Barrel of a Gun

by Al Venter

  Within a day of arriving, for instance, we’d spotted a herd of about a hundred elephant, which was when a female – with calf – trumpeting and ears billowing, rushed our Land Rover. We moved on and within a few miles there were scores of mating lions. It was the season and the ritual customarily goes on for days, with coupling taking place dozens of times.

  East Africa has been targeted by poachers for more than half a century and terrible damage has been done to all wildlife in the region. Compared to the pre-independence period, there are only a fraction of these beautiful creatures left. Now they are being indiscriminately slaughtered in the Selous Game Reserve in Tanzania. This photo of Somali-based poachers in Kenya’s Tsavo park was taken by Mohammed Amin a few years ago.

  There was also a pride of five cheetah stalking Grants gazelle almost within walking distance of the main camp and then we found a single leopard in a tree just outside the main camp at Seronera. This was unusual, since there are only a few hundred left in Serengeti.

  While travelling along the north-eastern limits of the park we encountered migrating herds of wildebeest and there were thousands of them. By October, they will have turned around again and headed south. The cycle is eternal and has been going on forever.

  Yet it’s not only wildebeest that migrate. A couple of hundred thousand zebra and Grants gazelle also move north on nature’s greatest natural trek. Most other animals stop short of Maasai country, where they are likely to be hunted, but these go on, into some of the Kenyan reserves.

  Almost a million-and-a-half wildebeest set out on the annual trek each year and by the time its over, they might have lost a fifth of their number to predators and poachers.

  Getting to Serengeti is always an experience. We moved overland from Arusha in northern Tanzania and it took a day in a four-wheel drive vehicle to reach our destination of Seronera Lodge.

  Once off the tar, it was a tough, dusty slog across the mountains. The roads were bad and there were times when it seemed they hadn’t been graded for years. During the rainy season it was worse, Hando said: these great African plains often turned into quagmires which could cripple four-wheel-drive vehicles. Nor can you use aircraft; some of the strips would have become like shallow lakes.

  Interestingly, the reserve also caters for the backpacking community. Those who cannot afford the lodge, can camp at specific locations, though these are generally not fenced and at night seem to attract their share of wildlife.

  What to do, stuck out in the open, if you need the toilet? Simple, explained one of the visitors: it had happened to him three nights before.

  He’d had a sudden attack of diarrhoea some time after two in the morning. Worse, his entire group of campers had earlier been made very much aware of the presence of a pride of lions. One of the beasts had actually roared while passing his modest one-man pup tent. As he recalled, a tent without a bathroom attached suddenly became an issue.

  In such circumstances, he told us, you did what was needed: you very quietly unzipped your tent flap, inch-by-inch, until there was a hole, just big enough to shove your butt through. Then you let go, possibly with a roar. While you might wake your neighbours and possibly startle some of the lions, the deed will have been done. As he recalled, there was much relief all round.

  The clever move then, he reckoned, was to pull the zipper up as quickly as possible and wait for morning. ‘Just make sure you’re up before daybreak to clear away the mess’, he warned.

  On our fourth and last day with the Serengeti game guard unit, we headed north-east from Seronera. The intention was to visit one of the park’s most isolated camps that lay beyond the old German Fort Ikoma.

  An historic installation that pre-dated Kaiser Wilhelm’s war, it was magnificently placed on the edge of Rift Valley escarpment. We’d already been made aware that there had been some heavy fighting there between the South Africans under General Jan Smuts and the Germans, all of which had taken place early in the previous century.

  Fort Ikoma’s turreted fortifications, though impressive, were crumbling. A tourist company, hoping to make some money had spruced the place up during the 1970s and had even added a swimming pool. However, the development didn’t work and there wasn’t a soul around when we visited the place.

  Fort Ikoma was built by imperial Germany’s colonial administration more than a century ago when Berlin ruled this part of East Africa. Perched on the edge of the Rift Valley escarpment and with wildlife everywhere, it should be the ultimate African tourist destination. Instead, Tanzanian bureaucracy has intervened and the place is falling to ruin. (Author’s collection)

  The old fortification had a certain allure about it because of its location. From the balustrades it was possible to observe just about every species of game in East Africa, but that was about all. There was no restaurant, no accommodation, no anything. Even the water had to be filtered if we wished to drink it.

  After independence, the place was turned into a military barracks by Julius Nyerere’s socialist government and the old fort damaged by neglect. In some places the walls that were once a yard thick had collapsed. If you intend to visit the place, watch out for cobras between the cracks, Hando told us. There seemed to be an awful lot of snakes about.

  The Tanzanian government erected these billboards at all the entrances to Serengeti National Park. (Author’s collection)

  Our ultimate destination – one of the camps off the Muguma Road – was a couple of hours drive further north, in the direction of Lake Victoria. Not marked on any tourist map, the ranger fort lies in a region that is crossed by the migratory path. Along the way, we encountered tens of thousands of wildebeest as well as countless zebra. Small clusters of predators operated independently along the fringes of this vital, milling mass.

