캄보디아 이야기 95 | 캄보디아 프놈펜 총기 사건

캄보디아 내 총기 사건

 

얼마 전, 주말부터 월요일까지 합쳐 긴 연휴가 있던 밤. 늦은 시간까지 깨어 있었는데 갑자기 집 밖에서 뭔가가 탕-탕-탕!! 터지는 소리가 났다. 아직까지도 그 정체를 확실히 알 수는 없지만 본능적으로 총소리라는 생각이 들었다. 내가 살고 있는 집은 큰 도로에 있기 때문에 구석진 골목 집들에 비해 상대적으로 안전한 곳이긴 하지만, 총소리 같은 소리가 들리자 제일 먼저 생각난 것이 집 문이 잠겨 있는지, 침대 밑으로 숨어야 하는 것은 아닌지.. 등등의 생각이 순식간에 머리를 스쳤다.

 

총소리가 타다닥 나고서는... 사람들의 웅성거리는 소리.. 호루라기 소리.. 경찰차 소리.. 앰뷸런스 소리.. 가 연달아 들려왔다. 무슨 일이 나긴 났구나 싶었는데 도저히 문을 열고 밖으로 나가기가 두려웠다.

 

다음날 아침 거리는 간밤에 무슨 일이 있었나 싶었을 정도로 평화롭기만 했다.

 

그리고 얼마 후. 피트니스 클럽에 가서 사이클링을 하며 프놈펜 포스트 신문을 보게 되었다. 사설란에 아래와 같은 기사가 실린 것을 보고 깜짝 놀랐다.

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Guns put us all in peril

04 January 2013 By Tong Soprach

 

In the 2008 Cambodian census, the gender ratio was 94.7 males to every 100 females. The main cause of this discrepancy was the civil war more than three decades ago.

 

 

 

 

A boy checks out an anti-gun sculpture in Phnom Penh. Photograph: Heng Chivoan/Phnom Penh Post

Other reasons include the fact that men are employed in more dangerous fields of work, and that many men die prematurely from smoking-related causes and alcohol abuse.

 

But men also die at the hands of criminals and as a result of illegal gun use.

 

Why is our Royal Government so careless about controlling firearms?

 

According to an Interior Ministry report, Cambodia’s overall crime rate decreased during the first eight months of 2012, but there was a four per cent increase in the number of armed robberies and a five per cent rise in murders.

 

What is also worrying is that 1200 military personnel left their bases to go to their villages, and took military equipment with them.

 

In 2012, 2500 people nationwide were killed in violent crimes.

 

Even though the number of deaths in crimes of violence fell, the figure remains scarily high.

 

And that figure excludes cases involving senior government officials, high-ranking officers and people from rich families.

 

Gun-related deaths and injuries are often eliminated from these statistics.

 

Often the perpetrators are living free, as happened in the Chhouk Bandeth case and the 

tragic death of Chhut Vuthy.

 

So-called crackdowns on guns are like brief showers of rain.

 

There’s a shooting every day in Phnom Penh, yet before the recent ASEAN summit, officials announced in the media that because security had to be beefed up, thieves were not to steal and criminals could not use guns for several days.

 

This ploy was laughable but effective, and the summit was calm. But after it finished, the shootings in beer gardens, clubs and karaoke lounges suddenly resumed.

 

Generally, police arrest shooters to show their achievements.

 

But in the case of children of rich, high-ranking and well connected men who use illegal guns, the police ignore them because of who their parents are.

 

Often the causes of these spontaneous shootings are petty arguments or love triangles.

 

Take a case earlier this year in which a Cambodian student who had been studying in the US came back to visit his family.

 

He was shot to death one night by a young man who was a former boyfriend of the student’s new girlfriend.

 

The perpetrator, who fled the scene, was laster identified as a high-ranking official’s son.

 

Sometimes, police and local newspapers turn a blind eye by intervening and taking money from the perpetrator’s family.

 

These families do not want news of these crimes to reach Hun Sen, who has warned that these people will lose their titles or positions and stars if they cannot prevent their children committing crimes with illegal weapons.

