The landmine situation in Mozambique is complicated to say the least. In fact I’m quite sure that I don't fully understand it myself. Here it is in a nutshell: In the 1970s there was a was a huge push for independence within the country. Mozambique was a Portuguese colony (they speak Portuguese here...who knew?!?!) and basically they wanted the Portuguese out. The Portuguese, who didn't want to leave, fortified their strongholds with land mines. Then, all at once the left, leaving the mines behind.
This left two Mozambican political parties/factions vying for control of the country. They fought a long drawn out civil war, a big part of which was the placement of landmines. The surrounding countries were implicated in this whole messy affair in some context or another. So, for a variety of reasons, they deemed it necessary to lay mines on the borders of Mozambique and their own countries. This includes South Africa, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi.
With so many different sides laying mines, one of the major issues is knowing where they all are. This brings about a very important point in the land mine problem. The ‘not knowing where they are’ creates a situation where even suspecting that there may be a mine in your area is equally as detrimental as if there actually were one. Mines do not rate very high here on causes of death. Certainly malaria, HIV/AIDS and car accidents rate higher.
However, if a farmer is not using his field because he thinks there is a land mine there, it is now an economic problem. He or she no longer has any way of supporting him or herself and the region is no longer benefiting from the food being produced. The kicker is, there doesn't even have to be one there, a suspicion of one is enough – and with so many different sides dropping them initially...who knows. This has equal implications when the suspected mine field is around a water well or bridge or any number of other socially important institutions - you name it.
Thus, it is not really the size of the mine field that dictates its severity and, consequently, the order in which it is attended to, but rather the implications its presence has on society. It is in way that Handicap prioritizes their mine clearance.
The mine field that I visited was right in the middle of a village and their coconut tree farm. It was well marked and, thanks to Handicap’s presence, there was no chance that one could accidentally stumble upon it. Signs such as this have been posted around the perimeter.
An issue that is prevalent in mine fields that are not currently being attended to is people are stealing the signs as house building material.
Mines are cleared in three stages. The first is this giant remote controlled tank thing drives over the land and pulverizes the underbrush. Maybe it rolls over a mine and sets it off....all the better....its remote controlled and built like a tank. Its main purpose is ground preparation for manual demining. Sort of like the machine that makes ripper trenches eh guys?
After the underbrush has been sufficiently cleared and moved to the sides, they bring in the dogs. Handicap International uses dogs for demining. They go through Mozambique's major cities by night collecting all the stray dogs. They then release them in mine fields and the dogs set off the mines thereby solving two problems at once.
I'm kidding, the dogs aren't heavy enough to trigger the mines, but they have been trained to smell them. It takes about nine months to sufficiently train a dog, and they usually use German Shepard's because they are the easiest to train. There is a Belgian company working out Inhambane called Apopo that uses rats. They also take about nine months to train.
After the dogs have been though comes the most tedious and dangerous part of the process – the manual demining. The manual deminers have an array of tools for digging, cutting and scratching away at the grass and earth, though they spend most of their time cutting grass.
They literally go over every square inch of the mine field with a metal detector in an incredibly slow, methodical fashion looking for mines or trip-wires for said mines. Often times they will come across inert metal fragments, which they will spend maybe an hour unearthing.
It is an incredibly mentally demanding job. They usually work for only 5 hours a day, and for no longer than an hour at a time. They live in a bush camp around the mine field. They bring their own cook and paramedic. Accidents are rare but they do happen. Handicap has never had an accident, though several years ago, one of the deminers stepped on a mine. Mines are made up of two charges, the detonator charge and the main charge. When you step on it, the detonator charge triggers the main charge. The mine that the aforementioned deminer stepped on was a dud and only the detonator charge went off. Lucky
Ok, that is it for now. If anyone has any questions or comments - feel free.
Cheers
Jesse
5 comments:
Jesse fantastic blog entry! I see the new camera is working really well for you the pictures are great. I am glad to hear that things are going so well. Any Christmas plans with Danny on the go yet? Andi
so.. the second to last photo.. are you like in the minefield taking that shot?
it was a long and skinny, so I was on the other edge of it
oh.... the old long and skinny.
landmine sniffing rats, eh? quite perplexing...did you know that rats won't eat a novel food until they've tasted it or smelled it in another rat's shit? Yep. I was training rats this summer- but not to sniff bombs. Rather, I was training them to sacrifice their lives so that rich americans could have medicine. Its a Jihad on a rodent-iary level.
-Aja
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