Joao Ndjakosoma is not talking today; since he and his friend got lost coming back from the beach and walked into a minefield by accident 20 years ago, he started suffering debilitating epileptic fits.
Yesterday, he had a particularly violent one, biting through his tongue and lower lip — but at least he is alive, unlike his friend who was killed by a mine and whose name no one in Salinas really remembers anymore. Just like no one in Salinas remembers why the Angolan government sowed thousands of PMN-1 anti-personnel landmines on the beaches in 1982.
Some suggest that it was to deter a sea-borne South African invasion that never happened; others suggest that landmines were used just as much as a psychological threat as a physical one. Hendrik Ehlers, of the landmine-clearing NGO Menschen gegen Minen (MgM), says: ‘It is not the thousands of mines that you do find that is the real fear,†he said. ‘It is those dozen or so that you don’t,†which result in areas remaining off-limits for people desperate to return home after 40 years of war.
After 11 years in landmine clearing in Angola and with 16 projects all over the country, MgM keep on hearing about other minefields, some right next to ones it has previously cleared.
According to a recent report of Human Rights Watch’s Landmine Monitor, Salinas, which lies along southern Angola’s Atlantic coastline, is just one of 1 900 communities in the country that are affected by landmines.
Tchova Luis, the local administrator at nearby Bentiaba, admitted that clearing the Salinas minefield was ‘probably not†a provincial priority right now. With elections scheduled for next year, respect for the symbols of state was clearly a more important issue; six times the amount that is spent on housing is to be spent in the current financial year on improving ‘local edifices of state†according to a notice posted outside Luis’s office.
Greed, incompetence and politics have slowed down the central government’s response as well. The National Institute for the Removal of Obstacles and Explosive Engines, the state agency responsible for coordinating landmine clearance, was scrapped in 2004 for ‘losing the confidence of its implementing partners and donors,†according to the Landmine Monitor’s most recent publication.
In its place three new entities were created; the main coordinating body, the Executive Commission for DeÂmining, says there is an annual budget of $110million and nearly 3 000 sappers drawn from the former armed forces. Created as a logistical support arm for the upcoming elections, it reports directly to the ministry of assistance and social reinsertion and the office of the president of Angola, which decides what areas are demined first.
The result of increased bureaucracy has been a slowing-down in both local and international efforts to clear the landmines. In 2005, only 14,2km2 of land and 688km of road were opened after being demined. Foreign donors last year cut direct aid to landmine clearing in half to €35-million, saying that the Angolan government should use some of its massive oil revenues to address the problem.
Luanda now also looks sure to miss the 10-year deadline under the 1997 Ottawa Agreement to destroy all existing stockpiles. Angola has been asking for an extension for at least three years now, but the treaty does not allow for that.
Fortunately, there are still some priorities: the rich agricultural lands of Bie and Huambo province, and the Benguela railway line leading through them, are being rapidly cleared by Chinese sub-contractors. Salinas, on the other hand, with only 500 permanent inhabitants, and so poor that it does not even have a local council, does not look like a national priority.
‘It’s only the cows that are interested in our landmine problem,†says Daniel da Silva of the cattle that regularly stray into the minefields. Generally, the herd boys know not to follow their cattle in specific areas, even in times of drought, he opined hopefully.
Phillipe Django, a former soldier stationed at Bentiaba since 1983, says that at his previous posting, all mines were marked with little bits of leaves and sticks to at least warn the local people. But here on the beach, sand just blows over the markers, he said. ‘Look, just there under the sand, a black rubber this big,†he pointed out a mine with a stick. ‘Water-proof, rust-proof — they will last forever.â€
A solitary sign posted at the tip of the lagoon warns ‘Perigo — Minasâ€. The bleached skull of a cow lies a few metres away in the shallow green waters of the lagoon, serving as a graphic reminder of what could happen if the warning is ignored.
Incredibly, a relatively fresh set of vehicle tracks leads through the tip of the southern minefield. Some ‘crazy South African and Namibian tourists†a few weeks before just came driving past the old prison cemetery where there are no warning signs — and were lucky not to have ended up in some cemetery, Django said.
But the tracks were a sign of hope; the untouched beaches and legendary fishing in Salinas are starting to attract more and more tourists from neighbouring Namibia and South Africa. Convoys of self-drive safaris are now spotted regularly along the spectacular Sierra de Leba mountain pass as adventurous South African and Namibans explore a country that has been off-limits for 40 years. A landmine accident would severely damage Salinas’ tourism prospects, local officials conceded, promising to put up more signs around the minefields.