 

Similarly, officials whose use guns illegally to shoot civilians are sent to the police or military police for punishment; they very rarely go through the court system.

 

Where is the equality under law?

 

After the first post-civil war election in 1993, illegal gun use was highly visible. Many people hired bodyguards who shot people as easily as in a cowboy movie.

 

The Newtown, Connecticut school massacre has caused politicians and policymakers around the world to re-start the debate on legal gun use.

 

In the early 2000s, the Royal Government took measures to destroy old guns and collect arms from Cambodian citizens.

 

The state did a good job of controlling gun use and attempting to change the public’s views on firearms, as we can see from the sculpture of a tied-up gun on a roundabout near Phnom Penh’s Japanese Bridge.

 

So why is gun-related violence rising almost every day? Where do the thugs and gangsters get these weapons from? Do they buy them on the black market, or do they take them from parents who are in the police or the military?

 

Last year, Chhoeun Chantha, the chief of Senate president Chea Sim’s bodyguard, was arrested and accused of hiding illegal weapons in his house. Authorities collected lots of arms, big and small.

 

Why do private-company security guards also use firearms and wear military uniforms?

 

Even though Cambodia has never experienced a school massacre like the one in the US two weeks ago, there is a lot of random gun use, which makes people fear for their security. As well, a majority of illegal gun owners are not dealt with under the law.

 

Sometimes the public questions why the Premier was able to put an end to the Khmer Rouge menace, but hasn’t been able to control gun use as he did in 2000.

 

Last August and September, I visited nine states in the US, where many states allow people to buy guns legally.

 

On that trip, I saw banner advertisements outside stores proclaiming: “WE SELL GUNS!”

 

In each of those nine states, I watched television programs that openly debated gun control and invited viewers to provide feedback and criticise police face to face over the lack of community security.

 

When will local authorities and police in this country openly enter a debate with citizens on our own community security?

 

And when will it take part in helping to reduce the unnecessary deaths of so many Cambodian men?

Tong Soprach is a social-affairs columnist for the Post’s Khmer edition. 

 

 

(출처 : www.phnompenhpost.com)

 

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지난달 미국 코네티컷(Connecticut) 주에서 있었던 총기난사 사건을 생각하며, 한국과 캄보디아는 가끔씩 총기난사 사건이 있긴 하지만 그래도 미국보다는 상대적으로 참 평안한 나라라고 안도랄까.. 그 평안함에 감사하다는 생각을 하고 있었는데, 캄보디아에서도 총기난사 사건은 내가 생각했던 것보다 꽤 그 건수가 높은 모양이다. 하긴 얼마 전에도 우리 센터 현지인 직원의 여동생이 학교 가는 길에 총 가진 강도에 당하는 어떤 여성을 보고 두려움에 벌벌 떨며 학교에 가지도 못하고 집으로 다시 돌아왔다는 이야기를 듣긴 했었다.

 

크메르 루즈 정권이 막을 내리고 회수되지 못한 총들은 캄보디아의 고위 인사들을 중심으로 분포되어 있다. 그리고 그 총들은 그 자녀 세대로 전수되고 있다. 그 총들을 가지고 사람들은 때때로 범죄를 저지른다. 현지 신문이나 현지인 직원들의 말에 의하면 캄보디아 사람들이 다투거나 상대방에게 상해를 입히거나, 살인, 또는 자살하는 주된 이유는 사랑, 삼각관계에 의한 상처라고 한다.

 

그런데 고위급 자녀들의 범죄는 언론에 드러나지 않으며, 재판에 가거나 형을 사는 것에서도 많은 부분 면죄가 된다고 한다. 범행이 권력에 의해 면죄되고 가려지는 시스템 속에서 자라난 고위급 자녀들의 소위 '엘리트'들은 세습에 의해 이 나라를 이끌어나갈 미래 일꾼, 리더가 될 확률이 높다.

 

캄보디아의 부정부패의 세습이 끊어지고, 국민을 위한 정치를 할 사람, 나라에 대한 사명감과 정말 바른 생각을 가진 리더가 세워져서 캄보디아 사회에 빛과 희망을 줄 수 있기를 소망한다.

 

10 Jan 2013