Princess Diana Speech
Responding To Landmines
Responding To Landmines Famous Speech by Princess Diana
June 12, 1997
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I must begin by saying how warmly I welcome this conference on landmines convened by the Mines Advisory Group and the Landmines Survivors’ Network. It is so welcome because the world is too little aware of the waste of life, limb and land which anti-personnel landmines are causing among some of the poorest people on earth. Indeed, until my journey to Angola early this year – on which I am going to speak this morning – I was largely unaware of it too.
For the mine is a stealthy killer. Long after conflict is ended, its innocent victims die or are wounded singly, in countries of which we hear little. Their lonely fate is never reported. The world, with its many other preoccupations, remains largely unmoved by a death roll of something like 800 people every month – many of them women and children. Those who are not killed outright – and they number another 1,200 a month – suffer terrible injuries and are handicapped for life. I was in Angola in January with the British Red Cross – a country where there are 15 million landmines in a population, Ladies and Gentlemen, of 10 million – with the desire of drawing world attention to this vital, but hitherto largely neglected issue.
Some people chose to interpret my visit as a political statement. But it was not. I am not a political figure. As I said at the time, and I’d like to re-iterate now, my interests are humanitarian. That is why I felt drawn to this human tragedy. This is why I wanted to play down my part in working towards a world-wide ban on these weapons. During my days in Angola, I saw at first hand three aspects of this scourge. In the hospitals of Luanda, the capital, and Huambo, scene of bitter fighting not long ago, I visited some of the mine victims who had survived, and saw their injuries. I am not going to describe them, because in my experience it turns too many people away from the subject. Suffice to say, that when you look at the mangled bodies, some of them children, caught by these mines, you marvel at their survival. What is so cruel about these injuries, is that they are almost invariably suffered, where medical resources are scarce.
I observed for myself some of the obstacles to improving medical care in most of these hospitals. Often there is a chronic shortage of medicine, of pain killers, even of anaesthetics. Surgeons constantly engaged in amputating shattered limbs, never have all the facilities we would expect to see here. So the human pain that has to be borne is often beyond imagining. This emergency medical care, moreover, is only the first step back to a sort of life. For those whose living is the land, loss of an arm or leg, is an overwhelming handicap which lasts for life. I saw the fine work being done by the Red Cross and other agencies to replace lost limbs. But making prostheses is a costly as well as a complicated business. For example; a young child will need several different fittings as it grows older. Sometimes, the severity of the injury makes the fitting of an artificial limb impossible. There are never enough resources to replace all the limbs that are lost.
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well it looks pretty good to me. maybe you can instruct me on creating a blog of my own about bilingual resorces for bilingual teachers there is not much help in the internet and is quite necessary.
I was looking for blogs and i found this i like and i am going to continue reading it.
I am english student in Nicaragua and i like that you write in english and spanish.
Thanks for this blog.
Thanks for visiting my blog. It is a work in progress. Every day I learn something new about blogging. I am glad you like the format and content.Olga Lucia Diaz Yepes, a Columbiana, and I research the topics together. Though we speak and write each other’s languages, the Spanish posts are written mostly by her. I write the English posts with her assistance. Feel free to tell you friends and colleagues about the blog. If you have not done so already, please subscribe to blog so that you can be kept up to date. Good luck with your English, but I think you are doing fine.
Paul I read Lucia’s post and is quite interesting her comparisons about Colombia and Mexico’s situation all she mention there is true and I really feel so sad about it because Mexico is such a beautiful country and his people are totally friendly but this people(the bad ones) has nothing to lose that they don’t care about ruining all of this beauty. Mexico still have so many beautiful places but they are being put in the back because the world is only hearing about the horrible violence now. You know is terrible a few years ago when I was still living in my home town in Mexico you could go out at any hour during day or at nigth but last year I was there for a doctors visit and I took my daugther along with me we decided to go to a good Mexican restaurant for lunch and all of the sudden we realized that the place was fool of soldiers so we were so scared. so my hometown is not a safe town no more. some years ago you could see local habitants shoping and mingling around the downtown but now this small town look like ghost town no one in the streets and locals mention to me that they fear to go out after 6:00 pm and get in the middle of a sudden shooting.
Bueno Paul suerte con tu blog y para mi es verdaderamente interesante y muy informativo espero poder contribuir con algunos comentarios aqui y alla tambien me ayuda para practicar mi ingles al mismo tiempo que mi espanol pues no quiero olvidar mis raices, sinceramente tu amiga
Maria Ludivina Castellano Mexicana de Corazon! hasta luego.
Paul is very interesting that you’ve got your blog, I hope I like to teach me how to do mine someday ….. Mexico is a country with too much violence, is more dangerous now that my country Colombia ….. Ilimune his ways and God is not so much bad
Paul i find your blog very promissing. the topics are very universal so that anyone on this globe can address and display his/hers point of view and experiaces. here in Israel we are going through a peacfull yet loud revolution. not exactly for the poor people but for the middle class, the young couples , students who are going to get their degree, people who are not starving, but working people educated ones who find it hard to pay the rent and to make a living. maybe u saw us on the news demonstrating by living in tents all over the boulevard in Tel Aviv and across the country. i ‘ve seen that the New Yorkers have addapted it too.
to my opinion the problem is explotation by the tycoons who earn byond imagination and lack in social reformations for the benefit of the people in this case the working educated , like doctors, engeeners, teachers, clarck etc.
i apologize for any mistake in my vocabulary.
all the best and greetings from the holly land
Nina