14 October 2008
By Judith Martin
In this issue of Army News we continue a series which looks at each of the deployments the New Zealand Army has undertaken over the past 30 years, and the recollections of those who deployed. From Cambodia to Korea, the Middle East, Africa, Afghanistan and throughout the South Pacific Kiwi soldiers and officers have been there, and in many cases are still there, doing their part to encourage peace and stability.
New Zealand Army engineers were at the forefront of demining operations throughout the world for nearly 20 years. And even in one of the poorest nations in the world, the skills they brought to the job have made a sizeable impact… Helping run a demining programme in a country struggling to cope with abject poverty was a challenge for LTCOL Paul Curry.
He deployed to Mozambique, an east African country blighted by the legacy of war, in 2003. The majority of Mozambicans had an inadequate or, at best, unpredictable supply of food. Housing and healthcare was minimal, and only the comparatively wealthy could afford to school their children. The odds seemed stacked against the country, but despite this LTCOL Curry says mines continued to be detected and destroyed. In 2003 fewer than 400 people cleared three million square metres of mines. “That’s more than a third of the total area cleared by all operators in 2003. It was not bad for a country that relied totally on donor money to fund its demining operations.”
From 1994 two New Zealand Army engineers were attached to the United Nations Accelerated Demining Programme (ADP) in Mozambique where thousands of landmines had been laid since the beginning of the nation’s independence struggle against Portugal in the 1960s, and when civil war erupted throughout the country after independence in 1975. The borders between Tanzania, Zimbabwe and South Africa were heavily mined, as were bridges, irrigation schemes and rice and sugar mills.
LTCOL Curry, WO1 Mark Wing and then WO2 Mike Tait, provided technical advice more so than detect or dismantle the mines scattered throughout the countryside. As Chief Technical Advisor LTCOL Curry focussed on strategic and management issues and the warrant officers were involved in training and quality assurance.
One of the reasons why the country was impoverished was much of the land was unusable for farming because of the mines.
“When I was in Mozambique the ADP was much more mature now than when New Zealanders first began working there. The hard work of our predecessors was very evident in the procedures ADP used and the professionalism displayed. We were there as technical advisors, and helped provide training in quality assurance of the demining programme.” The Mozambique Government did not provide funds for demining, and the country instead relied on donations from other nations and organisations. The donated money was spent mainly on equipment such as mechanical flailers to cut vegetation so specially trained dogs could sniff out mines, or other detection equipment could be used.
Now Commandant of the Officer Cadet School in Waiouru, and soon to become New Zealand’s Defence Attaché in Malaysia, LTCOL Curry has worked on demining programmes in Cambodia and Angola. The technical side of the Mozambique programme was straightforward, he says. He honed his negotiating skills there, and learned a lot about management through working with diverse embassies, NGOs and governmental organisations. “The issues of language, corruption and agendas that often clashed made for a lot of frustration but also made any achievement much more satisfying. It was definitely simpler at the coal face of demining than at the political level”.
AIDs was, as it still is, a huge problem in Mozambique. “Of our 450 deminers about 20 were dying from the effects of AIDs. We supplied condoms to our deminers, and there were condoms in every toilet, but it was still a huge, and very sad, problem. Everywhere there were grandparents trying to bring up children because the parents had died or were too sick.”
He says his New Zealand Army predecessors did a great job in setting up the Mozambique demining programme, and much of the credit for the success of the programme should go to the technical advisors who preceded him.
“The challenge was trying to help keep the programme going when funding was so short. The programme could lead very much to a hand to mouth existence. It wasn’t always easy, and there was a lot of frustration. Our training got us over most problems, and our attitude got us over the rest. I think the NZDF’s demining efforts made a definite difference. People were able to largely get on with their lives, get their kids to school, and keep them healthy, that sort of thing. That's the main thing."