  Hyena seemed to be everywhere. Indeed, one of the immediate impressions of Serengeti was that there are probably too many of these ugly beasts. In the old days, their numbers were culled, like vermin, to control their influence within the ambit of the predators, but no more. In some areas they appear to be dominant, robbing cheetah and other cats of their kills.

  Our destination was a camp that consisted largely of a square the size of two or three football fields. The entire complex was surrounded by a 12-foot concrete wall with strongpoints at each corner manned by rangers with automatic weapons. Their job was to keep those inside safe from attack.

  Hando told us earlier that most of these strongpoints usually housed several dozen people. Rangers rarely travelled to a permanent posting in the bush without their families and contact with the world outside was limited to a single-sideband radio.

  A couple of hours before dark, we called into headquarters by radio and said we were heading out. We’d seen what we’d wanted and were eager to move on. Hando came on the line: he was about to call us anyway he said. He didn’t want us travelling in that part of the reserve on our own and without an adequate escort, which just about said it all.

  One of Africa’s finest game parks is under serious threat and the problem is that just about nobody outside Dar es Salaam seems to be aware of it…

  CHAPTER TWENTY - SIX

  The Balkan Beast: Landmines in Croatia

  There’s an aphorism about landmines in the Balkans. The Good Lord, say the Croats, created Hell. The Serbs reciprocated and devised the PROM-1, the worst in bounding anti-personnel mines. Not much bigger than a beer can, this is an inordinately vicious weapon. Its shrapnel can penetrate almost any body armour and can cut through the average Kevlar helmet like cardboard, as it has done often enough for those who have tried to clear these deadly bombs. Kosovo at one stage was full of them…

  BY THE TIME THAT RICHARD Davis and I got to Croatia at the end of Balkan War, there weren’t many mine-clearing specialists working there who didn’t have something to say about the PROM-1.

  The war that preceded these clearing operations had been a bitter struggle that had left behind a legacy of hundreds of thousands of casualties. Many were as
a consequence of having triggered mines. We were aware, too, that by the time the Allies eventually clear all of Kosovo’s landmines, there will still be more in other regions where the fighting had been fierce, Bosnia and Croatia included.

  Since it is official that all mines must be cleared – and ultimately, they will be – it is how this is done that focuses the mind because where landmines are in the offing, the PROM-1 is among the deadliest.

  Mine-clearing teams working those areas are often fortunate to spot them before they are accidentally detonated. They also need to cope with the reality that they were originally laid in clusters. When that becomes apparent, the word is usually whispered down the line and those involved stop what they’re doing to establish the next best course of action.

  By the time the Dayton Peace Settlement was signed at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in November 1995, much thought had already been given to the best possible way to accomplish some kind of peace accord between the warring factions in the Balkans. What was certain was that whoever was involved would be faced with an extremely difficult task and that more casualties would follow. In the words of one American specialist, ‘The problem is that these mines are a bitch to get at.’

  Croatian mine-clearer operates a remote bomb-detecting robot that is covering ground adjacent to a rail track near Gospic in search of mines. (Author’s collection)

  Other issues soon became apparent, including the fact that some PROM-1s were unstable. The only way to handle them was to destroy them in situ. ‘We like to blow ‘em where we find ‘em’, he added

  The officer admitted that once buried, the devices were difficult to spot, especially when the ground was thick with grass and shrubs, which is how it gets in the Balkans in summer time. You only need to brush against one of the PROM-1’s minuscule protrusions to cause a reaction. When that happens, the bounding mine is hurled a couple of feet into the air and the blast that follows will kill just about everything, and everybody, nearby. It wasn’t surprising that one of the hallmarks of Balkan minefields was the number of dead domestic animals found in them.

  Trouble was, the man added, ‘the business part that protrudes above the ground isn’t much bigger than a matchbox.’

  According to Colonel Richard Todd, then still a youthful American Special Forces veteran with much experience in both mines and ordnance that dated back to Vietnam, you have about a 60 per cent chance of being killed if you are within 30 yards of the explosion. ‘It happens so fast’, he added, ‘that most of those involved usually aren’t even aware of what is happening’, he reckoned over dinner on our last evening in Zagreb, the Croatian capital.

  By then, Todd had been working with mines in the Balkans for several years. He explained why the PROM-1 was deadly.

  ‘Unlike the “popular” Yugoslav PMA-2, the blast mine that you find everywhere in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo, the PROM-1 is what is termed in the trade, a group fragmentation mine.’ It was designed, he explained, around the original German ‘S’ mine, which caused such terrible damage in World War II and which the Allies notoriously dubbed ‘Bouncing Betty’. That language was carried over into the Vietnam era, but it’s in little use today among mine-clearing specialists.

  ‘The trouble with the PROM-1 is that it has a devastating effect when it blows… a bit like a proximity fuse on a mortar or artillery shell going off right alongside you’, he commented. ‘And because it can be laid with multiple trip wires, as the war progressed, it became the obvious weapon of choice among the Serbs. They liked using it because a single PROM-1 could take out a group of people, or even a squad of soldiers on patrol.’ Not everybody might have been have killed, he maintained, but the casualties were horrific.

