De-mining Group Struggles to Continue Work in Iraq
Survivor Report: What’s the mine situation in Iraq today?
Lou McGrath: Most of our work in Iraq was the result of the Iran/Iraq war in the ‘80s, from the mines that were deliberately laid when Saddam chased the Kurds into the mountains in ’91. Basically, he literally littered the villages and all the water along the riverbanks with mines. Huge amounts. All over the Northern areas. So, we’ve been working there since ’92.
SR: Did you go further south after the Gulf War?
LM: Unfortunately, MAG was never able to enter any other areas below what they call the Green Line. Because Saddam said anyone working for MAG was a traitor and would be libel for summary execution. So, while we were obviously interested in assisting the Iraqi people, we weren’t very welcome there at all.
SR: Has your worked changed because of the current situation in Iraq?
LM: We made a decision to reorganize our work on the basis that many of the people would be heading to the north. Obviously, while people who live in an area throughout the conflict understand the region, many of the people who lived below the Green Line would not know of the problem areas, should they flee into that area.
SR: Explain the Green Line.
Continued from Survivor Report:
LM: This was what was agreed to be under the control of the Kurdish Parliament, the PUK and the KDP, the Green Line divides the Kurdish north from the rest of Iraq. There are still problems in the north. But, once Mosul and Kirkuk had fallen, we moved further south to offer assistance there, and we sort of rapidly started clearing cluster bomb strikes where there were huge mine fields laid by the Iraqis. One of the biggest problems was, Kurdish people from the north, once they knew that Mosul and Kirkuk had fallen, they might start moving back to their traditional area, because some of them were pushed out of the region by Saddam originally. And the huge defensive mine fields that the Iraqis had laid were causing a major problem. Many people were getting killed, including journalists, who just followed on with the soldiers. The other thing that we found, which became a big problem, was there were huge munitions dumps. Not just on the outskirts of the cities our towns, but actually, in preparation for any war, they’d actually loaded these into schools and public buildings as part of what they would see as having enough to defend the city.
SR: And most of those remain unguarded?
LM: Yes. One of the ones that we were working on when our colleague Ian Rimell was killed was actually a 40-kilometer site. One of the problems with that area, and the reason we saw it as a priority within the first few months, was that people were going to collect the copper -- to take it off the munitions is a very common thing. More than 40 people have been killed doing this since the fighting has more or less finished over there. The reason they were doing this is because you could collect it and sell it. Even in some of the town centers, some of the officials saw this as a way to put money into schools and some of the hospitals that lacked any kind of facilities.
SR: Are there any public awareness campaigns for mine safety?
LM: Unfortunately, there aren't really any NGOs there other than MAG, and we have our own Mine Risk Education teams. But, it’s often quite difficult to tell people, you know, “don’t touch this,” when they’re desperate. So, what we did was we made an offer to the officials in the region. We’ll secure the weapons, the munitions, and remove any valuable copper metal before we destroy them. We will collect it and give it to the community. And that way we were able to persuade them. The idea is, it’s very difficult to stop people from collecting scrap metal. This is young kids, teenagers, who will be the ones who get sent out to do it.
Now, since then, in September, two of our people were in a vehicle and ambushed, south of Mosul. While we thought the area was secure, it seemed that it had been a deliberate targeting because our vehicles are well-marked. People in the local community knew who we were. They attacked the vehicle in which Ian was killed and Salem was left severely injured. So, we’ve made the decision to pull back behind the Green Line, because security in the area doesn’t exist now. What’s happening, at least for the Americans in the North, is, I don’t think things will settle down until the Iraqis themselves are given some trust. Soldiers don’t make good policemen.
SR: Because they’re trained to shoot?
LM: Exactly. That doesn’t inspire confidence with the local community to sort of see them as someone that they can talk to. Because the local people themselves, all over Iraq, they’re being targeted just in the same way.
SR: Is local leadership stable enough?
LM: I think so, yes. From our discussions with people, the feeling is that they don’t feel as if they’re trusted. The majority of Iraqis are not part of the same network as the Saddam regime, or Al Qaeda. In order to defeat that type of terrorism, you do need the support of the local community. And one of the things you find is that, without finding the way of giving that trust and developing some forms of local structures, I think it’s going to continue for a long time. I mean, if you talk to most Iraqis, you’ll find that they’re very pleased about Saddam being gone, but they still lack so many resources. They lack resources, they lack hospital facilities, food, security . . . everything that one needs. All the time while this is going on, children go lacking in education, and they’re going to be the future of Iraq. I feel that, until their needs are met, people are not going to give the support and will feel sort of aggrieved.
SR: So, MAG is out of the south, but still in the north?
LM: Well, in the south of Iraq, where I was talking was below the Green Line, between Baghdad and the Kurdish areas of Iraq, that’s Mosul and Kirkuk. Now, we’ve also been running mine-risk education projects throughout the south. Some of our Lebanese staff have been working with the people in the south, gathering information on their problems and giving mine-risk education. In the northern part, there’s lots of work still to be done, even along the Green Line area. That was a major problem, and is going to be a major problem, for a long, long time. There’s a huge amount of ordnance and many, many mined areas all the way along that region.
SR: Is it marked?
LM: No. That has been the initial phase of our work, was to begin marking the areas. I mean, these mine fields were laid in a rapid way when the Iraqis felt that the American forces were going to invade from the Kurdish north. Obviously, many Iraqi soldiers were killed in these minefields, as well.
SR: When Jerry (LSN Executive Director Jerry White) was injured, everyone asked him, “Didn’t you see the signs?”
LM: It is a misconception, in many ways. People think of mined areas as being marked. I mean, the ones you see marked are usually done by humanitarian organizations. |
