Run, run quickly!

10/2006 - Through Roots of Peace funding for demining in Afghanistan, we had helped to remove landmines in the Parwan Canal which allowed melted snows to flow down through ancient irrigation ducts bringing water to the vineyards for thousands of years. Yet, the cruelity of war deliberately mined these canals preventing the waters of life from flowing to the quenched villagers.

The Afghan deminer had spotted a LIVE landmine, and so we gathered around to observe the quiet demining techniques that were required to professionally identify and detonate this deadly seed of destruction. Silence. The deminer carefully excavated the area, and then held out a demining device similar to a hockey stick with a beeper at the end to identify the metal silently poised beneath the soil. The edges of the landmine were now evident, and we were invited down to the site to get a closer look with our camera crew. The magic "wand" was placed in my hands, and it was a frightening experience to silently wave the device back and forth across the soils as I heard the "beep, beep, beep..." indicating that we had found our deadly treasure.

The demining team was very professional. Yet there was an unforeseen emergency! The face of our guide went ashen white, and he shouted for all of us to run quickly as we retraced our footsteps out of the minefield. Villagers scattered into the hills! The camera crew captured this LIVE action on film, as a quiet pastoral setting of professional demining suddenly transformed into a potentially life or death situation.

Once safely beneath a tree located a safe distance away, the breathless deminer told us that we had come upon a rare "MS3" landmine. What did this mean? As he continued to explain, the normal anti-personnel landmines detonate with a minimum of eight pounds of pressure and traditionally riddle this region as the most common seeds of hatred beneath the soils. However, the "MS3" is a rare landmine that detonates as the soils are excavated. Half of the landmine was exposed, as the soils were slowly and gently removed by the deminer as I watched from less than two feet away. As the Soviet cyrillic lettering was exposed, he realized that it was capable of detonating at any moment by exposure to the air.

RUN, RUN QUICKLY! These words were translated in all languages! Due to the professional training of the deminer, I am here today to write these words on a computer with both English and Arabic lettering --trusting that my fingertips will accurately be able to reality that innocent families must experience every day as they live in landmine affected countries.

Sometimes, Friday the 13th is not so lucky for Afghan families living in landmine affected regions...