The Ban Bus

As we drove out of Zagreb there was a sombre mood, as we wondered if we were going to have trouble in the press over the Serb spelt sign. A changed letter and only on for ten minutes, we really hoped it would not take centre stage. Davor was very quiet till he confessed, “My country is gone”. When Yugoslavia tore itself apart not all relished the rise in nationalism. Davor went to Canada and stayed as far away from the madness as possible. He saw Yugoslavia under Tito as good for all. The subsequent collapse has helped no one in his eyes. The drama over having a little Serb spelling really made him sad.

We drove on and crossed into Slovenia and the border girl spelt out what we had been missing for so long, “You must pay!” This was a first rate rip off as she insisted on us paying a 36 euro toll to drive across the country. The country is only about 300 yards wide, so that hardly represents great value for money. “Oh but you can drive anywhere here for the next 6 months” she says. As we will be out of here in the next 2 hours this hardly makes us feel better.

Driving on and out the other side we are in Italy and I can taste the pasta already. The Balkans have been great but they eat a lot of meat and I have reached my fill of grilled lamb. I am craving some beautiful Italian food! The GPS even seems slightly calmer as we close in on Paduva, which is in the north east near Venice. I know nothing of this place so as we get closer and closer we are all becoming more impressed. The GPS actually gets us to the centre by Saint Antonio’s cathedral. The little hotel we’re staying in is across the road from the church and Diego is there to meet us. He is the local campaigner and there are a bunch of them at a restaurant around the corner.

Unfortunately we can’t all stay at the same hotel and Daniel and Davor are on the edge of town, so we park the Ban Bus in our hotel and they grab a taxi out to theirs. I hate splitting up but sometimes it’s necessary due to the cost of hotels. We will always rotate who gets the better hotel if this happens but it’s still nicer to all be together. When I think of it, Davor has had mansion rooms where ever we have gone so my sympathy metre drops a few notches. Daniel has had the run of dog boxes so if anyone should get something better it is him. They decide to just head to the hotel and sleep and leave Mette and me to meet the locals.

There is a core group of 10 local campaigners and they have been waiting here quite awhile for us to come. The menu is passed and my idea of Italian heaven is laid out in the pages. I order something that sounds magnificent and the waitress says, “Sorry, too late for pasta, we can only do pizza now”. I was like a kid who’d lost his puppy. The disappointment didn’t last too long, because shortly after we were tucking into pizza and most importantly, it was nice and spicy!

The local campaign has a stack of things organised for us for tomorrow so after the meal it’s off to bed till we met again at 8 am.

Davor and Daniel meet Mette and me in the car park and the Ban Bus transformation begins yet again. This time, it’s into English and Italian. The language sensitivities of the last few days start to drop away as the van become the Ban Bus again. Diego had prepared a pack of directions and timings so we plug them into our GPS and are on the road again.

Italian traffic is well, Italian traffic and of course we get lost. “Recalculating” says the GPS followed by “Recalculating”. Around and around we go with no idea if we are right or wrong. We call Diego and they are running late too. Finally they spot us heading up a road and we get the Bus in the front of a church. A crowd of excited young school kids are on the steps screaming “Welcome Ban Bus!!”

The priest has given us free run of the church and Mette and Daniel get the pictures out and banners up in the street as I start to talk to the kids. I don’t do a standard presentation as everyone I do is different from the last. I have been asked in the past if I can supply a copy of my speech and I say “sure, how fast can you write?” I start talking about the basics and introduce the issues a little at a time so as not to lose the younger children. They all get it and finally we are open for questions. The quality and thought behind the questions is incredible, especially for a group of kids aged from 10 to 17 years old. This was a talk that could have gone on for hours. Diego closed the session, then we hit the streets. I was with some kids and we went in search of signatures at the bus terminal for the Peoples Treaty. In the mean time, Mette and Davor loaded the Ban Bus with kids and they started driving laps of Paduva yelling “Ban Cluster Bombs! Sign the Treaty”, in Italian of course. When I got back to the church there was a bunch of buzzing kids with a few more loads to go. Mette is the biggest kid and give her and van full of noise to play with and she is in her element. These kids were having a ball and didn’t want to go back to school. I admire teachers like the ones who brought the kids to us, as they are exposing them to a bigger world. They are not necessarily being exposed to a better world but a bigger one.

The rain had been pelting down and everything was soaked. All the photographs outside were wet but that didn’t matter as we purposely printed them on waterproof boards. Would have been silly to come to Europe at the start of winter and not have them waterproofed.

The day was just beginning as we headed to a restaurant for lunch. I got pasta! but it wasn’t that good. The afternoon had us in the old part of town and we were going to work the streets for signatures again and set up the exhibition. The exhibition is all about door stopping. There is a simple tactic to get lots of people interested in signing a petition to ban cluster bombs or anything else..We park the Ban Bus and off each end we set out the lines of pictures. It corals each end with visual material that will make them pause. They walk towards you, pause slightly, look at the first pictures, see you with a petition then speed up. You just leave them alone. At the second line of photos another person approaches them and asks them to sign. This simple technique works really well. People are defensive and avoid being stopped in the street. You let them get past you, they have a look at the photographs slow then you get them on the way out. It works almost every time.

The rain came and went and we spoke to many people. Because we were opposite the entrance to the university there were many graduating students getting hammered and celebrating. They had trumpets and accordions and sang the same thing over and over again. “Doctore, doctore, something something, Doctore.” It went on and on. One guy came by dressed as a goldfish with a picture of a naked woman on a fishing line. I missed the cow that apparently had also just passed us. Still they sang “Doctore, doctore”. I had to know and the song is “Doctor, I’m a doctor, stick it up your arse, I’m a doctor!”

As the sun set we mopped up the photos, packed up the van and headed for a popular local for a drink. Paduva is a really beautiful city. I would love to have more time to wander the back lanes and take it all in but we were to hit the road in the morning and head north to Geneva.

The day felt done, but they had one more gig to squeeze in before we left Italy and it’s was to speak at a nightclub’s Halloween Party. Yep, the quiet night before a day driving to Switzerland was out, because the party wasn’t starting until close to midnight. They had organised to have a plasma TV rolling cluster related films all night and we would take the floor at some time and add a few words. There was only a narrow window of opportunity to do this..Too early and the crowd would be tiny, too late and they’d be too pissed to know or care.

