Two guards with machine guns who escort tourists to Banteay Srei Temple
About this photograph
- Creator
- Margery H. Freeman
- Date created
- May 1997
- Location
- Near Siem Reap, Cambodia
- License
- This photograph copyright ©1997. Terms of use
See this photograph in context
- East from India: Cambodia and Southern Vietnam: Photographs and text tell the story of the Cham and Khmer cultures of southern Vietnam and Cambodia, including a look at Angkor Wat and other great temples and cities. (Page 19)
Related media
Learn more
- Search LEARN NC for Banteay Srei Temple, Cambodia, crime, economy, guards, jobs, men's work, Siem Reap, tourism, transportation, and weapons.
In the classroom
- See our collection of articles on visual literacy for ideas on using photographs meaningfully in the classroom.
Two uniformed guards with automatic machine guns stand beside their red motorcycle on a dirt road near Siem Reap.
These young men made a living by escorting and protecting foreign tourists who wished to visit Banteay Srei Temple in 1997. Hiring the guards contained elements of bribery as it was designed to prevent anyone, including them, from robbing or harming the foreigners.
Cambodia became awash with weapons and burdened by distrust after its 1970s civil wars, which were linked to the Vietnam War. A brutal Communist regime called the Khmer Rouge ruled between mid-1975 and late 1978, killing and starving millions.
After the wars, the growing population experienced high rates of unemployment and poverty as well as trauma. Many young men turned to security or paramilitary careers where the lines between private protection, crime, and government corruption were very thin.
Recent efforts have been made to increase and improve Cambodia’s tourism industry in a joint effort to protect the sites around Angkor, and to improve the nation’s standards of governance, sustainable economy sectors, and job opportunities.
