Death Underfoot: Part 1

Landmines and Other Remnants of War

         It is early morning on the outskirts of Herat, and a black and white bird flies over rolling hills, sparsely populated with tall pine trees.   The first thing one might notice about this pastoral scene which would differ from such a rural American scene might be the presence of an old partially buried military vehicle, peacefully rusting as it has for years.   The second would be evenly spaced stones, placed over the landscape.  

         These are both markers that most people in Afghanistan would recognize, as would be piles of stones, painted stones, crossed sticks or a single stick placed in the ground, branches blocking a path, objects hanging from trees, animal skeletons, destroyed bridges, deserted villages, overgrown areas, farmland not being used; almost anything at all one might encounter.   They all can be indicators that there is something designed to kill or maim which will blow up if you go near it.

         Afghanistan is one of the world's countries most affected by landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXO).   For over 25 years, everybody from the Russians to the Americans have added to the amount of deadly stock (numbering in at least the tens of millions), and the impact is vast.

         The two basic categories of things hiding in or on the ground that can kill you break down into these categories; UXO are military ammunitions such as bombs, shells, mortars, grenades, rockets, etc. that have not yet exploded.   Landmines are booby traps, intentionally laid and left to go off when either a person or a vehicle gets close enough to be damaged by them.

         I walk down a path with a British landmine removal expert named Aldo Alderson, who points out explosives on either side of us, and can identify several different kinds at a distance.   He worked as a de-miner for the military for several years, but now coordinates mine/UXO removal in Herat for the French/Belgian organization Handicap International.

         He will be the first one to tell you that he can be gruff and verbally direct to the point of offending people, but he is professional and passionate about his work, and I think it takes a certain toughness to do the kind of work he does well.   I find him likable, and take note of the fact that he talks about his work mostly in terms of the civilians living nearby that the work is intended to protect.     

         Afghanistan is a nightmare for a de-miner for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that any given area can contain several different kinds of mines/UXO left by several different forces, over a 25 year period.  

         Some landmines will simply explode, some will blow shrapnel in a particular direction, and there are others such as "bounding mines" which shoot a device about three feet into the air which then detonates, shooting red hot fragments of jagged iron for up to 800 feet in all directions.   Some mines are buried, some are dropped by the thousands from helicopters, covering huge tracts of farmland.   Some have anti-tilt devices that make them explode when removal is attempted, and some are made mostly of plastic, and won't be noticed by metal detectors.  

         Removing landmines is a dangerous and time consuming process, and though it can cost as little as $.75 to produce one, it can cost $1000.00 to remove one.

         The path we are on has old buried Russian bunkers on either side, still filled with the munitions they were built to store.   Piles of everything from grenades to anti-aircraft rockets surround us in piles several feet high, and large patches of the area have been identified as a minefield.   We trod along with body armor vests and helmets with face shields.   Aldo laughs and points out where he spotted a tripwire attached to an explosive on either side, when he was first scouting the path on foot.

         He motions for me to be quiet and he turns a corner suddenly, surprising the Afghani staff of de-miners that he is in charge of, to make sure they're doing the work the way they should be.   They're on the side of a steep hill, removing corroding UXO from the nineteen-seventies.   He starts to talk to some of the workers about what they've been finding while I walk among them, snapping photos.   Aldo lets me enter the cave-like entrance of the bunker that they just started excavating the day before.   He tells me not to touch the roof, "so the whole goddamn thing doesn't collapse".   I try to sidestep anything metal in the loose dirt, and stand on a large rock or a secure metal beam whenever possible.

         De-miners prefer to use a backhoe in an area like this, as the huge metal machine affords some protection from explosions.   One isn't available today, so they are doing the risky and painstaking work of shuffling dirt around with shovels, and removing mortar after mortar by hand.   Sometimes a box of bullets or large shells is found, sometimes a grenade.   Directly below us are literally tons of UXO.

         As we leave to visit where thousands of tons of removed mines and UXO are stored, Aldo voices his pleasure with how the men were working.   He's a tough boss, but he cares about his staff. As he likes to say, "I must be doing something right, 'cause I've been doing this for a lot of years, and I still have all my fingers and toes."

*Post-Script: Three months after this was written, Aldo's right leg was blown to pieces by an Israeli anti-personnel mine in southern Lebanon, while trying to rescue a Lebanese shepherd trapped in a minefield.   He was on a UN mission to clear mines, cluster bombs, and UXO laid during the Hezbollah-Israel War.