10 Feb 2010

SWEDEN / LANDMINES

Exploding landmines and other dangerous remnants of war kill and maim thousands every year. But clearing these deadly threats requires a variety of complex skills. At a camp, set up by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency, conditions in the field are recreated so United Nations staff can train. UNTV

Posted at: February 10, 2010 12:01 am

Duration: 07:02

Available in: SD

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Full script

STORY: SWEDEN / LANDMINES
TRT: 7.02
SOURCE: 21SY CENTURY
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS

DATELINE:

SHOTLIST:

FILE – JUNE 2009, TRAINING CAMP, SWEDEN

1. Various shots, militia road block
2. SOUNDUP (English) Militiaman: 
"Open the door right now! Open the door or I'll shoot! Open the door!"
3. SOUNDUP (English) Militiaman: 
"What are you doing in this place?"  
4. SOUNDUP (English) Tammy Hall, Senior Technical Advisor for Mine Action, MINURSO:
"We're just setting up a coordination centre for the United Nations. We're just humanitarian workers."  
5. SOUNDUP (English) Militiaman: 
"I already told you guys, we don't need NATO, we don't need UN. We're loyal with our president. Just so you know, we will   come back to you. We know where you're at!  Back in the car! "
6. Wide shot, UN car drives away from militia
7. Tracking shot, militia on the road (seen from inside of van)
8. Med shot, sky seen from plane window 
9. Various shots, un mine action staff inside plane
10. Various sots, un mine action staff at airport in Swden
11. Various shots, training camp
12. SOUNDBITE (English) Chris Clark, Mine action veteran:
"Sandland, our country, is divided along various ethnic lines."  
13. Various shots, team meeting with Head trainer
14. SOUNDBITE (English) Chris Clark, Mine action veteran, head trainer:
"The individual activities or scenarios are all replications of things that have actually happened to our people in those environments." 
15. Wide shot, team acting out their parts with a cameraman during a the dramatization of a militia road block
16. SOUNDBITE (English) Chris Clark, Mine action veteran:
 "For many of them it's probably the first time they've had a gun pointed at their face and were told to get out of the car."

APTN HANDOUT – DATE UNKNOWN, AFGHANISTAN, GAZA

17. Various shots, raids
18. Med shot, two local men hugging
19. Med shot, UN tank
20. Various shots, mine action teams in the field 
21. Wide shot, landmine exploding
21. Various shots, landmines, cluster munitions, unexploded bombs
22. Tilt down, from men to victims covered on the ground
23. Med shot, men carrying coffin
24. Med shot, victim of landmines walking with artificial limb
25. Various shots, unexploded bombs

