Johnny 99

My work site is about 20 km from where I stay and the drive to work is one part of the day that I really look forward to. It takes me into the heart of what was, not too long ago, rebel country. Now it is heavily patrolled by the army as they are bracing up for what is still the initial stages of an insurgency. Soon as we leave the main road we cross a military check post that screens all civilians being allowed into the area. Just after that is a causeway across a lagoon. Come monsoons, in another months time, and this becomes virtually uncrossable. I have been told it is a trecherous crossing as the direction of water flow changes with the tide. As we drive along, the driver sometimes flicks on the radio. It is not rare to hear the newreader announcing some successful air raid or offensive up north. We cross the location of some minefields recently cleared by us and other NGOs working here. No signs of people returning to the area yet. 

The terrain is generally flat, lots of wooded patches, hills in the distance. We drive past a lot of soldiers, some of them wave, we wave back. Then we cross a militia outpost. They were the tigers, untill they broke away and alligned with the government. A young boy, barely in his teens, stands with an AK held convincingly. I look into his eyes, they are vacant. We drive on. Past a village with houses without roofs, doors or windows. Just a stencilled message on the walls saying 'Cleared by FSD'. The Swiss Foundation for Demining. Forlorn structures, waiting to be inhabited again. We go beyond a dirt track that leads into the forest, to the erstwhile tigers battalion head quarters. I have been there. Destroyed buidings, craters from air attacks and a monument with the desecrated but distinctive tigers emblem. The place to take oath. We drive on. Across the site of a recent claymore attack on an army vehicle by unknown people. Almost there now.

But today I am not seeing any of these. My mind is on a call I have just received. My team has encountered three Johnny 99s at the site. I am rushing to see that. We weren't expecting Mr. Johnny to be there. 

Landmines are a barbaric weapon of war. I come from a country that has not signed the treaty to ban them. I can even understand their stance. But the fact remains, landmines have the potential to cause a dispropotionate amount of physical and psychological harm to an unintended target, and mostly they do.  Johnny 99, a creation of the tigers, is an extremely lethal mine. Packed with nearly five times the explosive in other anti personal mines, it is designed not just to incapacitate but to strike terror.

I am glad three of them are off this beautiful land. But there are so many more...