Afghanistan is slowly recovering from a humanitarian and political mess and now comes the finger pointing. There is no thank you to the NZDF for risking their lives to save countless Afghans, or the ultimate price paid by 10 of their own.
“Seven children were killed in an explosion caused by a device left behind on a New Zealand firing range in Afghanistan, a Stuff Circuit investigation has revealed.
The children are among 17 civilians killed or injured in incidents connected to unexploded ordnance on New Zealand’s firing ranges.
The previously unreported tragic legacy of New Zealand’s 10-year deployment to Afghanistan is the subject of a Stuff Circuit documentary, Life + Limb.”
“Locals are pleading for the ranges to be cleared, and the United Nations says it’s time for New Zealand to sort it out.”
Stuff
Eugene Bingham from Stuff Circuit travelled to Afghanistan and answered Duncan Garner’s question on the AM show “Is there any doubt that it was maybe not New Zealand’s hardware?” Bingham replied:
“Well, I think it’s interesting. You can sit here in the studio and sort of speculate about was it this was it that, but when you’ve been there and you’ve met the locals who’ve been complaining about this for years and you’ve met the local officials who’ve investigated, who’ve surveyed, who’ve gone up to the ranges and looked for themselves, and when you’ve met the mothers of those children who died, kinda the real point is, why aren’t we just getting there and cleaning this up?”
Transcript from the AM Show Monday 18 November
Bingham didn’t actually answer the question because there is no proof that the device was left by the NZDF. Also, this story is five years old and much has happened since, but why let the facts get in the way of a good story that you’ve paid time and money to develop?
An ungrateful wretch at the UN also took the opportunity to put the boot into the NZDF.
“If you are an international military and you’re deployed in someone else’s country, you’re responsible for cleaning up your own firing range,” said Patrick Fruchet, head of the United Nations Mine Action Service in Afghanistan.
“You can’t just leave unexploded ordnance behind in somebody else’s country.”
Stuff
Wouldn’t you think this UN desk jockey should be up to date with the mine clean up in Bamyan? Perhaps he has more important issues to consider as he sits behind an expensive desk possibly funded by our annual contributions of around NZ$53M.
If you want a job done properly it’s best done by those to whom it matters most.
Last year, landmines still killed or injured an average of four Afghans every day.
“During the past four decades of war, the Mine Action Programme of Afghanistan has cleared more than 18 million explosive remnants of war, about 737,000 anti-personnel mines and over 30,000 anti-vehicle mines since 1989.
But by the end of October, the country’s first province will be declared mine-free – and the job has been done by a small but determined group of women.
“It’s been difficult,” says FezahRezayee, 26, a tall woman with light brown hair tucked under a red headscarf. “Not because of the work, but because of people’s attitudes towards women working outside, hiking across the province, or having male colleagues. But we kept pushing back and pointing to the importance of our work.”
Women first began landmine clearance – now a seasonal job for the spring and summer months – in Afghanistan in June last year.
Earlier this spring, after the snow had melted in the Hindu Kush mountains, 18 women dressed in heavy protective gear walked into Bamyan province’s last mine fields, risking their lives to clear the remaining explosives.”
The Frontier Post, October 16, 2019
What better motivation to local women risking their lives than the safety of their Afghani offspring? The report says the women would have cleared the last remaining explosives in Bamyan by the end of October 2019.
The deaths of seven children happened five years ago.
New Zealand media can drum up something else to get their knickers in a knot about and bureaucrats can go back to snoozing in the sun at their desks – nothing to be seen here folks.