NZDF told to clean up in Aghanistan
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has ordered Defence Force bosses to respond urgently to dangerous firing ranges in Afghanistan, but revealed it will still be years before they are safe.
Ardern called in the Chief of Army, Major-General John Boswell, to firmly lay out her expectations, only 24 hours after the release of the Stuff Circuit documentary Life + Limb.
And in another development, the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) broke its silence, with Boswell fronting for an interview with Stuff Circuit in which he said: ‘‘I feel for the people who are still suffering and I hope we can get that place into a state where they can get on with their lives.’’
His comments, and the public scolding of the NZDF by the prime minister, marked a rapid turnaround on an issue that has dragged on for six years.
The catalyst was the release of the documentary, which exposed the deaths and injuries of 17 civilians in nine separate incidents connected by the United Nations to the New Zealand firing ranges in Bamyan, Afghanistan.
One of those incidents, in April 2014, killed seven children in a village adjacent to New Zealand’s main firing range.
A survey of the ranges last year found almost 40 square kilometres remains dangerous.
In an interview with Stuff Circuit, Ardern had a message to the families: ‘‘We have a responsibility to clear our sites and we will – it’s taken too long in my view.’’
She said work would begin in the mountainous central Afghan province once weather allowed. It will take longer than two years to properly clear the ranges.
Asked whether the $10 million set aside for the cleanup was enough, Ardern said, ‘‘Money isn’t the issue,’’ and acknowledged that it would probably cost more than that.
Ardern also revealed that she had known about the issue since the middle of last year, and made it clear she was not happy it still had not been dealt with.
Asked whether he accepted that New Zealand unexploded ordnance could be responsible for the incident that killed seven children, Boswell said: ‘‘Of course there is a possibility.’’
But he said the challenge for Bamyan was that there was ‘‘so much unexploded ammunition. There is a potential for a tiny amount of it to be ours.’’
In a statement to Stuff Circuit before the documentary was
broadcast, the NZDF contended that the area used as firing ranges had been used by Soviet and American forces before New Zealand’s arrival in 2003.
When the PRT left in 2013, Boswell said, the ranges were cleared according to the standards in place at the time. Those standards were changed months later.
‘‘We did everything we possibly could to not leave anything behind,’’ Boswell said. The problem was that the clearance was of the surface. ‘‘We didn’t do a subsurface clearance.’’
Boswell added: ‘‘We regret any deaths.’’
Asked whether the injured and the families of the dead should be compensated, he said it would be hard to confirm which army’s ordnance was responsible for each specific incident.