significant pressure on the explosive wing, it will detonate. So a young boy or girl, is theoretically able to pick up a live PFM-1, then hand it to another and perhaps even to another. It is then inevitable that one of these light touches will eventually detonate the device. A Kiwi fellow called Fred Estall, who would become a good friend of mine in the following year, also worked in the UN landmine program but was located in Kabul throughout 1991 (more of Fred later). Fred had one of these small, bright green PFM-1 landmines, which was all emptied of any explosives, defused and inert. He kept it on his key chain as a war ‘souvenir’ and basically forgot it was there. One day on his return home to New Zealand for R&R (rest and recuperation), Fred was carrying his small, inert landmine cover on his keys when disaster almost struck. It was at the Amsterdam international airport, where he was stopped and then searched and question about the device. It was at the very first security check post and Fred was taken straight into custody for several hours. Well, poor Fred not only missed that flight from Amsterdam, but he spent the entire night in the airport as a ‘guest’ of the airport police, as it was very hard to convince them of why he had the inert landmine in the first place, and how safe his disarmed version actually was. He eventually got back home to Wellington, two days later than anticipated, and he was of course, sans PFM. Perhaps in today’s world, poor old Fred might have been charged with attempted terrorism, but in the early 1990s, he was just inconvenienced and had his wrist slapped.
Some western military explosive devices can also appear to be ‘civilianised’. For instance, I have the casing of a large Italian anti-tank mine, called the TC-6. This plastic, well-constructed, anti-tank mine, looks just like a big, plastic ice cream container. Later in Kabul, I often used it as an ice-block holder at parties we held at my house and nobody gave it any notice.
There are also hose explosives used by the Australian Navy Clearance Divers that look nothing more than very heavy, garden piping, though are full of a flexible, high explosive. I used large numbers of these hose explosives, all conveniently screwed together by their integrated caps, up in the far north-east of Australia many years ago. This was during a testing exercise for new underwater demolition supervisors when we destroyed vast quantities of old bombs, rockets, missiles and torpedoes on Triangular Island. The island is uninhabited and used by the navy for explosive ordnance disposal training. These islands were all stocked with their non-native goats in the early 1800s to provide ‘food insurance’ for the survivors of shipwrecks of days gone by. Located at the far edge of the mighty Great Barrier Reef, ‘Triangular Island’ is quite beautiful and spectacular. I went there with Navy Clearance Diving Team 2 in the late 1980s and we ate several of these goats we had shot. The accompanying Navy chef cooked them in ammunition tins over an open fire and they were extremely tasteful. But, two Malaysian sailors who were also on this particular course, took great joy in separately cooking and eating the testicles of the male goats, though I admit I couldn’t join them in that.
ooOoo
As the technical adviser to ATC, I was required to do anything and everything. This included drafting and preparing the final version, including correcting all the English, of the monthly and annual reports and the regular donor submissions. It also included the clarification of those perceptions on landmine misuse, or more specifically, booby trap usage as described above. This was not always as easy as it sounds and at times was downright Bolshi as some individuals and groups seemed to want to use and manipulate these perceptions. They did so in order to either gain greater funding for their particular cause or further pressure the new Russian Government, now that the Soviet State had collapsed. Yet, I was also responsible for the major presentations we had to give to confirmed and potential donors and the interested media. All this, of course, came on top of my missions into Afghanistan that were about to increase in their duration and frequency.
ooOoo
In my first months at ATC we were located in an old large house in the western area of Peshawar and every room was turned into an office, as was fairly normal for NGOs at the time. It was still 1991 and although it doesn’t seem so long ago to me, in reality it is getting close to 30 years ago now. The building we had was very run down and smelly, and Kefayatullah initially seemed to be a strange guy, though always polite and friendly to me. It took me some time to get to know him, but we developed a very close bond over the coming months. We really came to respect each other and enjoy each other’s company.
I did not have an office at first and so I was assigned to, and took over, what was probably the lounge room when this was a house, even though this was also being used by people waiting for Kefayatullah, or for some other purposes. I seconded the back corner of the ‘lounge’ and had it fitted with a desk, computer, chair, pin board and a filing cabinet. It became a real office, though in an unreal location. I remember not long after this, and not long before we moved to better accommodation, it was the month of Ramadan when there are restrictions on eating and drinking during the daylight hours. To overcome this, I got a large roll of red ribbon and pinned it to the floor in a wide arc around my ‘office space’. Then, on the pin board behind me I fastened a large sign saying ‘Ramadan Free Zone’. I wouldn’t and couldn’t do that these days, though at that time in Peshawar and among all those hardened Muslim fighters who were now deminers, I always got a laugh and it was a well-accepted joke. Better still, I was able to drink tea all day long whilst everyone else was fasting.
In early March 1991, ATC was required to submit the annual report for their demining operations of 1990. It was actually due in January, but as I didn’t arrive in country until about mid-January, ATC just let it slip and now the headquarters were demanding the report. I found out shortly later that this was a hugely important document that was to be read by all the donors and a wide variety of diplomats and other senior persons from many parts of the world, and it was now two months overdue. The donors were typically UN Member States, or governments, and these funds enabled the UN Operation Salam, and therefore the demining program and ATC, to continue to function.
To be honest, the first I actually heard of the lateness of the ATC annual report was on a Tuesday morning at the regular OCHA meeting, when I was asked by the program manager, in no uncertain terms, “Where is the ATC Annual Report? It is late!” Casually, I said I had no idea but I would find out, thinking this was probably a very minor issue of the document being lost in the paperwork and all I’d have to do, would be to re-send it. However, I very soon found out nothing had been done, except for the collection of basic data. By late that afternoon, after confirming the urgency of the document, I set to work on developing a complete annual report, for a period when I was not even present, based on reams and reams of varied data and poorly written mission reports. Further, the annual report had to be finalised, signed by Kefayatullah, and delivered in Islamabad by Thursday for transmission to New York by Friday morning. That was in just two days’ time! Talk about ‘Mission Impossible’.
Luckily, in those early 1990s days, the ‘word processor’ was available, but it was not anywhere near as efficient or easy to use as the steadfast laptop, desktop computer or iPad of today. This was a giant machine attached to a really loud, but very slow and cumbersome printer, precariously well-known for failure. I had minimal experience in these machines given that until very recently, all Australian Army units still employed a number of civilian ladies to type major documents. Access to, and use of, word processors were not that common in early 1991.
With Kefayatullah’s great support and total reliance on me, we started to have the reports translated and I bogged into the English versions and a host of other documents to start to prepare the report. That night I stayed at the office until about 2 am gathering and collating the facts and relevant photos that I thought we could use to present this information in a factual but readable manner. The next morning, I was in the office at about 6.30 am and my eyes burned from the lack of sleep.
ATC seemed to think that I was the best and perhaps only person able to do this report and so they all left me to my own devices, though I did get assistance and support from the administrative officer (Wali Sahib) and of course Kefayatullah.
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