Mines to Chocolates™

July 22, 2010, Roots of Peace implements “private grant” to replace minefields with chocolates—a bittersweet ending to the war.

The legacy of war in Vietnam has riddled the country with the deadly threat of landmines, unexploded ordnance, and cluster munitions which remain in the ground decades after the war has ceased. Yet according to the U.S. Department of State and a Newsweek map printed in 2002, Vietnamese soil contains an estimated 300,000 UXO's and 3.5 million landmines TODAY—35 years AFTER the war officially ended on April 30, 1975.

A significant number of people missing limbs may be seen in the countryside and the city streets—often begging or selling lottery tickets to earn a living. It is not only bodily injuries and death that are the results of these buried seeds of hatred, but the threat of UXO munitions can discourage people from cultivating their land, which increases poverty and impedes regional development.

Future generations of Vietnamese farmers and families live a life which is held hostage by the perils of landmines—leading a lifestyle of forbidden footsteps as they strive to forge the land for food.

Roots of Peace seeks to replace the scourge of landmines and will train the Vietnamese farmers to grow high value crops such as cacao. Traveling to Vietnam earlier this year with my son, Tucker, evoked memories of the 1970's and DRAFT CARDS. Today, we are DRAFTING business models which will truly end the war, as we seek to transform former minefields into bountiful agricultural crops.

Meeting with key members of PACCOM, MARD and DARD, we were proud to receive formal approval from the Vietnamese government to work as an American NGO with respect to their agricultural potential—opening marketing and trade routes to benefit the Vietnamese farmers.

Roots of Peace visited proud farmers and families who have learned to demine their lands by themselves. One such farmer in Quang Tri province along the former DMZ at the end of the Ho Chi Minh Trail told me of his profession—carefully unwrapping copper from around cluster bombs—earning $3 per day to feed his family. He was a proud professional at his business, until one day a UXO exploded ripping his arms off and shattering his legs as his small children watched in horror while playing in the surrounding fields. His accident occurred only last August 2009—the result of bombs which were planted years before he was born.

As we visited his home for tea, he thanked us for helping to raise awareness to remove landmines in Quang Tri, a province where 87% of the land is riddled with landmines. Confined to his bedside, he brought his young daughter to sit on my lap—a gesture on behalf of mothers worldwide who share the horror of landmines. Demining this land will allow his children to enjoy the basic human right to safely play without the fear of kicking a ball into a minefield. With faith in the future, he mustered a broad smile amidst the pain of his healing bodily wounds.

As we ventured forth to meet other proud Vietnamese farmers who faced adversity with courage, we were led into a mushroom drying facility by a proud farmer who used wooden blocks to mobilize himself.

With great pride, he shared the fact that he built the entire mushroom drying facility with his own two hands—doubling and tripling his income as he stood tall on legs which were lost to landmines.

Continuing our visit further into the Quang Tri province in the Central Highlands, we were introduced to a mother of six children—four of whom were severely affected by Agent Orange, a dioxin-laced exfoliate sprayed from above to destroy crops and jungle cover.

Since 2001, both Vietnamese and American governments have worked to address potential environmental and health issues related to Agent Orange. In a recent statement this month by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who visited Hanoi on July 22, 2010, to mark the 15th Anniversary of normalizing U.S. Vietnamese relations, Clinton praised her hosts for their “extraordinary dynamic population and said it is a path to becoming a great nation with unlimited potential.” The U.S. also pledged $300 million for campaigns to address the lingering effects of Agent Orange. From tragedy comes hope, as these tender images embracing mothers and children who suffer each day will remain etched in my mind forever until viable solutions are found.

Once the landmines and UXO's are removed, Vietnam will be on a pathway towards becoming a great nation. Roots of Peace has established an agricultural program for intercropping the high value cacao trees beneath the shade of the lucrative cashew trees.

Introducing agricultural intercropping techniques, cashew trees serve as a natural umbrella for shade as the cacao is able to grow beneath the trees—doubling their yield and profit on Vietnamese farmland.

Vietnamese now invision a future where bountiful agricultural crops may flourish on lands once riddled by landmines and UXO's.

The Roots of Peace Demine~Replant~Rebuild™ model is taking root with Vietnamese farmers.

Today, in Vietnam, over 60% of the population is under the age of 30 years old—a future of hope.

Our Demine~Replant~Rebuild™ model proudly partners with The Friends of Hue Foundation to provide quality education for orphans who live in this historical city. Through our Roots of Peace Penny Campaign, which has already raised over 50 million pennies ($500,000) since the inception of the campaign in 2003 for the deserving children of Afghanistan, we aspire to expand our model to help Vietnamese children living in poverty to lift themselves up through the “gift of education.”

The sister city for San Francisco is Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). Now, is a golden opportunity to bridge borders across the ocean to plant the roots of peace in Vietnam...

Click HERE to read the Voice of America (VOA) article, “Project 'Mines to Chocolate' in Vietnam.”