Today (Thursday 16th November), the sixth and final series of The Crown will stream on Netflix. It features a scene depicting Princess Diana’s famous walk along a cleared path on an Angolan minefield in January 1997, just months before her untimely death later that year.
I lead the global landmine clearing charity that hosted Diana on that minefield 26 years ago, and her legacy continues to affect my professional life on a daily basis. Had she not used her determination to shine a light on the appalling impact of landmines on civilians, The HALO Trust would be significantly poorer for it today.
Prior to Diana’s visit, there was very little awareness about the devastating impact of mines and unexploded ordnance, but the striking images of Diana walking through the minefield and comforting child amputees was transformational: both for the people of Angola and for global mine clearance in general.
These were the days before the smart phone and social media, but the images catapulted the issue onto the world stage. I am grateful to this day that a quick thinking HALO manager had the foresight to cut up a pillowcase, draw on our logo in felt tip and stitch it on to her body armour – a key scene missing from the episode. The same manager then delivered a safety briefing to the princess in his trademark Yorkshire deadpan which left her understandably nervous: Don’t listen to what I have to say and you could be killed.
It wasn’t just her bravery though. Diana was, of course, a mother herself, and was obviously moved when she met children who had lost their limbs to landmines. The young girl famously photographed on her knee was called Sandra Tijica and she was thrilled to meet Prince Harry some 22 years later, when he retraced his mother’s footsteps by visiting the same region of Angola in 2019.
In Angola, the benefits of demining were immediately apparent. Clearing roads of anti-vehicle mines allowed refugees and the displaced to return to their communities and humanitarian aid to be safely delivered. Decimated towns were gradually rebuilt, and clearance of minefields enabled the construction of hospitals, schools and homes and allowed rural communities to farm and access water. Clearing landmines alongside major infrastructure such as the Benguela railway line and on key roads connecting provincial capitals with dams and power lines helped the Angolan post-war economy grow.
Diana’s visit not only raised global awareness of landmines but increased pressure on states, including the United Kingdom, to agree to a treaty ban that banned them. The Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention – also known as the Ottawa Treaty - was drafted after her death in September 1997 and entered into force on 1 March 1999.
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Indeed, over the past 26 years, lives have been saved by landmine clearance in approximately 90 countries. More than 55 million landmines have been destroyed and many states have completed clearance of all known minefields, including Mozambique, once formerly one of the most densely mined places on earth.
Diana’s legacy has undoubtedly benefitted millions, but the full impact will be felt by generations to come. Of course, the conflict in Ukraine has seen an appalling resurgence of mine laying at catastrophic levels. It would be easy to be disheartened by the enormity of the task in clearing its minefields in the years ahead. But re-watching Diana’s 1997 walk in Angola always inspires hope. When I visited the exact same spot with Prince Harry four years ago, the ground was tarmacked and flanked with homes, shops and hundreds of cheering schoolchildren. Only their parents could remember the landmines that once laid in wait beneath. Diana’s walk lasted mere minutes, but decades on it still helps us strive for a future in which landmines are gone for good.
James Cowan, CEO, The HALO Trust
Beyond Bombs Podcast: The Princess and the Minefield
In 1997, nobody had heard of the HALO Trust. Few people cared about landmines. Then the most famous woman in the world walked through a minefield being cleared by HALO in Angola. We talk to Paul Heslop (pictured above on the right), the man charged with escorting Princess Diana and keeping her safe. A walk that highlighted the landmine problem to billions of people around the world.
Left: Diana, Princess of Wales, wears body armor and a visor on the minefields during a visit to Angola in January 1997 to promote the campaign against the use of landmines.
Right: Fourteen-year-old Braulia takes her nieces Ceci and Benvida on an errand to the corner store in a neighborhood of Huambo that 25 years ago was the site of a visit by British Royal Princess Diana. What was, during her visit, an active and uncleared minefield, is now a thriving neighborhood with homes and businesses, and Braulia and her family moved here from Luanda a year ago.
Diana's 1997 visit to Angola raised global awareness of the plight of landmine victims and the indiscriminate nature of the weapons. States came together later that year to sign the Mine Ban Treaty in Ottawa. Despite the Treaty's huge success in stopping landmine production and transfer, HALO says that the Treaty's proposed 2025 deadline for a mine free world will not be met without a substantial increase in funding for mine clearance.
Staff from HALO, the world's largest and oldest mine clearance charity, were in the process of clearing the minefield Diana walked through on 15 January 1997. Since then HALO has destroyed more than 92,000 landmines, 800 minefields and 162,000 shells, missiles and bombs in Angola.
The minefield where Diana walked is now a thriving community with housing, a carpentry workshop, a small college and a school. But there is still much to be done. Most of the cities in Angola have been cleared but rural areas remain heavily mined and over 40% of the population lives in the countryside. There are 630 minefields remaining in the eight provinces in which HALO works, and perhaps more than 1,000 minefields remaining across the country.