  Towards the end of the war, reckoned Todd, the device was increasingly deployed in urban areas. ‘They’d been laying them in Kosovo, Bosnia and here in Croatia, almost as if they had a license to do so’, he said.

  ‘Some mean weapon, and not to be trifled with’, Colonel Todd warned.

  When Richard and I met the colonel for the first time, he was at the head of a UN Mine Action Team in Zagreb and he had files full of PROM-1 incidents, some of which made for disturbing reading.

  In spite of multiple warnings, PROM-1 casualties continued unabated. A member of his team was killed shortly before we arrived. Operating with dogs in an area-reduction programme, the operator obviously did not spot the mine that either he or the pooch tripped. Two shards of shrapnel penetrated his brain and he was dead in an instant. It was a most unusual phenomenon that his dog, working only yards away, was unharmed. As someone said afterwards, ‘Miracles happen… even in the Balkans.’

  There was nothing whimsical about me and Richard Davis setting out for the Balkans to accompany a mine-clearing team during the course of their duties. Indeed, Richard had been involved with related disciplines for many years. It was he who, several decades before, had invented concealable body amour – otherwise known as ‘bullet-proof vests’.

  Without dogs, many of the minefields would have been extremely difficult to clear. The hounds would be sent into suspect areas ahead of their handlers and quickly pinpoint explosives. (Author’s collection)

  Originally composed of ballistic nylon and, later, of a space-age material called Kevlar, invented by DuPont specifically to provide the motor vehicle industry with safer tyres, these vests had already saved several thousand American lives by the time we got together to go to Croatia, part of what had previously been called Yugoslavia,. Today, there is not a single law enforcement agency in the United States that does not insist on the wearing of body amour during the normal course of duties.

  In going to Croatia, we would link up with a group of friends who had previously worked Angolan minefields. In doing so, Richard had a two-fold purpose. First, he believed he might be closer to solving the single biggest problem currently faced by mine-clearers when trying to destroy or lift these bombs: that of injuries to the head caused by close-quarter explosions. Second, he wanted to make a study of issues linked to the industry.

  We had no idea of the immensity of the problem. It was only later revealed that something like three million mines were laid in Croatia, the majority along former battle lines. Both sides made liberal use of the bombs, which were quite often laid to protect specific defensive positions. They also had a role in areas of strategic and economic importance like railways, utility stations, pipelines and, for some obscure reason, even within the Plitvice National Park, which somebody explained was an infiltration route.

  More importantly, most minefields were unmarked. Even where maps did exist, these were almost always inaccurate. Additionally, as a result of years of fighting, there was a huge amount of unexploded ordnance – UXO. There was more than 300 tons of the stuff in the one area around Dubrovnik alone.

  Some idea of what was involved can be gained from the fact that at least 5,200 miles of Croatian territory was littered with mines. In addition there were 3,000 more miles that had to be cleared in Eastern Slavonia, the last Serb-held territory. Nothing about these problems could be regarded as small scale: for instance, more than 15,000 mines were laid in the area behind Sibenik, close to a popular tourist spot, the Krka waterfalls.

  The mines took a terrible toll. In the decade after 1990, in excess of 1,000 people were permanently disabled, many with amputations. Other statistics state that more than 300 children were killed, with 1,000-plus injured by mines. A decade on, there have been many more casualties.

  Through all this, Richard Davis hadn’t been inactive. Indeed, he’d already produced a reasonably effective counter to some of the antipersonnel mines that American, British and other coalition forces were encountering in Afghanistan.

  What he’d done was to design a reasonably effective way to prevent soldiers having their feet blown off if they triggered an anti-personnel mine. I was fortunate to be involved in first-stage testing processes where explosives were used to establish parameters, all of which took place in the back yard of
his home base in Central Lake, Michigan. My job was to take photos of what happened when he detonated a 4-ounce charge to try to destroy a simulated foot.

  Richard’s thinking on this issue was basic. He created a series of pads that consisted of 40 sheets of Kevlar and which were carefully cut to a relevant boot shape; these would be inserted into the boot. Since the material is quite thin, it is not in any way uncomfortable. In fact, he made a pair of the pads for himself and he’d been wearing them for four months by the time I joined him. They were comfortable enough to be used permanently, he declared.

  While 4-ounce charges totally destroyed the pad and the boot, the infantryman’s foot, battered, bruised and possibly broken, was saved. As he pointed out, the average former Soviet PMN anti-personnel mine contained roughly 1.3 ounces (0.216 kilograms) of explosives. The Italian Milelba ‘Type A’ mine was of a similar weight. And since the pads were able to withstand blasts of double that amount of explosives, he reckoned it would be comforting to the average grunt out on patrol to know that he might not lose a limb, or even part of one if he triggered an anti-personnel mine. Since then, the family company, Armor Express, also of Central Lake, Michigan, has gone into full production of these revolutionary little pads and Davis has patented his invention in 70 countries.1 Also, scores were passed on to the Department of Defense for testing both in the United States and under combat conditions abroad. A Special Forces group at Fort Bragg received several sets for on-site evaluation.