My name is Dylan. I am a student at BYU and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. These blog entries are posted weekly as a project in my Writing and Rhetoric course at school. They are posted with the hopes that the reader might be made more aware of these people and their unfortunate circumstances. If you wish to do your part to help, please visit this site: www.ldsphilanthropies.org
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Landmines - Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time
Photograph by Sebastião Salgado
Most of us would agree that to end a devastatingly-long and destructive conflict would be a blessing. This tends to be the case - but not 100% of the time. This photograph of Sebastião Salgado’s is documented proof of how the end of a conflict does not always bring about the end of the pain. In this picture are two Angolan women who have lost their legs as a result of the landmines left behind in Angola’s earth from its civil war. Injuries such as these are unfortunately very common today in Angola and throughout various parts of the world.
The Angolan Civil War first began in 1975 and ended a total of 27 years later in 2002. It would be ideal to say that the difficulties in Angola ended in 2002 after an estimated 500,000 people had been killed, but the war’s leftover landmines still prevent the difficulties from subsiding. An article featured in BBC News claims that, “Angola is among the worst land-mine affected countries in the world” (Mynott). This same article brought up statistics, and they were not pretty. The article stated that while no one really knows exactly how many landmines are buried in Angola, “Some experts say it may be somewhere between 500,000 and one million, others say there may be as many as six million” (Mynott). Hundreds of Angolan civilians may have been killed while 80,000 may have been injured.
In addition to all of the death and injuries caused directly by the landmines, development of the nation is also paused indefinitely for now. Refugees who fled their homes are too afraid to return. An article on the AmericanUniversity’s website states that, “Landmines are also causing difficulties for the Angolan government as it attempts to incorporate democracy and rebuild the shattered country with as little social discontent as possible.In short, there is total disruption to human life and the environment” (Morris).
It’s troubling to think about the situation Angola now faces. I doubt that those involved in the civil war over 30 years ago realized that planting landmines would cause the mess that haunts Angola’s soil today. I guess it just seemed like a good idea at the time.
I cannot imagine what it would be like to be afraid that every step you took could be your last. In my sophomore year of high school, I led a "Landmine Awareness" day for the school. I really learned a lot about how much it affects those third-world countries and how it hinders the government from really moving forward. It is just so sad! It really goes to show how much out actions now affect the future. Thank you for the post!
Photograph by Sebastião Salgado
I cannot imagine what it would be like to be afraid that every step you took could be your last. In my sophomore year of high school, I led a "Landmine Awareness" day for the school. I really learned a lot about how much it affects those third-world countries and how it hinders the government from really moving forward. It is just so sad! It really goes to show how much out actions now affect the future. Thank you for the post!
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