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by Oren Schlein, Executive Director, Adopt-A-Minefield®

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A mine field is a difficult concept to grasp without having visited a range of sites. There are so many physical characteristics to mine fields, differing types of terrain, and varying climatic conditions in which to undertake clearance operations. On the last day of our visit to Kabul, we visited the village of Pashaye, a two-hour drive from the capital.

The Dara-i-Pashaye valley, in which Pashaye is located, was one of the most fertile areas I visited during my Afghan travels. It was green, agriculturally productive, and clearly not affected by the drought that has devastated so much of the rest of Afghanistan. Afghan Technical Consultants (ATC), the country’s largest demining organization, had cleared much of the agricultural land in the valley, which has been returned to the villagers. They were now hard at work clearing the rocky hills above.

On the day of our visit, ATC had found three anti-personnel landmines. As we sat in our vantage point halfway up the hill, we observed more than 20 deminers carefully sweeping the ground with their metal detectors, occasionally crouching down to clear the earth around a suspected mined area. The deminers faced two big problems. The hills were steep and the deminers were susceptible to accidents if not careful, and the soil itself was hard and comprised of stones of high metallic content. The metallic content slowed down the clearance process considerably because they triggered false alarms, each one requiring the deminers to manually check the ground for mines. It was by far the most perilous mine field that I have seen cleared over the past several years.

There is a very sad footnote to this story. Several days after our visit, we received news that one of the ATC deminers had slipped while unearthing a suspected mine in these same hills above Pashaye. The deminer lost part of his leg. Until this accident, MAPA had not suffered any demining casualties in 2001, a significant drop from the 11 accidents in 2000. It was a solemn moment for the entire demining community in Afghanistan.

Early in the morning of July 6th, we left the UN guesthouse in Kabul for the five-hour drive to Jalalabad, Afghanistan’s easternmost city, about an hour’s drive from the Pakistan border. The road was better than most in Afghanistan, even though more than half of it was still unpaved. We caught glimpses of many unexploded ordnance, including artillery shells and rockets, lying by the side of the road and high up in the hills above us. Jalalabad is distinctly different from Kabul. It is greener, more relaxed, and in some respects more animated than the capital city. It is also much hotter and more humid than Kabul. In more prosperous times, Jalalabad was a holiday retreat from Kabul.

We met officials from the Regional Mine Action Centre for the Eastern Region, who discussed the mine contamination problem in the area. As throughout Afghanistan, the Russians and the Mujahedeen both laid mines during the Soviet occupation. After the departure of Russian forces, the UN estimated that there was 131km² of mined land, including 110km² of high priority land, which needed to be cleared to enable refugees to return to their homes and existing populations to cultivate their land. To date, 60 percent of the high priority areas in the Eastern Region have been cleared, more than 70,000 mines and 91,000 UXO have been destroyed, and nearly three million metal fragments found. In addition, more than 1.2 million people have received mine awareness instruction.

One of the key challenges facing the international landmine community is to develop national capacities for local mine action organizations to manage their own programs without disproportionate external assistance. The Mine Action Programme for Afghanistan has illustrated the success of this approach over the past 12 years. In 1990, when the program officially started, there were a few hundred deminers assisted by dozens of international technical advisors. Today, there are nearly 5,000 Afghan deminers and program managers, assisted by less than a dozen expatriates.

In Jalalabad, we visited three Adopt-A-Minefield® sites along the former frontline between the Mujahedeen and Russian troops. The area witnessed heavy fighting and considerable casualties. Hills and mountainous terrain run along a North-South corridor known for its abundant production of poppies. The poppy trade has been one of the greatest sources of income for Afghanistan in recent years, furnishing a vast amount of the world’s heroin supply. In 2000, Mullah Omar, the spiritual leader of the Taliban, ordered that all poppy crops in the region be destroyed and replaced with wheat. On this blisteringly hot, sunny July afternoon, as we drove through the villages of Nangarhar province, there were no poppy fields in sight.

One of the villages we visited, Lala Qala, had been a base for the Mujahedeen fighters attacking Russian positions in the hills. The area had witnessed 50 mine incidents and in a 22,000m2 area of agricultural land that had recently been cleared, deminers had found 26 anti-personnel landmines and three unexploded ordnance, as well as nearly 20,000 metal fragments. It took 35 days to clear the area, benefiting 400 people from the local village. Aiding their efforts, the deminers relied upon a mechanical backhoe excavator. Unlike manual clearance efforts or mine detection dogs, mechanical mine clearance can be significantly faster, although proportionately more expensive. Although mechanical mine clearance is the least cost effective clearance tool, the deminers lower costs by using

This area between Kabul and Jalabad is one of the few not to have suffered from Afghanistan's recent drought.