There were a few hours spare till the club gig started, so we headed to the hotel for a quick break and dinner. Davor was exhausted and I think the problem of yesterday was really getting to him. Mette decided to drive him home in the Ban Bus and Daniel and me went for dinner. My back was a mess due to old injuries and I was certainly having trouble walking about. I needed some drugs and needed them fast. A fist full of pain killers and anti inflammatories was swallowed and we went back to the restaurant we were at last night. This time I was in time for pasta and a magnificent seafood Tagliatelli was delivered.

Two hours later we headed back to the hotel to find Mette and a phone call revealed that she was lost. In fact she was very lost! Davor and her had been going around and around with no hotel in sight and the GPS was letting them down again. How unusual! I suggested they head back to our hotel and Davor could be put in a taxi to his hotel. In the meantime Daniel and me grabbed a cab and headed out to where this nightclub was.

It was deep in an industrial estate and called Banale. The place wasn’t open yet and the bar girl had no idea what we wanted to do. There was a definite language barrier here as she indicated that people came here to get hammered, dance and laid. Sounds like a typical nightclub to me! A phone call to Diego and all was unravelled. We were in the right place. The films were copied onto the clubs computer and we worked out how it would run. Halloween is apparently quite popular here and some patrons were even arriving in costume. The place was filling fast when Diego came to us and said that some kids were at the door and had come to hear the talk. They didn’t have much money so couldn’t get in. The rain was starting as I got my computer and went out to the car park. These kids were connected through Diego and a youth group he worked with. As far as we were concerned if they had come all this way because they want to know about clusters they deserved a good show. In a darkened corner of the car park I started telling them the field realities and showed them film of cluster strikes. We talked for over half an hour and they all found it outrageous and wanted more involvement. I think they will be our latest band of activists with some energetic local leadership.

The crowd was almost at capacity and not so far off being tanked so it was time to make a show of it. I have spoken in some weird and wild places in the past but I don’t remember a darkened club on Halloween. Any soap box will do so I hit the stage with Tibisay, Diego and an MC. We pushed out our message and kept it short, sharp and punchy. The place was starting to pump and I was exhausted, so it was time to head for home. The locals had been a bag of surprises and Diego returned again dressed as a BLU-97 cluster bomb! Across his chest he’d written, “Ban Me!”
There is a simple reason why I like to come to Italy, Italians are just great!!

Everything is easy and a nice little cheap hotel in found and in the morning we are on the road again once Daniel finally wakes up. His alarm broke and we are now up against the clock to make it to Zagreb in time.

The Zagreb action is a media conference and petition signing. As a target country it’s not that important as they have committed to signing in Oslo in December. What is important is to keep the issue alive in the minds of the Croatians. We have some fantastic campaigners here who are full of energy and the most determined of all is our old friend Djiana. She is the widow of the former Prime Minister and has driven this process single handed through the Croat bureaucracy. It’s been a tough haul for her too as she has taken many a political hit from those who wanted to get to her husband.

In 2006 Croatia hosted the Meeting of States Parties to the Mine Ban Treaty. She came under heavy political fire for a photo that I took of a disabled volleyball match. The match was an international between disabled veterans from the war. All were there, Bosnian, Serb and Croat. Some nationalist idiot stole the photo of Serbs and Croats playing their match. Next it was on TV with a little fat idiot ranting and raving. Djiana got the flak for that and my regret was that I had flown to London that day and wasn’t there to take it personally. I welcome a fight like that and can savage their position easily but it won’t be pretty. A person like Djiana can’t launch such a brutal attack as she is in the public eye and must maintain decorum. The really ridiculous part of this is that the players were all old soldiers who have lost parts of their bodies to these ugly weapons. If they can put the past behind them and meet in the sports arena and enjoy a beer together, why can’t these little fat men in capital cities who wrap themselves in flags and sing national anthems louder than anyone else. All they are is pond life, like some form of foetal amoeba with nothing better to fill their lives with than hatred. No country goes forward when people like this determine the future.

We blast along the motorway watching the clock and enter the city. “Look how they look at us,” says Davor.

He was right, driving into Zagreb with a Serb registered vehicle was like Paul Robeson at a Clan meeting, none too comfortable. The stares continued till we found the central square and after and few bad turn made it into the middle of it. Our local campaigners were really happy to see us and we all got busy sorting out the Ban Bus signage again. I was very conscious of the past problems and set about covering the registration plates with Ban Bus signage and photographs. This needed to be just a car and not a car from the moon or worse.

We had it fully decorated and covered then one gap in the system crept in. A young journalist read a sign on the hood and it said “Stop Killing Civilians”. The word stop was spelt in Serbian and not in Croatian. Only a letter or two different and the bend could go from focus on the treaty to another Croat Serb beat up. The offending sign was quickly removed and hurled into the back of the van before it could become a catalyst for ugly nationalism.

The media attendance was good and we were given extra support with an Ambassador, some embassy officials and the ex Croat Ambassador to Denmark all coming along. They signed the People’s Treaty then the Mayor of Zagreb arrived. This proved a media coup as he played with a blind woman’s dog and also signed. I felt we had survived the event and as we headed off to the university to talk about the problem and the future. There was only a handful of people, along with Djiana and Mina. Mina was injured by the cluster strike on Zagreb in 1995. The war was drawing to an end and she was at the bank when out of nowhere the world began to explode. The Serbs were firing cluster bombs into the city centre. People were killed around her and she very nearly lost her leg as well as her life.

As the group at the university was small it turned into a workshop. Everybody was 100% behind the creation of the treaty and looking for ways that they could connect and engage. The big point is to keep the government to their word and make sure that they don’t just sign but ratify and implement the treaty as well.

We talked about the hostile happenings of 2006 and this made Mina quite angry. “They have to get over it,” she said. “The war was bad for everyone, Croat, Serb and Bosnian. If we don’t leave it behind we stay locked in the past. If anyone has a right to complain it is me and all I want is for us all to move on.” Truer words could not be spoken.

We were on the road again and this time we are right out of the Balkans and on the road to Italy.

