Mines and Mountains, Trekking in Angola

Ginge Fullen

Trekking in Africa for a year or more has added considerably to my mountaineering skills. I now have experience of desert mountains and living in the jungles and African bush, I can name exotic snakes when they glide over my feet or swim by me in a swamp, and river crossing takes on a whole new meaning when there are crocodiles nearby. I must have missed the lesson on my Mountain Leader courses that dealt with river crossings and crocodiles. The answer comes pretty naturally by the way; it involves moving very quickly and being ..…… scared!

For the places I was going to in Africa, the mountains I wanted to climb, I would need more knowledge, more skills. I would need to know about landmines. I had a fair knowledge of explosives and demolitions before coming to Africa given 16 years as a Clearance Diver on the Royal Navy. The Diving Branch carries out Explosives Ordinance Disposal, EOD, below the high water mark around UK waters as well as having the capability for Improvised Explosive Device Disposal, IEDD, for any terrorist threat against their bases, ships and UK offshore interests. Ordnance on land would be something new and interesting for me, I began learning about landmines. With nearly 1000 different types of landmines and an estimated 5 to 7 million landmines in Angola alone, there is a lot to learn.

I now know my Anti-Tank mines from my Anti-Personnel mines. I know a DM 72 from a C3A1; I know it takes around 7 lbs in pressure to detonate a M15. I know the blast will take an adult's leg off from the knee embedding fragments of boot, sandals or whatever they were wearing into their body. I know a child is less likely to survive a landmine detonation, loss of blood, shock and lack of treatment all contributing. I know Africa is the most mined continent in the World. I know there are over 26,000 new victims in the world every year and around 400,000 landmine-disabled people today in the world. I now know Landmines are wrong.

I'm in Angola to climb the highest mountain in the country, Serra Moco at 2619 metres, part of a project I started on the 25 December 2000 to climb the highest mountain in every country in Africa, numbering 53 countries at present. Angola would be country/mountain number 47.

Getting information on many of the mountains hasn't been easy. I've found new highest mountains for some countries; mountains miles away from where they are shown on the maps and found names for previous unnamed peaks. Every mountain seemed to have its own problems and difficulties. Angola was no exception, one of a dozen or so countries on my 'problem' list. I had tried last year but arrived just as two United Nations aircraft had been hit by Sam Missiles, with Unita, the opposition or rebel force, still very active and I had to put yet another country on hold.

With the death in February of Jonas Savimbi, Unita's charismatic old leader, followed by a stopping of hostilities and several peace agreements signed, this was maybe the window of opportunity that I had been waiting for. I was back in Angola within days of the first cease-fire being signed.

I entered Angola through Namibia, and then flew from Lubango in the south to Huambo right in the centre of the country, Angola's second largest city and only 50 miles or so to the mountain. I passed through a town in the south, which had just been attacked by Unita leaving landmines as they withdrew. An army truck had hit an Anti-tank mine; normally this might only kill the driver or passenger. The mine blew the truck onto another landmine, 9 were killed.

Climbing Serra Moco looked easy, well easy on a map maybe. No more than 6 kilometres from the nearest road, accessing it should make for a nice stroll through the Angolan countryside. But Huambo had been a Unita stronghold and campaigns had been fought all around. Huambo was literally shot to pieces. The city had seen heavy fighting during the early nineties and had been controlled by Unita for several years. The government forces retook it again in the mid nineties. It's hard to find a two foot square piece of wall, side of a house, tree, road or pavement that hasn't been hit by gunfire, mortars or airdrop bombs. It's like being on a war movie set and this is years after the fighting.

Travelling around Angola is tightly controlled by Government troops and not least because of the real danger of landmines. I heard a story of two Portuguese aid workers who were advised by de-mining teams not to travel on a road that was thought to be mined. Five minutes later there was a big explosion, they had been in a small car. All that was left of the car, and them, was the bonnet of the car 200 metres away. They had more than likely hit a double stack anti-tank mine, ie 2 anti tank mines, one laid on top of the other. Such are the niceties of war. The incidents were getting fewer and fewer while I was there but even so the people and the Non Governmental Organisations, NGO's, alike were very cautious of venturing far from the places they knew to be free of Unita troops and clear of landmines. As Unita were known to operate in the area of Serra Moco, a white guy with a short hair cut wondering around the countryside wouldn't at first, I'm sure, be taken as a tourist. I learnt that lesson only a couple of months ago when I got arrested in Liberia and was advised to leave the country.

I had a long wait to try and get permission and help from the Army and as it turned out it wasn't forthcoming, not in the short term. The bureaucracy mountain was getting bigger and bigger. The Government and Army were very busy with the peace accord and Angola's first tourist-cum-mountain climber would have to wait. Waiting was something I wasn't good at but the chilling fact was that landmines can wait forever to do their job.

Even with continued peace trekking in Angola will never be as we know it in all the climbing, trekking and outdoor magazines that we read today. Not in my lifetime will the beautiful hills and countryside be made free of mines. There are unclimbed rock faces and rock pinnacles towering 300 to 500 metres high, climbing them may turn out to be relatively easy by today's modern standards, negotiating the minefields will be given to chance.

Of the 53 countries of Africa, in over a quarter of these countries there is a great threat of landmines; many of the mountains are witness to the wars, conflicts and killing. It's a pity I have to talk about detonating pressures of M15s and numbers of amputees rather then the beauty and isolation of Chad's highest mountain, or the big green valleys of Eritrea's countryside, or the vast unclimbed areas of Angola.

Landmines are a dirty type of warfare. I wonder for every enemy killed how many innocent people, including children, lose limbs or die. Both the old men now looking back, and young men who in 50 to 60 years time will be looking back at their lives, the wars, the conflicts they have fought in: will they remember the landmines they laid? Will nations care where they have left the means to kill thousands, even millions, of innocent people? There's no need to look into the future to find the answer.

When will the last landmine victim die or loose a limb I wonder? A child, maybe not yet born, maybe not even her great, great, great grand parents are born yet. The 6 or 7 years old picks up a bit of plastic to play with laid during a war 500 years before. A girl, maybe like another girl a friend told me about while de-mining in Somalia. She had lost a leg at the age of 7 to a landmine but still helped her mother out around the de-mining camp where my friend stayed. Friendly, always smiling. Aged 8 years old she lost her right arm below the elbow to another anti-personnel mine. After a few weeks in hospital she was back in the camp helping her mother. Friendly and still, as always, smiling.

The plain fact is the people who lay landmines, the governments and powers that be which order it, are committing murder and hurt for years, decades and centuries to come.