or UXO areas a comprehensive survey was undertaken in the village.

Information on village population, village poverty, impact of contaminated areas, conflict history and previous mine action in the village was recorded on the Village Information Form.

A village sketch showing salient features in and around the villages such as roads, bridges, schools, pagodas, military installations, topographic features and mined or UXO areas was produced for each contaminated village. The location and UTM coordinates of the village point and village landmark were also indicated on the village sketch.

Banteay Mean Chey Province (Translated by Chau Touch San) In Tam Mang village, Tmor Pork district. it was very difficult to draft the village sketches due to lack of information on the village boundary. Some of the local people had moved from nearby villages and were using land inherited from their parents for rice production. Land in this village is sometimes controlled by people in far off villages. When they reported to us about landmines we had to be careful to know for sure which village they were telling us about. Some people had no interest in the situation in this particular village, but did want to talk about land they have in other villages. The problem we had to avoid was the possibility of double counting. This we were able to do, but only by comparing all the village questionnaires and sketch maps that had been recorded from within this Commune. (By: Long Sophorn, Team Leader T1)

Information provided by the village chief regarding actual or suspected contaminated areas was recorded on the Village Information Form. Surveyors would then identify and interview at least three residents of the village who live close to, or are in some way directly affected by each distinct mined or UXO area reported. Where possible, surveyors aimed to interview respondents of different gender, age and socio-economic class.


Information on the location, nature and history of the area, vegetation type, terrain type and soil type for each contaminated or suspect area was recorded on the Suspected Mined (UXO) Area Form.

Memot District, Kampong Cham (Translated by Mom Chan Komoth) Sometimes villagers’ sense of humour gives us a new perspective on the questionnaire. On this occasion we were interested in the history of conflict in the area, but the conflict in Cambodia took place thirty years ago and people find it difficult to answer the questions. When we asked the village chief which parties bombed his village he clearly could not remember. Instead of saying that he did not know he responded by saying, “who knows they were in the sky!” (By: Norm Sinath, Team Leader T4 and Surveyors)

Data recording the ways in which each mined or UXO area impacts on the community were recorded on a Socio-economic Impact Form.

Bio-data on mine/UXO casualties (if any) in each of the mined (UXO) areas was recorded on the Mines / UXO Victims Form.

A suspected area sketch map was produced. UTM co-ordinates for a benchmark (a point close to but at a safe distance outside the mined or UXO areas were recorded and shown on the village sketch. Polygons representing the contaminated mined or UXO areas were also plotted on 1:50,000 scale topographic maps.

Descriptions and quantities of spot UXO and/or non-impacting cluster bombed areas affecting the village were recorded on the UXO In Village Form.

All respondents were asked to look at the village sketch to ensure that it was representative of the situation in the village and that all contaminated areas had been identified and indicated.

On average, the complete survey of a contaminated village took a full day to complete. Depending on the degree of contamination affecting a village, the survey could be completed in as short a time as a half day, or in some instances, as long as 3 days per village.

Pursat Province: (Translated by Kan Vibol) When we worked in Pursat at O Ta Pong commune we had a very difficult time because it was late in the rainy season and the area around the Tonle Sap Lake was badly flooded. Not only was it difficult to travel, but when we arrived in the commune the village was empty. All of the villagers had left their homes and moved to higher land to escape the floodwaters. In fact they were all living on the highway, which was the only dry land available that was not flooded. This caused problems for us in finding the villagers and the village chiefs, meeting with them and carrying out a proper interview. In the end after we identified those people from a village to be interviewed we took them by boat back to the village and interviewed them there so they could show us their villages. Most importantly, the surveyors took a lot of time to survey the villages in this commune because we had to travel from one place to another by boats, because rain fell from the sky from morning till night. (By: Phun Saroeun, Team Leader T1)

Documentation

Upon return to the team accommodations, surveyors ensured that all necessary documentation was in order before submitting the completed survey report to their team leaders. Team Leaders checked the reports for omissions and conducted 20% field checks to ensure data accuracy before in turn submitting the reports to the field office for further field checking by the operations team (1% field checks) and review by the Field Editors.

A surveyor finalises a form prior to submission

Field Editors screened the reports for common errors identified by the database staff or by team leaders, operations managers or the QA/QC team undertaking field checks. Once the reports for all villages within a district were checked, the package of reports was handed on to the QA/QC team who conducted an additional 3% field check of the questionnaires before they were finally submitted to the database unit.

Missing, incomplete or inaccurate information identified at any stage throughout this process was corrected by a review of information contained in the surveyors' diaries relative to the village in question or if necessary a revisit to the village by the detachment who originally conducted the survey.

Battambang Province: (Translated by Kan Vibol) A big problem for us happened at Ba Lang and other villages in Tip Ba Day commune, Kors Kra Lor district. This was an area with a lot of new villages with new village chiefs. When we asked the chief of this village about his land area he did not know where it started and ended. So we went to the next village expecting that the chief would be able to tell us how far his village extended from which we could determine the limits of the first village. This village chief was also new to the village and did not know where his village started and stopped. Eventually, we asked the commune leader to decide where the village limits are for most of the villages in this commune. (By: Long Sophorn, Team Leader T1)

Ensuring all necessary documentation is in order