Reclaiming the Land

   The Refugee Program of the United Methodist Church is the longest-standing of UMCOR's programs. Recently I have become very much aware of how much our programs interrelate with one another.

   Land mine removal is a basic form of resettlement. The head of demining operations in Mozambique says, "Mines are not the objective, they are the obstacle. People in their villages are the objectives." He relayed the following story:

   The members of a village in Mozambique insisted that their planting fields were mined. A land mine removal company surveyed for several months and found nothing. Still, the elders would not allow the citizens to use the fields for fear of mines. Finally, someone discovered the identity of the former soldier who had, ostensibly, laid that mine field. He revealed that he had arrived at the village with several wooden ammunition boxes in a truck. He demanded that people of the village help him carry the boxes to several places among the small planting plots scattered through the forest. He then sent all of the villagers back to their village until they would be summoned to help reload his equipment on his truck. Supposedly they were not to see where he planted specific mines. When he was finally alone, he opened the ammunition boxes and emptied them of their contents: stones, which he flung at random. The villagers suffered hunger, loss of income, and exodus to the city for years in the belief that someone among them might be killed if they tilled their fields.

   The tragedy of land mines is that people get dismembered and so do communities. The threat of land mines costs the livelihoods of entire societies. Our commitment to demining is a passion for human return. God made Mozambique's land so that God's creatures might live. UMCOR and the United Methodist Church of Mozambique will help get it back and help the people go home.

Paul Dirdak Deputy General Secretary