Afghan machines and spare parts. Although not appropriate for all terrain, the excavator is ideally suited for the flat agricultural fields and irrigation canals of Lala Qala.

Herat: 8-10 July 2001

Herat is unlike either Kabul or Jalalabad ¾ it’s a beautiful, desolate desert town. As we flew into Herat, all we could see for miles was a barren, dusty wasteland. It was hard to imagine that the terrain could support any life. Unexpectedly, the city appeared like an oasis in the distance. While its outer perimeter blended into the outlying desert, the city itself was remarkably green and lush, with handsome minarets and mosques dotting the city center.

The UN security officer at the UN guesthouse informed us that there were all sorts of Afghan factions in the mountains around Herat who were fighting each other. At times, these factions allied themselves against the Taliban. There was a major Taliban base south of the city and there were major security threats to the east and south. In fact, the local militia had erected large roadblocks and the threats were so severe that the Taliban rarely ventured along the main road east of Herat anymore. The west was relatively quiet because of a large Taliban presence, and the north experienced some limited activity.

Upon inquiring, I was informed that there was no evidence that either the Taliban or local militia were laying mines in the Western Region. Nevertheless, large numbers of mines left over from the 1980s threatened the local populations, the Kuchi (nomad) tribes, and the 95,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) living in the area. There were six IDP camps near Herat and large Kuchi populations that moved about frequently in search of arable land, as the drought was particularly severe in western Afghanistan. Awareness of the mine problem was limited in Herat. In the past two years, mines had injured 15 IDPs, three in 2001 alone, and these are only the reported cases.

The Organisation for Mine Clearance and Afghan Rehabilitation (OMAR) is among those organizations that has conducted comprehensive mine awareness instruction throughout the region in an effort to educate the population and help stem the tide of mine victims. One afternoon, we visited an outdoor mine awareness class on the main road out of Herat. At least 50 children were in attendance. The collection of materials, including silkscreen posters and coloring books, was impressive given the limited resources. We had also hoped to see a women’s mine awareness class, but the local Taliban officials even forbade the Western female in our party from attending.

We visited five minefields while in Herat, but the most memorable was Kuhkst, about 25 kilometers south of the Turkmenistan border. As we approached Kuhkst, a sand storm descended upon us and we were overcome by a sand swell, which didn’t let up for 15 minutes. Apparently, both sides of the road were mined. It was hard to imagine that this agricultural land was viable given the harsh conditions. Yet, the soil has such unique properties that they could grow rain-fed crops. I found myself in a field of sunflowers and melons, although I couldn’t see more than five feet in front of me. In spite of the strong winds and sand storms, manual deminers had been clearing the entire area ¾ a seemingly impossible task. It once again illustrated the perseverance and courage of the deminers.

Along the main road leading into Herat are several villages that were heavily mined during the Soviet occupation, including the village of Deza. It is located next to an old Russian munitions dump, which the Mujahedeen blew up during the war. The ensuing fire burned for three days and three nights. In all, 14 people were injured and eight killed. The explosions also destroyed many homes. Years after this incident, the villagers of Deza and four nearby villages continue to suffer from the presence of mines. There have been several mine accidents and much land is unusable. During recent clearance operations, deminers found more than 300 UXO and 48 anti-personnel landmines in the area immediately adjacent to the old munitions depot. As we walked through the village, debris, including old burned out tanks, was strewn everywhere. Red stones and red flags marked those areas where mines had been found, some as close as five or ten meters from village homes. Several children

The village of Haji Basher was a former Russian military base along the main transit route from Pakistan

greeted us during our visit. They played in areas that had been cleared by the deminers, although it was evident that so long as some of this land remained mined, there was an accident waiting to happen.

A few miles closer to Herat is a compound belonging to one of the city’s prominent religious elders, Eamaddin, who has more than 200 followers. During the war, Russian forces used his large, luxurious house as a military base and also conducted heavy aerial bombings of the area. The site changed hands many times between the Russians and Mujahedeen. What remains today are some external walls and the façade of some of the houses within the compound. The area is so heavily contaminated with mines that none of Eamaddin’s family are able to return to their homes. Of the eight families that lived here before the war, six families are refugees in Iran, and two families have returned to Herat to rebuild the compound once it has been cleared of mines. Eighty family members in all hope to move back after demining operations are completed later this year. Wahid Duddin, Eamaddin’s son, lives on the edge of the compound with his two sons and wife in a new house that he has built until he can move back into his old home. They are literally living in a live mine field. In 1995, an anti-personnel landmine killed one of Wahid’s relatives and injured another when they entered the compound.

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