Level 5-Day 17. 'A Modern Tragedy And Its Consequences' (1)

Diana, Princess Of Wales: 'A Modern Tragedy And Its Consequences' (1)

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 firsthand 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 mostly 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 an aesthetics.

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.

翻译

威尔士王妃戴安娜:“一场现代悲剧及其后果”(1)

女士们、先生们，首先我必须表示我多么热烈地欢迎地雷咨询小组和地雷幸存者网络召开的这次地雷问题会议。
它是如此受欢迎，因为世界对杀伤地雷在地球上一些最贫穷的人中间造成的生命、肢体和土地的浪费认识得太少。
事实上，直到我今年早些时候前往安哥拉之前- -我今天上午将就此发言- -我基本上也没有意识到这一点。
因为地雷是一个隐秘的杀手。
在冲突结束很久之后，在我们很少听到消息的国家中，无辜的受害者仍然单独死亡或受伤。
他们孤独的命运从未被报道过。
世界及其许多其他关注事项，基本上对每月大约800人死亡无动于衷，其中许多是妇女和儿童。
那些没有被直接杀害的人- -每月又有1200人被杀害- -受到严重伤害并终身残疾。
我于1月同英国红十字会一起前往安哥拉- -这个国家的1 000万人口中有1 500万枚地雷- -希望提请世界注意这一至关重要但迄今基本上被忽视的问题。
有些人把我的访问解读为一种政治声明。
但事实并非如此。
我不是一个政治人物。
正如我当时所说，现在我想重申，我的兴趣是人道主义。
这就是为什么我被这场人类悲剧所吸引。
这就是为什么我想淡化我在争取在世界范围内禁止这些武器方面所起的作用。
在安哥拉期间，我亲眼目睹了这一灾祸的三个方面。
在不久前发生激烈战斗的首都罗安达和万博的医院里，我看望了一些幸存的地雷受害者，看到了他们的伤势。
我不打算描述它们，因为根据我的经验，它会让太多人偏离这个主题。
我只想说，当你看着那些被地雷炸得血肉模糊的尸体，其中一些是儿童，你会对他们的幸存感到惊讶。
这些伤害的残酷之处在于，它们大多都是在医疗资源匮乏的地方遭受的。
我亲眼目睹了这些医院在改善医疗服务方面存在的一些障碍。
药品、止痛药、甚至麻醉剂的长期短缺往往存在。
外科医生不断忙于切除破碎的肢体，从来没有我们期望在这里看到的所有设备。
所以人类要承受的痛苦往往是无法想象的。
此外，这种紧急医疗只是回到某种生活的第一步。
对于那些以土地为生的人来说，失去一只胳膊或一条腿是一个终生的巨大障碍。
我看到了红十字会和其他机构为替换失去的肢体所做的出色工作。
但制造假肢是一项昂贵而复杂的业务。
例如;随着年龄的增长，一个年幼的孩子将需要几次不同的试穿。
有时，由于伤势严重，无法安装假肢。
没有足够的资源来替换所有失去的肢体。