FILE – JUNE 2009, TRAINING CAMP, SWEDEN

26. Various shots, training camp
27. Tracking shot, dramatization of armed militia entering un premises in fake country
28. SOUNDUP (English) Militiaman: 
 "Why are you not doing anything?"
29. SOUNDUP: (English) Tammy Hall, Senior Technical Advisor for Mine Action, MINURSO:
  "We have security concerns about our staff.  Yesterday wasn't a secure environment."   
30. SOUNDUP (English) Militiaman: 
"Security?  We are the security.  You come and help us and we have the area. It's our area."   
31. SOUNDUP (English) Tammy Hall, Senior Technical Advisor for Mine Action, MINURSO:
"I realize that.  Can you put the guns aside so that we can have a better conversation, honestly."   
32. Med shot, a live cluster bomb is laid on a table
33. SOUNDUP (English) Militiaman: 
 "This is what makes the accidents for our people."   
34. SOUNDUP (English) Tammy Hall, Senior Technical Advisor for Mine Action, MINURSO:
"That's why we have teams that are coming to clear that but they're not here yet. We don't have the capacity."  
35. Med shot, militia leaves tent
36. Med shot, staff on radio
37. SOUNDUP (English) Mark, staff: 
"We have a security situation, everybody is to proceed to the area of the toilets now, over."
38. Med shot, staff gathering around the toilet area
39. SOUNDBITE (English) Mark, staff:  (In English)
 "They're pretty volatile things so we can't afford for it to be disturbed in any way because if it does and it detonates then obviously we could have an accident and an injury."
40. Various shots, team sealing off area
41. SOUNDBITE (English) Chris Clark: (In English)
"They were a bit thrown by the fact that there were people there with guns in their camp .  Of course, it's a UN policy generally not to have guns in a camp but, de facto, they are here. Militia carry guns."
42. Various shots, armed rebel militia inside camp 
43. Various shots, UN team at table meeting with maps
44. Various shots, "good" rebels meet staff
45. SOUNDBITE (English) Mark Williams, team leader:
"We're not getting as much information as I'd like and the only way we can get it is to perhaps negotiate with these guys".
46. Various shots, being hooded to meet with warlord
47. SOUNDUP (English) Rebel:
"Unfortunately I have to blindfold you."
48. SOUNDBITE (English) Mark Williams, team leader:
"When he put the hood on, I was a bit indecisive about what I was going to do."
49. Various shots, Mark being walked to meet "warlord"
50. Various shots, Mark is de hooded and meets with warlord
51. SOUNDUP (English) Mark Williams, team leader:
"I'd like to know any information you might have on any known minefields. What I'm gonna be able to do for you is to give you peace of mind that you can walk back into these fields, that you can go back to cultivating the land, or hunting."  
52. Various shots, Mark and warlord
53. SOUNDBITE (English) Mark Williams, team leader:
"At the back of my mind I was just hoping I wasn't going to be stuck down a well somewhere and just left to my own devices."
54. SOUNDUP (English) Warlord:
"I will provide you with a map of the, known to us, minefields in this neighbourhood.  I hope that will help your organization to help my people."
55. Various shots, warlord showing map to Mark and showing where the landmines are 
56. Wide shot, Mark is put on a hood again
57. SOUNDBITE (English) Max Kerley, Director, UN Mine Action: 
"You probably learn more lessons from when you do badly during training than you learn from that which goes well during training."
58. Tracking shot, Max walks to his office at the training cam
59. SOUNDBITE (English) Max Kerley, Director, UN Mine Action:
"Better to do it here than wherever we next deploy the rapid response for real."   
60. Various shots, Mine Action team in the field

APTN HANDOUT – DATE UNKNOWN, AFGHANISTAN, GAZA

61. Various shots, bombs being exploded
62. Various shots, Mine Action staff exploding a landmine

FILE – JUNE 2009, TRAINING CAMP, SWEDEN

63. Various shots, Tammy in a tent at the training camp
64. SOUNDUP (English) Tammy Hall, Senior Technical Advisor for Mine Action, MINURSO:
"I don't think I was their star candidate but what they said at the end was they recommend me for a real mission, so on that ground, I think I passed."
65. Various shots, Tammy and other staff around a table
66. Med shot, Tammy hand shaking with others from the team after training
67. SOUNDBITE (English) Chris Clark, team leader:
"Everybody I've seen in the exercise has certain attributes and those attributes can always contribute to a positive deployment.  If you can get this absolutely right on the day, it has such a positive effect on the larger humanitarian response."
68. Med shot, team saluting each other

STORYLINE:

SOUNDUP (English) Militiaman: 
"Open the door right now! Open the door or I'll shoot! Open the door!"

SOUNDUP (English) Militiaman: 
"What are you doing in this place?"

SOUNDUP (English) Tammy Hall, Senior Technical Advisor for Mine Action, MINURSO:
"We're just setting up a coordination centre for the United Nations. We're just humanitarian workers."

SOUNDUP (English) Militiaman: 
"I already told you guys, we don't need NATO, we don't need UN. We're loyal with our president. Just so you know, we will   come back to you. We know where you're at!  Back in the car! "

While this may look like the real thing these rebels are actually Swedish soldiers in disguise.

Just hours earlier, Tammy Hall, and other United Nations mine-action staff arrived in northern Sweden for a training exercise.

They are being prepared for urgent deployment to war-zones.

Their task is to coordinate life-saving mine clearance and bomb disposal and to allow aid to reach those in need.

For the next 10 days, Tammy and her team will live in this fictional country called Sandland where a civil war has just ended.

SOUNDBITE (English) Chris Clark, Mine action veteran:
"Sandland, our country, is divided along various ethnic lines."

Chris Clark, himself a veteran of frontline mine-actions after ceasefires is head trainer on the course.

SOUNDBITE (English) Chris Clark, Mine action veteran, head trainer:
"The individual activities or scenarios are all replications of things that have actually happened to our people in those environments."

And learning how to respond is part of the training.

SOUNDBITE (English) Chris Clark, Mine action veteran:
 "For many of them it's probably the first time they've had a gun pointed at their face and were told to get out of the car."

As the smoke settles in the immediate aftermath of wars , it is often mine-action teams from the UN who are first to arrive on the scene.  Landmines, cluster munitions and unexploded bombs, kill more than 5,000 civilians annually, and maim many more.