By Midday I had made my connections in Istanbul and was on descent into Sarajevo. I had been here a lot under a variety of conditions and was keen to get back. Each trip since the war ended things seemed to be a little further away from the conflict. The city was systematically being put back together and we flew over a sea of red tiled roofs on our final approach. This was a bench mark for me, at the end of the war there was hardly a roof on a building in this part of the city. It had been part of the frontline and all but destroyed. Each year saw the odd roof return till there was a 50/50 mix but now I couldn’t spot any war damage.

The airport during the war was one of the hardest fought over pieces of real estate. The Serbs had the ends of the runway and the Bosnians had the sides. The UN had the runway itself. A vicious four way cross fire criss-crossed this strip of bitumen and every house in every direction was rubble. The Bosnians dug a tunnel under the runway and all supplies of food and bullets came down this hole and into the besieged city. Much of the siege of Sarajevo was a waiting game. The Serbs had the high ground and could have flattened the city with systematic artillery at any time. The Bosnians held on in a cycle of who blinks first. The one who blinked first was the UN and after a short bombing campaign against the Serbs the siege was broken. The Dayton Agreement was signed and the period of tentative peace was entered.

By early 1996 it was anyone’s guess if it would work. The war seemed at our fingertips and a spark could ignite another inferno. 1996 was tense as both sides had stepped back slightly. The eyeball to eyeball tension was easing and some consolidation was beginning.

The streets around Sarajevo were covered with broken glass and shrapnel and our frustrations were never far away with one flat tyre after the next. There wasn’t a pane of glass intact in the city and one of the first moves was UNHCR deposited large rolls of reinforced plastic around the city. People could come to these and cut off as much as they wanted and nail it up over windows allowing light to re enter their homes and keep the weather out. It was a tiny step but one that had a huge impact on the population. Within a few months, the country was wrapped in plastic. Some street sweeping took place and the glass and shrapnel was removed. No more blow outs. Refugees trickled back and took tentative steps to see their old homes and plan their futures.

This is when the tools of war took their toll on ordinary people. Day in, day out, people were blown up by landmines left over from the war. Some mines were old defensive positions while others were laid by retreating soldiers to terrorise the returning population. I lost track of how many times I was told, “I was walking to my front door and stepped on a landmine, I went to the well and walked on a landmine, I tried to repair my house and walked on a landmine, I tried to plant a crop and walked on a landmine.” Landmines had been the weapon of choice on all sides of the conflict and now all sides would reap this deadly harvest.

Cluster bombs too had been used but not to the extent of landmines. The lack of sophisticated airpower or multiple launch rocket systems reduced the impact of cluster bombs, but even so the dangers associated with them have lasted many years.

We were here with a few tasks to do. Visit the NPA sniffer dog school, hold a public action in the city and meet religious leaders at a Faith Leaders conference. The time would be short but I was looking forward to being back here immensely.

When NPA set up in Bosnia at the end of the war they identified that landmines would play a large role in the redevelopment. Demining was in its infancy internationally and it had a long way to go to become the professional industry it is today. NPA took a gamble and thought that sniffer dogs could be a good way to reduce a suspected area so deminers could focus on the ground and not waste time trying to find the perimeters of affected areas.

The first few dogs were brought to the country and then the money ran out. There was a massive budget short fall and this would not be fixed until the flowing year. A new boss was sent in with the brief of either fix it or close it, but you get no more money till next year. The dogs were the end of the chain as they were unproven in the field and if budget trimming was to happen then they would be the first to go.

We all believed in the potential of sniffer dogs but without some kind of budget to keep it going the idea would be dropped and the dogs eventually ‘disposed of’. A few of us were personally buying the dog food from Croatia and this couldn’t last. It was get dollars fast or else.

I sat in the shot up Unis Tower in Sarajevo with the organisation’s boss and we mulled over what to do. The only thing I could offer was a mass of contacts around the world. Let’s start calling and see what we can do. The tower next to us was a skeleton that was fully gutted by fire and war and in our tower the floors above us were all burnt out. We still had shards of broken glass in the windows and reinforced them with tape and cardboard. Nothing could keep the cold out but at least we could try and stop the wind. As I sat on the table calling one person after the next I had a piercing jet of freezing wind boring into my neck, so I started chewing paper and filled the bullet hole with a spit ball. My gooey paper Mache was working and another draft bit the dust.

My calls would consist of, “Hi Fred, John here in Sarajevo. I am with NPA at the moment in Bosnia and am looking for money to keep the dog project happening till next year. Do you have any money? No? Any ideas who might? Thanks, I’ll give them a try.” Call after call was made and all my big contacts came up empty. I was getting to smaller and smaller potential donors till finally I rang an old friend in a small NGO in Australia. Patricia had seen the dogs in action in Mozambique and needed no convincing. She was just doing new budgets for submission to the government and was sure she could get the money. I hung up the phone, smiled to the boss and said, “Every heard of a small Australian NGO called Austcare?” He said no. “Well they can get the money, the dog project can go on.”

I went out in the country with Gisle the dog trainer and together we kept the dogs fit. We had a hill in the forest that was clear of landmines and took the dogs there to run. Standing at the top of the hill a rubber ball was hurled down to the tree line and the dogs would sprint down the steep side and sprint back up again with the ball. They loved it, it was a great break for us and the dogs were never out of top physical condition. I was giving Bamse a rough house pat and thinking you have a job ahead of you my furry friend.

The following year they employed some local staff to work with the dogs and brought in a Norwegian to run the project. Terje was a master dog trainer and had a vision for the future but his immediate problem was making the dogs work and gain organisational confidence. He came into the office and announced he had hired some local guys to be the first handlers.

“They are good, some are better than others but they are good. I have one guy who is exceptional though, he is young and the son of dog breeders. He thinks like a dog.”

I imagined that to be a back handed complement then met dog boy, a young guy called Kenen. He was very bright and passionate about the project and training dogs. Between Terje and Kenen they moulded the first few into operational teams and got them in the field. They went from dogs living in packing cases at the back of a warehouse to some kennels at the NPA depot. The teams expanded and were integrated into the programs. When Kosovo happened in 1999, they loaded into cars and drove to western Kosovo and got to work clearing within days of the conflict ending.

Now the dog project has expanded from the first three dogs to a training school that is internationally second to none. They are breeding Belgian Sheppard’s and exporting them work ready worldwide. There are also spin off schools in Ethiopia and Cambodia and all are having great success. All of this had grown from a little faith in an idea and a bit of seed money from home.

