HUAMBO, March 1: The ghost of Diana, Princess of Wales, haunts the minefields and hospitals of Angola, where the landmines she crusaded against on a visit just months before her death still kill and maim everyday. The Princess's high-profile tour helped draw international attention to the horrors inflicted on civilians by a weapon of war now outlawed by the 123 countries that signed the Ottawa Treaty last December. But the glitz she brought to a sordid subject has long gone. And there is little to show for it in the lives of those victims she visited.Of course, there is the "Diana-tree" in the dusty courtyard of Anorthopaedic Centre in capital Luanda, made famous worldwide through pictures showing her waiting under it to try out artificial limbs. But in the fly-infested, dark wards of the low-slung building in one of Luanda's shanty towns, there is no sign of the toys the Princess is said to have promised to send.
In the central highlands city of Huambo, hard-hit by oil-rich Angola's decades of coldwar-linked civil conflict, there is the "Diana-boy". Like the tree, he too was made briefly famous by photographs of his contact with the Princess during her tour of the vast South-West African state in January last year. His name is Daniel Fitzberto, he's 12 years old and his life since Diana's visit is almost as tragic as it was before she made her appearance. He remembers clearly the moment he lost both his legs.
Daniel also remembers, but not quite so clearly, his moment of glory with the United Nations Development Programme "Footsteps of Diana" tour. As the bashful boy is left behind, having suffered questions such as, "Did she have a nice smile?" and "Did she smell nice?", an aid worker at the Orthopaedic Centre confides that Daniel's life as a celebrity has not been an easy one. He is occasionally thrown out of his home by his mother, because he no longer brings home the sort of cash he received in the past from journalists.
Down the road at Huambo Airfield, there are men wearing blue deminingflak jackets like the one Diana donned for the international media circus that followed her every move here.
or probing the earth centimetre by centimetre through the minefield, they earn around 200 dollars a month -- not a bad salary for Angola, but not a great one for men who put their lives on the line every day.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