In more than 70 countries around the world, the threat from unexploded ordnance lives on for years after conflicts have ended.

At a camp, set up by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency, conditions in the field are recreated.  But as Tammy and her colleagues set up a centre to coordinate mine clearance, their work is continually hampered by the lack of security.

SOUNDUP (English) Militiaman: 
 "Why are you not doing anything?"

The rebels demand immediate UN assistance to clear the cluster bombs littering their villages.

SOUNDUP: (English) Tammy Hall, Senior Technical Advisor for Mine Action, MINURSO:
  "We have security concerns about our staff.  Yesterday wasn't a secure environment."

SOUNDUP (English) Militiaman: 
"Security?  We are the security.  You come and help us and we have the area. It's our area."

SOUNDUP (English) Tammy Hall, Senior Technical Advisor for Mine Action, MINURSO:
"I realize that.  Can you put the guns aside so that we can have a better conversation, honestly."

Suddenly, things take a turn for the worse   – a live cluster bomb.

SOUNDUP (English) Militiaman: 
 "This is what makes the accidents for our people."

SOUNDUP (English) Tammy Hall, Senior Technical Advisor for Mine Action, MINURSO:
"That's why we have teams that are coming to clear that but they're not here yet. We don't have the capacity."

The rebels storm out leaving the potentially lethal bomb on the table.

The camp has to be evacuated.

SOUNDUP (English) Mark, staff: 
"We have a security situation, everybody is to proceed to the area of the toilets now, over."

Confusion reigns as they wait for the bomb-disposal team to arrive.

SOUNDBITE (English) Mark, staff:  (In English)
 "They're pretty volatile things so we can't afford for it to be disturbed in any way because if it does and it detonates then obviously we could have an accident and an injury."

As the tent is sealed off, Chris comments on the team's response to what could be, in the field, a very real situation.

SOUNDBITE (English) Chris Clark: (In English)
"They were a bit thrown by the fact that there were people there with guns in their camp .  Of course, it's a UN policy generally not to have guns in a camp but, de facto, they are here. Militia carry guns."

During the next few days, the team compiles information in order to produce a map showing safe routes for the relief convoys. But their information is still incomplete.

Then, help arrives in the form of another band of armed rebels, this time supposedly friendly. Their insider-info on the location of mine-fields could be exactly what the team needs in order to start getting aid to where it's needed. Team-member, Mark Williams, agrees to meet their leader, a local warlord.

SOUNDBITE (English) Mark Williams, team leader:
"We're not getting as much information as I'd like and the only way we can get it is to perhaps negotiate with these guys".

SOUNDUP (English) Rebel:
"Unfortunately I have to blindfold you."
SOUNDBITE (English) Mark Williams, team leader:
"When he put the hood on, I was a bit indecisive about what I was going to do."

SOUNDUP (English) Mark Williams, team leader:
"I'd like to know any information you might have on any known minefields. What I'm gonna be able to do for you is to give you peace of mind that you can walk back into these fields, that you can go back to cultivating the land, or hunting."

SOUNDBITE (English) Mark Williams, team leader:
"At the back of my mind I was just hoping I wasn't going to be stuck down a well somewhere and just left to my own devices."

SOUNDUP (English) Warlord:
"I will provide you with a map of the, known to us, minefields in this neighbourhood.  I hope that will help your organization to help my people."

At last, the team can now start deploying clearance experts and making routes safe.  This marks a turning-point in their training.

SOUNDBITE (English) Max Kerley, Director, UN Mine Action: 
"You probably learn more lessons from when you do badly during training than you learn from that which goes well during training."

Max Kerley is Director of the United Nations Mine Action Service.

SOUNDBITE (English) Max Kerley, Director, UN Mine Action:
"Better to do it here than wherever we next deploy the rapid response for real."

And until the world is free of explosives leftover after conflicts, there will be a need to continue to deploy teams for real.

So is Tammy Hall ready to go?

SOUNDUP (English) Tammy Hall, Senior Technical Advisor for Mine Action, MINURSO:
"I don't think I was their star candidate but what they said at the end was they recommend me for a real mission, so on that ground, I think I passed."

SOUNDBITE (English) Chris Clark, team leader:
"Everybody I've seen in the exercise has certain attributes and those attributes can always contribute to a positive deployment.  If you can get this absolutely right on the day, it has such a positive effect on the larger humanitarian response."