This was my chance to get back and catch up with the guys and see how far the dog project had come. We drove to the outer suburbs of Sarajevo and into the school. The place was a hive of activity with every size of dog going through their training. Puppies played and slightly bigger ones ran obstacle courses while those of working age walked the gridded box sections with hidden bits of explosive for them to find.

I asked about the original dogs and what had happened to them. All had had full careers and retired to the care of their handlers till they died of old age. Not one dog had ever died from a mine and no one had been injured in an area cleared by the dogs. The original three dogs had passed away in the last few years but Goldie was still going and living with her handler. She was a present to Jody Williams for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 and she gave her to the NPA dog program. She did years of clearance in Bosnia and Croatia and now does a lot of lying about in front of open fires dreaming dog dreams.

Today they were hosting a visit from school children who were instantly captivated by puppy mayhem and the skills of the older dogs. Many were off with puppies on leads and crawling through tubes and tyre courses with them. Although they are demining dogs that search out explosives they do alot of obedience and obstacle courses. The dogs love this running at full tilt, climbing over high walls, balancing on narrow planks then dropping or stopping instantly on a command.

Terje had recently been to dog obedience World Championships. “I have to get one of our dogs to this competition, they will just clean it up.” I have no doubt and think back to the start of it all. We plan to meet for dinner and head off for our next public action. A bunch of students have volunteered to help get the word out and collect signatures on the People Treaty petition. We meet in the street outside a central church. This was the site of one of the first mortar hits at the start of the war and the streets were awash with blood and misery then. Now there is almost no sign of that history. I was curious about some burned out windows above. It was recent and one of our girls explained that it was an apartment that was dealing heroin. The police had never managed to catch the dealers in the act so some locals took more direct action and fire bombed the place.

If you are a young punk drug dealer who tries to set up in a city that has been through a war like here then you might stop and think about the older brothers and fathers of the kids you are selling to. They have been through hell and have no time for cheap scum making a fast buck out of human misery, particularly when the targets are their kids. They were lucky they were only burned out and not burned alive, as that could be a very easy solution to a problem like dealing here.

Most of our volunteers were girls and the 12 of them hit the streets with passion. I stood back and watched them dart from person to person talking about the treaty and collecting signatures. Within minutes they were back at the Ban Bus, “I need more signup sheets, these ones are full.” They were machines and worked the streets till the sun began to set. It looked like they had copied the Sarajevo phone book at the end of the action.

Towards the end of our action a motorcade pulled up by us and the German Defence Minister’s team of minders and flunkies poured out. He was here for a walk about and of course the world must stop for the great and good. The security tried to secure the area as best they could then off they went for their walk. One of the minders asked what we were doing and if we could move.

“Move? You have to be kidding, here is our police permission for this action, stamped and approved. Can I see your permission for your motorcade and disruption to our action? No? Well, I won’t report you this time. Maybe the Minister would like to sign The Peoples Treaty.”

The security guy didn’t know what to make of the quip but rang the protocol officer to ask. A very curt reply came back, “No way!”

The Germans are a funny crowd when it comes to this treaty. They have done a great deal to bring it down and now it’s not going down they are going to sign. Under such light, it shouldn’t have been too hard to sign up to the People Treaty then, but for him it obviously was.

The sun set over Sarajevo but now it was a Sarajevo full of youth and life, not the shot up hulk it used to be. Daniel came up with his gawking face on. “Did someone let the catwalk out? This place is full of six foot leggy babes!” No denying it, there are some beautiful people in Sarajevo. The war was a violent interruption, and there are still alot of shot-up or bombed out buildings around the city, but it’s racing towards its former glory and like a Phoenix from the ashes it is returning.

We met up again with the dog guys again at the old brewery which was now a restaurant and talked and laughed about life, the universe and all the specks in between. I was having a ball in Sarajevo and really didn’t want to leave but we had to be on the road by tomorrow evening for a long drive to Zagreb. The last thing to do here was the Faith Leaders meeting tomorrow afternoon.

The conference of Faith Leaders had representation from Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Hindu, Muslim and Zoroastrian. Those who came were not bit players but Bishops, Muftis and more. I am not a big one on religion but I respect anyone’s right to faith. Religions can be the glue that holds some communities together as well as a torch for evil when hijacked for the wrong purpose. I was fascinated by how these eminent leaders would view the world and whether they could find common ground and work together.

The meeting was opened by the Bosnian Prime Minister and also in attendance was the Norwegian Ambassador and representatives from Foreign Affairs. There were some opening remarks and speeches then I headed down to speak in their press conference. All who were here reiterated the need to work together and aim for a more peaceful future and not one of religious division. Branislav from Serbia who had lost his arms and legs while demining cluster bombs spoke and I spoke after him. We had an excellent press turn out and coverage in the media guaranteed.

Back up to the conference and there was a list of speakers that were about to begin. I was to be the first speaker after lunch. I was instantly impressed by the first few to take the podium, they had great substance in their words and all pushed the line of tolerance and working together. They weren’t formula speeches either but well thought out comments and criticisms on the past and misuse of religions. The issue of cluster bombs wove in and out of their statements and observations with varying ideas on what should be done.

I really needed to get the wow factor going in this talk and went away to think. I set up my computer with film and photos and thought, “Screw the niceties, they need to just hear it as it is and it must be about people and not statistics.” When I get a bit angry it helps me blast out a stronger presentation. I had that frame of mind going so launched into my talk. Footage of bombing runs was followed by a montage of photos as I talked about the global problem mixed with my personal experiences. It wound around what needed to be done and how they as leaders in their communities were essential to the ultimate success. I could see some were very uncomfortable with the photos that rolled behind me. “I can see you find the pictures hard to look at. I found them hard to take but it’s nowhere near as bad as it has been for those that are in them. These people have been described as collateral damage and statistics. They aren’t, they are people, as important as you and me and every loss of any one of them is a tragedy and an outrage.” The last challenge to them was to form opinions and not be apathetic.

Many came up after and said the presentation really knocked them over and there was a certain buzz in the air with a feeling of what can we do to get cluster bombs banned? Concrete plans we hatched as to what they could all do. The Greek Orthodox Bishop said, “The media always want to talk to me and I always say no.”

