I never saw Danaan Parry socially. I never saw him operate in the field. I only met him
three times in the hurly-burly environment of the work-a-day Pentagon. Yet he made an
impression on me that will drive me as long as I am privileged to work toward the
elimination of landmines as a threat to innocents around the world.
Danaan did not care to label or prejudge others involved in the demining world; he felt
that there was plenty of work to go around and many roles to be filled. He did not
disparage the military role in eliminating the landmine menace, in spite of the combat
role in laying many of them, nor did he criticize contractors or large non-governmental
organizations that hold the prospects of profits and donors respectively as important.
Danaan could see the big picture and exuded a contagious enthusiasm and optimism that
made a person want to check his or her parochial interests at the door. He truly believed
that, by working together, we could all contribute to improving humanitarian demining
efforts.
Danaan, however, was not such an idealist that he believed that he could wish away the
complexities of the demining threat or of the human problems and antagonisms that
threaten stability and peace throughout the world. He merely made us aware of his
mission, forged the road ahead, and plunged into doing good.
As the Director of Earthstewards Network, Danaan worked towards the double-noble
goal of converting devastated land to productive land by having disenfranchised groups,
or those with habitual friction toward one another, work together. As he was the first to
acknowledge, the twenty Earthstewards PeaceTrees projects did not always result in
immediate amelioration of cultural conflicts. But there is no doubt that–through his
skills in conflict-resolution, his ability to foster personal empowerment, and his great
sensitivity to the human context at the center of the humanitarian demining
effort–Danaan made a direct positive difference in the lives of the participants, while
leaving behind renewed land as a tangible result of such efforts.
Danaan's last project, PeaceTrees Vietnam, was–and remains–perhaps the most
dramatic of these efforts. In spite of diplomatic and policy difficulties, Danaan and his
wife Jerilyn Brusseau created a PeaceTrees project in the heart of Quang Tri Province
(part of the Demilitarized Zone) in Vietnam with the help of both U.S. Vietnam veterans
and Vietnamese militia. The program, which boasts a mine awareness as well as a train-
the-trainer component, has allowed forty participants from around the world to work with
forty Vietnamese counterparts in clearing and rejuvenating the land to create the
Friendship Forest Park. This effort epitomized the Parry approach to problem solving:
go to the heart of the problem and use direct methods in a straightforward attempt to right
wrongs.
Danaan Parry died suddenly of a heart attack on November 14, 1996, in the midst of one
of his life's great challenges. Jerilyn and John Boyden are keeping his vision alive at
PeaceTrees, but we must share his vision as well. As we launch The Journal of
Humanitarian Demining, we dedicate it and ourselves to the principles which Danaan
Parry espoused and lived: fairness, open-mindedness, a direct and frank approach to
challenges, and a spirit of participation which does not allow for an "on-the-sidelines"
approach to demining–or life. Danaan, in his book, Warriors of the Heart described the
attributes of a peaceful warrior. He was unwittingly describing himself. We should try
to make it a description of ourselves as well.
