Princess Diana campaigned to ban these deadly weapons. Some of Europe wants them back

Brussels: One of the enduring acts of Diana, Princess of Wales, is reverberating years later in a mounting dispute over European plans to bring back the deadly weapons she wanted to ban.

Her campaign against landmines drew government complaints in January 1997 when she walked through a minefield in Africa to bring the world’s attention to the hidden killers.

Princess Diana visits a minefield in Angola in January 1997.Credit: AP

That moment, seven months before she died, was remembered only days ago when her son, Prince Harry, followed in her footsteps in the same Angolan village.

Her campaign faces its strongest challenge in decades as parts of Europe prepare to lay new minefields along their borders due to fears about Russian incursions.

Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia have withdrawn from the Ottawa Treaty that forbids use of landmines, splitting from more than 160 countries that have ratified the agreement reached in the Canadian capital in December 1997.

“The security situation in our region has fundamentally deteriorated,” the four countries said in April. “Military threats to NATO member states bordering Russia and Belarus have significantly increased.”

Ukraine announced in June that it would quit the treaty. Finland has done the same, and 10 days ago it revealed it would begin making landmines next year, a plan also under way in Lithuania.

Lithuanian soldiers patrol a road beside a training range near Vilnius this year.Credit: nna\riwood

“We are going to spend hundreds of millions of euros on anti-tank mines, but also on anti-personnel mines,” Lithuanian Deputy Defence Minister Karolis Aleksa told Reuters.

The memory of Diana, however, is helping campaigners mount their case against the new plans out of fear the mines laid in the next few years will sit beneath the soil for decades, killing and wounding civilians.

The HALO Trust, the non-profit organisation that guided Diana through the minefield in Angola, where it was steadily clearing the weapons, said the visit by Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, helped the campaign.

“The duke’s support comes at a crucial time when the Ottawa Treaty is challenged by more conflicts raging across the globe than ever before,” the HALO Trust head of policy, James Denselow, told this masthead.

The trust has removed 2 million landmines over 35 years and continues to work in countries such as Angola, Ukraine and Afghanistan. It destroyed 58,000 mines last year and cleared 7500 hectares.

MAG International, set up by a British army engineer who saw mines killing civilians in Afghanistan, also rejects new moves to lay minefields.

“Any military utility of anti-personnel mines is outweighed by their immediate and long-term impact on civilians,” said Josephine Dresner, the organisation’s director of policy.

Princess Diana meets landmine survivors in Angola in January 1997.Credit:

Dresner rejected the idea that a minefield along the remote border between Finland and Russia might not pose the same threat, saying the danger remains even in sparsely populated areas.

She said the example set by Poland and the Baltic states would make it harder to restrain other countries, for example, Angola, from burying mines in future.

“If Angola were to decide in future to use anti-personnel mines to address a national security threat, no actor who has justified Finland’s actions could legitimately criticise Angola’s,” she said.

The president of Finland, Alexander Stubb, has defended his decisions in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“When Russia attacked, our opinion, rules changed,” he told this masthead in a feature published this month.

At NATO headquarters in Brussels, the peak defence organisation is not taking sides. Norway, however, has criticised its neighbours and will not quit the treaty.

“If we start weakening our commitment, it makes it easier for warring factions around the world to use these weapons again because it reduces the stigma,” Norway’s Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide told Reuters in April.

The land border between Norway and Russia is about 200 kilometres long, while the border between Finland and Russia stretches for more than 1300 kilometres. Finnish policy is shaped in part by the Winter War that began in November 1939 when Russia invaded Finland.

Diana’s advocacy helped produce the Ottawa Treaty within a year of her visit to Angola, but it was controversial at the time. One British government minister said she was a “loose cannon” and badly advised.

Asked about this in Angola, she played down her actions. “I’m only trying to highlight a problem that’s going on all around the world, that’s all,” she said.

In fact, her words shaped a global debate on arms control. Now they echo decades later – even if some in Europe do not want to hear them.

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