“So what an opportunity, hold a press conference, they will come then put all the facts clearly on the table,” says me.

He lights up, I will do it! The rest all hatch plots to get the word out through their communities and I feel we really have some new allies in these people. The Ban Bus sometimes fee

The drive to the airport in Bucharest was eventful as anytime spent on a Romanian road is. The only trouble was that Mette and the crew needed to get to Bulgaria and my flight wasn’t till 7.30 in the evening so I was dropped at the airport at midday for a mind numbing 7 hour wait. I am quite good at these as I just turn my brain off and descend into a deep vegetative state. I write a bit and watch people go by. People are always entertaining to watch. The flight finally came and I made the short hop back to Istanbul. More waiting till the 11.30 pm flight to Georgia. I wore a groove in the departure hall wandering up and down looking at the bling and shinny new toys that people buy in these places. I don’t get it but I am not much of a consumer.

Brand handbags and ‘cool’ sunglasses with masses of stink liquid (perfume), fags and booze. So there you have it, the zenith of the consumer world. What we all strive for, except me. I have never fitted into this world of consumption very well.

Tbilisi airport was new and the immigration booths ready for action. I presented my passport and he said, “You must pay”. Sixty of the local currency was extracted and I was in. It’s amazing the more insignificant the country the bigger and flasher the stamp. This was no different. They invaded a full page of my over full passport with a massive colourful sticker with holograms. At least I got something for my sixty bongos. As one bongo is about two thirds of a euro it was a very expensive sticker.

Joe and Irakli were waiting outside for me and we headed to Joe’s place to grab a few hours sleep before we went in search of cluster bombs. The road in was in surprisingly good condition and the city looked like it had money. Plenty of expensive cars and good housing were all about and the old part of the city was really beautiful with ancient flood lit ancient walls. It was past 4 am when we got to Joe’s so sleep was to be brief.

Tbilisi was not our destination as the heavy strikes were around Gori, so by 1030 we were on the road north. In the daylight the place is still nice with the usual dose of manic traffic all about but that’s life where ever you go here. The route was north into the mountainous part of Georgia. Gori was the birthplace of Joseph Stalin and probably one of the only places on earth with massive bronze statues to him still standing. After the end of communism tributes to Stalin, Lenin and Marx were very unpopular and dragged down and destroyed but not here. Old Uncle Joe stood tall and proud in the town square as a timely reminder to Gori’s favourite son.

Gori was one of the epicentres of the fighting and took some direct hits. In the beginning many thought the strikes in town were cluster bombs but that was proved wrong. Rockets and mortars were most probably used killing around 20 people and wounding many others. This is where the Greek journalist we met in Athens was. We drove out of town to Rusi which is a small village west of here. NPA are doing this area for clearance. The tell tale strike marks of varying sized craters and blast marks dot the area and quickly the team was locating live munitions. Their next problem was what to do with them, as they are having great trouble getting explosives.

Cluster bombs are very sensitive and any movement can spell death, so they must be blown up where they are found. The same old problem also exists here that local people do not understand the continuing danger, so do some really stupid things. They feel as the war is over it is safe and to reinforce this, if the military have been through and destroyed surface munitions then it must be ok. They will really find out how wrong they are once they try to farm somewhere and run a plough across the earth.

On the NPA site the guys were working an area that had taken hits from 9N210. These are 100% Russian munitions so their claim that they have not used cluster bombs in this conflict is absolutely shattered. You can run but you just can’t hide the evidence that will always remain. A 9N210 is a sub munition that is fired from a multiple launch rocket system. There are 12 launch tubes with one rocket in each. Each rocket contains 72 munitions. That is 860 clusters bombs on a target per firing. The munitions are mixed with delay and impact fuses and have high failure rates. The ones that fail are normally underground and will stay in a highly dangerous condition till someone does something like farming. At this point they self deactivate by blowing themselves and the farmer to pieces. Of course with so many fired there are enough left over to blow plenty of farmers to pieces for many years to come. Where is the military utility in this?

Up till now the Russians have claimed they did not use cluster muntions. One word for that, busted! I always find it funny that a country like Russia or America can do something then deny it. They behave like naughty children who broke a window and will not admit that they did. It’s actually very childish. The President was, childish. The General was, childish.

During and after wars there are many lies. Lies for propaganda, lies to cover up, lies to avoid responsibility, lies to damage your enemy.

The Russians are not the only ones to lie, the Georgians are very competent it too. The truth they told is that they admitted to using cluster bombs themselves on their own land on their own people. The lie is that they are running around as fast as they can picking up the evidence of their cluster strikes. This is nothing like clearance, just a surface skim. Any site where they have done this is even more dangerous than before as they leave the false impression that a place is clear. Just because you don’t see cluster bombs does not mean none are there.

The lie is what I enjoy uncovering and its uncovered now.

We headed out in the morning on information given to us by the HALO Trust about some sites they thought we would find cluster bombs in. The coordinates were punched into the GPS and we headed to a village called Shirdisi about 15 km away.

GPS coordinates only give you a point location and don’t show you how to get there. In a place like Georgia it could be any combination of tiny farm tracks and gates. We turned into the first one near our desired latitude and longitude and began weaving through the maze. Our figures showed a few kilometres to the north-west so we kept trying tracks that led left and right but kept hitting dead ends or the tracks swung away to the east. Back track then start again. The range closed till finally we were only 400 metres away but still it was across fields. Now was time to walk and hop fences.

The safest way to walk into a strike area is to slowly check the ground and look for the tell tale signs. Shattered tree tops, shrapnel scarred trees and strike marks in the ground and pieces of the munitions themselves are all the signals of a dangerous area. The first few pock marks in the ground gave the clue we were closing in. A woman appeared through the trees and we asked what she knew.

She had left during the fighting with her family, as most others had, and returned to find small strange objects strewn around in amongst the general war damage. The HALO Trust had come out and done a survey of the area and the Georgian Army had followed and destroyed the munitions. Warning bells were starting to ring in our heads as she told us what had happened. HALO had identified the dangerous area and the Georgian Army had taken on the roll of clearing what was there but they had only removed and destroyed what was obvious on the surface. This is always only a fraction of the munitions, as many more will be hung up in trees or subsurface. If these are not cleared then the victims will be the farmers and their families. Spring will be lethal.

Much of this year’s crop has been lost already due to the fighting but some farmers had rushed back quickly and tried to recover what they could. Tomatoes and corn were devastated and a year’s income for people who had meagre earnings already were to suffer more. That loss, in a place like this, can be a life threatening prospect.

As the woman explained what she thought the army had done, another neighbour arrived and was in a bit of a panic. She had a labourer who was picking tomatoes yesterday and spotted a piece of red tape protruding from the ground. She thought it was the same colour as the tapes they had seen on the cluster bombs. She led us through the fields to her house and pointed to a stick in the backyard of her house. “There,” she said, “It’s somewhere there. I go no further, I am too scared.”

Amer has a twin brother and I was with him last year in Lebanon. Both are Bosnian and survived the war then moved into demining. Now they are at the top of their trade and moved from being local Bosnian staff to International experts. It’s very heartening to see these men make the full transition from scratching a living after the conflict to being top international professionals. A future is slowly emerging for them.

We carefully walked into the field and in front was a small orchard. Some tomatoes had been picked but many more lay on the ground rotting. The corn field hadn’t been touched at all. “In front to the right a bit,” she says, as we move in and make every step count. Look at the earth, carefully move the weeds and leaves then put a foot down. Look around slowly and carefully then take the next step. As we scratch about we can’t find the tape but do see a stick that the man who found it had left. We scour the area and still nothing. There are some tell tale shrapnel marks on the trees, the odd broken branch and even a few hard to see strike holes. Definitely something has hit here. Amer parts a little clover and spots 2 cm of muddy red tape poking out of the ground. Here is the culprit, a small submunition that has imbedded itself in the earth.

Amer unfolds his pocket knife and cuts like a surgeon into the compacted moist mud. He lifts out a plug of earth like you would remove a wedge of cheese and sees the body of the munition.

“An M-95,” he says.
“Don’t you mean an M-85?” I ask.
“No, an M-95. See the same casing as the M-85 with the rings but no self destruct cap. I can’t see if it is armed or not. Ok, go away for awhile,” he says.

I wander away and squat down at a safe distance. I am covered by a set of cement stairs and I can see Amer’s head moving in the trees. Bomb disposal is a solitary task, because if it goes wrong then it only kills or maims one, not two. He bobs down then back up and looks to me and waves. “Ok, come back now.”

These bomblets have a small slide that protrudes from the side of the cap when armed. The tape ribbon works like a small parachute pulling the striker up and at the same time, sliding the booster in below it. Like this, the slightest bump can cause it to detonate. Amer was able to see the slide with a little more excavation and also see it had not fully moved in the armed position. He gently slid it back to the unarmed position then wrapt tape around the head so it could not be accidentally rearmed.

“There will be many more of these for sure,” says Amer, “just below the surface maybe armed, maybe not. The Georgian army’s walk through and pick up of surface submunitions will only give a false sense that this place is clear.”

“I have no explosive to destroy this with so we will mark it properly and call the army to destroy it.”

The farmer and his wife were terrified by what had happened here. As many munitions were found on the surface, many more will be underground. There is no guarantee that the surface is clear either.

“Look at the corn, not broken. No one has been in there searching and if they have, they have not done a god job.”

The farmer’s wife has brought coffee and they insist on us joining them. Coffee here means more than coffee. A feast is appearing plate by plate. Everything is home made from cheese to beans and bread. The generosity I have been shown over all the years I have been travelling has been one of the most memorable parts of my many years on the road.

We talk for awhile and eat a little. They would give us everything if we were to take it so we eat a little from each dish to be polite and make sure we are not taking the food from their mouths. The predictable happens and an old soft drink bottle full of homemade moonshine arrives along with a neighbour. One of us has to take a drink with them and as I’m neither driving nor pulling bombs it’s me who takes one for the team. Its berry booze made of all the local buds and packs quite a punch. My only regret is that I can’t get this in my local pub. It’s actually not too bad.

With civilities complete and a mass of local information we hit the road back to Gori. It’s now I see the amount of Stalin that still exists here. We live on Stalin Ave, opposite the birth house of Stalin with a statue to him and another one down the road. Gori’s favourite son would never be forgotten, but if he was still about there would be no independent Georgia and this would still be a Russian satellite state. At least they wouldn’t have a cluster bomb problem.

The rain that had so far held off was about to hammer us. Thunder could be heard around the hills and the sky darkened. It was either that or the Russians were back. The place was taking on a very grey and gloomy air. After locking up the car and dropping our gear in Amer’s apartment we walked down the street towards his favourite bar and grill. This was a smoky little hole in the wall that served cheap beer and fine pork shish kebabs. We ordered and listened to the rain begin to belt down outside. The talk was war and politics and subtleties of various bombs and the situation here with a little Balkan reminiscing. Finally old friends were remembered who were now dead and we laughed at the absurd silly stuff we had all done together over the years then fell to a reflective silence.

“Think of me sometimes, but not too often,
Think of me as I was in life, it will be pleasant to remember,
And as your days live on, may your thoughts remain with the living.”

We raise our glasses and proposed a toast then downed the brandy in one.

The rain had eased enough to head home so we took the opportunity and opened the door to the water logged street. Going past the central square Amer pointed out that this was the place that took a direct hit and killed many people during the war. Many though it was a cluster bomb strike but he thought differently.

“Look here, no way this was a cluster strike. Four hits from mortars, 240mm, look at this crater, no way it is a cluster strike.”

We walked on towards home and the heavens opened again.

The apartment stairs led in from the back street and were pitch black with plenty of sharp bits of twisted iron sticking out. This wasn’t war damage but a left-over of Uncle Joe’s 50’s building boom. The cement stairs were only held up by rusty angle iron and each tread creaked and moved under our feet.

When Amer arrived a few weeks ago Gori was a ghost town. Most had fled south and now they were returning. The problem with his arrival was he had only four hours to find a place to live then get to work. Beggars can’t be choosers so he found this flat through a local contact and moved in. It was two rooms and a tiny bathroom and kitchenette. My imagination ran as I thought of how many people would have been crammed in here during the bad old days of the Soviet period. They may have felt lucky as they looked across the street to the tiny shanty that Stalin was born into. In his day, his mother would only have had a room in that place for the whole family.

The rain continued outside and we went to sleep, Amer in a cot in the other room and me on the old couch. Thunder and lightning boomed outside till the sound of drip, drip, drip, kept me from sleeping. I turned on the light and saw a small pool of water on the ceiling and the drops just missing Amer’s computer. It was hard to tell where the water might flow as the whole ceiling was stained so I got a pot and put it under the drip and moved the gear that might get wet to the far corner of the room and went back to bed. The rain persisted heavily and the first drip was joined by a second and a third till there were a few steady streams pouring out of the roof.

My coming and going to the kitchen woke Amer and he found he also had some drips. We strategically placed pots about the rooms, covered everything and went back to bed. The noise was not letting me sleep so I rummaged through my pack and found and a set of ear plugs from some flight somewhere. That was my version of paradise as I pushed them in and cut off the outside world. I started to nod off when little splashes of water began rhythmically hitting my face. Another stream was splattering against the window sill so I rolled over and threw the nylon floral covering over my head. It had the definite smell of an old Russian armpit. In a ball, in the corner, under the cover with earplugs I finally fell asleep.

I don’t think I moved all night because when I did stir at dawn I rolled into the rest of my wet bed. That was a definite signal to wake up. The plumbing here was interesting too as there was an electrical plug hanging from the roof by a socket. When you plugged it in a pump began and every tap in the kitchen and bathroom began to run at full speed. There was no way to shut anything off so when you wanted water or to flush the toilet you plugged in sparky and the water theme park started up. This was comical till I decided to try and have a wash. A torrent poured into the bath tub and I stepped into the frigid water. To hell with that idea, stinky is just fine with me.

We headed out again, this time we had a call that the NPA team had found some Russian clusters in good condition. I want film of this. The 9N210 has a so called self destruct mechanism like what I saw in Lebanon two years ago in the M-85. There is a small striker that ignites on impact then sets a burn trail in action that should detonate the main charge if the first fuse fails. Technology to replace already failed and flawed technology.

Back on the site the guys have a few excellent full munitions and many components. Here is the main charge and fragmentation casing and here the delay self destruct fuse. All failed and have various degrees of damage, some are even in pristine condition. Maybe what they need to do is add another self destruct mechanism that will take over when the second fail safe fails.

There are many reasons why a cluster bomb fails: from the terrain it is fired into; to height deployed; to the design itself but two issues have always stood out as reasons for failure. Firstly they are deployed at high speed, either out of rockets or dropped from aircraft. The container opens and many collide creating the first point of damage. The very fact that you throw a bunch of these together at high speed means that will happen. The second is that they are entering an explosive environment. As the first hit and explode, the rest are entering that maelstrom. More collisions, more damaged munitions that have hung up somewhere in their detonation process.

My brief diversion to Georgia has been very productive but it time to grab a flight out and reconnect with the Ban Bus. Joe drives up to Gori to pick me up and we head to Tbilisi.

“You stink,” he says.
“Yep, a hot shower at your place will be very nice indeed.”

After getting fluffed, it was time to get stuffed and we headed to a local Georgian restaurant. Joe was waxing lyrical about Georgian food and this coming from a Frenchman really carried some weight. He ordered up a feast and he was right, this place has fantastic food. I was tired but satisfied as we drank a red and ate. Tbilisi is a really beautiful city with a mix of Medieval and 19th century and none of it in ruins. It really was so different from Gori and its surrounds. The streets were full of wealthy life with name brand stores and plenty or BMW’s and Mercedes cruising the boulevards. So strange compared to the abundance of horse drawn transport north.

Two points that stick in my head are the Georgians used cluster bombs to defend themselves. They hammered their own territory and the Russians hammered them back. Both have ruined the country.

From Gori to the south there are masses of new towns being built. These are to house those who fled from South Ossetia. The ones who stayed are generally sympathetic with the Russians. The area truly has been ethnically cleared and segregated. The strange thing is the speed that these towns have been constructed. It’s only seven weeks since the fighting and already thousands of good quality houses are almost complete. This has cost a fortune and apparently has been paid for by the Americans. Is it an appeasement to the Georgians for their bad advice and no backing in this war. “Sure, give those Ruskis a slap, we’ll be right behind you.” The Georgians just didn’t realise that right behind you meant “and going the other way”.

I also have a creeping feeling that the Georgians knew they were going to lose South Ossetia. Why else unleash such horrendous strikes with a stupid system on your own people. Maybe it’s now the Russians with the worst part of this legacy. Who knows?

I walked into the airport at 4 am for the flight to Istanbul then onto Sarajevo. This time I had access to the business class lounge and I loaded a plate with croissants and a coffee. My mind is not at its best at 4 am but in walks Diego Maradonna, the Argentinean soccer great. I look at him and him at me and we nod to each other and I think, he’s a look alike. Following him are ten more Argentineans in football shirts. They all looked a little long in the tooth and I could only think they must have done some kind of show match here in Tbilisi. This really put the cap on a weird place for me. Bright lights, big city, great food and football then up the road, bombs, poverty and refugees. Funny old world really.

Epic expedition arrives in Sarajevo

WHAT: High Impact Media Opportunities during the visit by The Ban Bus: An eight-week campaign trail through Europe to convince all governments to sign a groundbreaking treaty banning cluster bombs, in Oslo on December 3rd 2008.  Beginning in Serbia and ending at the signing ceremony in Norway, the Ban Bus is rallying public support for the treaty and turning the eyes of the world on governments that are resisting putting pen to paper and curbing the suffering of millions.

Using sound, film and photo recording equipment, the Ban Bus will be recording its journey, collecting stories and generating a media storm in a bid to get every government to do the right thing and sign the treaty.

WHEN: Tuesday 28th October: 11.00am: Historic Reunion at NPA Global Training Centre for Mine Detection Dogs:  Today, Sarajevo’s training centre is a world leader in producing highly trained dogs that are sent around the globe to clear explosive remnants of war.  However, only ten years ago, the centre was virtually broke and on the verge of closing.  Veteran campaigner, John Rodsted, went searching for funding and through aid organisations in Norway and Australia found enough money to help set the school on the road it is today.  Now, the Australian campaigner will return to the world class facility, with his teammates Mette Elisussen from Norway and fellow Australian, Daniel Barty, as part of their epic tour.

Wednesday 29th October: 9.30am: Opening Ceremony & Media Conference of European Faith Leaders Conference on Cluster Munitions:  The Ban Bus team will address this major gathering of religious leaders, to update them, and the media, on the progress of the world’s most significant disarmament and humanitarian treaty in more than a decade.  Bosnia and Herzegovina has just announced it will sign the ground-breaking treaty at a formal ceremony in December, making it not only a leader in this region but also the world.  While BiH’s commitment is welcome, some countries in the region are yet to make the same undertaking and campaigners hope Bosnia and Herzegovina’s stand will be a strong example for its neighbours.

WHERE: Photo and filming opportunities: A Media Conference and Mine Dog Display will be held at the Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) Global Training Centre: Blagovac II/26, 71320 Vogosca, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Faith Leaders Conference Opening Ceremony and Media Conference will be held at the beginning of the Faith Leaders Conference: Radon Plaza, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

WHO:
Ban Bus campaigners on the bus:
John Rodsted: Photographer & Nobel Peace Prize Co-Laureate with twenty years experience documenting cluster bombs worldwide
Mette Eliseussen: Norwegian international campaigner and 1997 Nobel Peace Prize Co-laureate
Daniel Barty:  Award winning Journalist and campaigner who has worked with survivors in Asia
Bosnia and Herzegovina Campaigner: Alma Taslidzan

CONTACT:
In BiH and on the bus: Daniel Barty, +381 61 233 1169, media (at) thebanbus.org
In BiH: Alma Taslidzan + 387 33 266 880,-890,-891 alma (at) handicap-international.co.ba

The morning had us on the road again to continue to Bucharest, the capital of Romania and the retirement place of Nicolae Ceausescu, the old dictator and one of the last of the former hard liners to fall. When the Romanians have a dictator fall they mean it literally. As the revolution happened, he was arrested, tried in the next few hours and taken out the back and shot. They even tossed his wife in for a bit of good measure to make sure the legacy was finished once and for all. Since then they have moved at a dramatic rate of modernisation and membership in the EU and NATO.

Bulgaria is a little, hidden back water - but it’s nice. In the 24 hours I was there I met nothing but nice people who really were making a go of it. They were studying and getting more languages and trying to connect with the wider world. The drive across the country took us into a world where horse and cart overlaps with massive trans-European trucking routes. The mountains and forest were beautiful and safe to go for a long walk. That is a novelty for me in this part of the world as I am used to Balkans at war. The roads were slow and way behind any European standard. We finally knew we were getting to the northern border when we found the welcoming line of hookers on the other side of the road battling for the passing truck trade.

As we pulled up in the traffic approaching the border there was a hundred yard dash between two stiletto clad “ladies of the day” to a truck that had pulled over. The mini skirt runner was doing well, but overtaken in the final 20 by the beefy fishnet tart she pulled out a desperation move and launched herself up the step of the truck and straight into the cabin. Another happy client, another financial injection into the local economy.

The border between Bulgaria and Romania should be open as they are both EU members, but it’s not. They are hanging onto the final bastion of separation by keeping a dog box open in what was once no man’s land. The approach is decrepit with weeds and rust the only features. There are only two lanes open as officials lounge about sharing the cramped booth between nations. They take our passports and scrutinise. The fat, younger guy come back and says, “You must pay!” Of course we must pay! It wouldn’t be a border if we didn’t.

We handed over the required cash and Davor struck up a conversation with the other official.

“Norwegian, Canadian and Australian? What do they do?” quizzed one.
“Big shot movie makers,” was his reply, “they are scouting locations for a big budget movie and looking for good places and local talent.”

The official nods approvingly and says something to the guy in the booth. We sit around oblivious to the game that Davor is playing. The passports are handed back and we are on our way again. The day is late and the chance of getting into Bucharest before dark seems slim. We press on. The road is small and narrow, the housing is poor and clapped out and so are the Russian cars that clutter the surrounds. The traffic increases as we get closer to Bucharest till we feel we have entered the outer suburbs. From the scant information and dodgy downloaded map we think we just have to keep heading north till we hit the centre then start asking people again where our hotel is. We are booked into another Ambassador Hotel.

The world of grid locked chaos closes in around us, until every metre driven has to be duelled for and won. This is no road for the faint hearted and a healthy hand on the horn and barging forth is all that will get you through. Davor keeps his cool and makes progress. We finally get into the centre of the main road and ask all where the hotel may be. We make a bum steer and do a few extra laps of the one way system till finally we are outside the Ambassador. It’s crappy and run down, just as we expected.

The first thing that hits you in Bucharest is the constant horn honking, continuous police sirens and incessant whistle blowing. It just goes on and on and on some more. I jammed ear plugs in but Mette suffered the same treatment they were getting in Guantanamo Bay. Sleep deprivation and plenty of it. She only collapsed for a few exhausted hours then was pulled back into the din that never abated.

The morning had us doing a presentation at a local university and our contact was Claudia. She had been hired the week before by the Norwegian embassy to organise whatever events were possible for the Ban Bus. Talk about dropped in the deep end with alot to do and no time to do it. She had pulled together the open public forum at the campus then a dinner the following night with the Norwegian Ambassador and as many local journalists as possible.

I was escorted into a magnificent round auditorium and we set up as many photographs and information as we could. We waited for the assigned time of 10 o’clock and the Ambassador and representatives from UN and other NGO’s turned up. A few press wandered in then the students started to come. We had about 20 people so it was time to pull out all stops and try to make converts of them all.

The Ambassador opened with comments about the process and a welcome, then came a prepared speech from the UN, then it was me. I figured it was make or break time so I launched into as strong and indignant a presentation as I could manage. I wanted these people to hurt and feel the pain of those they know nothing about. Vision of air strikes and victims saturated them as I took them on a journey from war to peace and into the horror or dangers of a post conflict world. Children in Laos whose parents were not born when the war was on, by Lebanese fishermen and Afghan villagers. All were non combatant and innocent.

I measure myself by the impact on the audience and by the looks on their faces and body language, it was working. Mette followed me with her experiences in Afghanistan and shock turned to horror when she spoke about the 50 injuries per day she was dealing with in Kabul and what they did to turn the tide.

We finally wrapped up with a talk about permanent poverty and the treaty that will hopefully fix it all. One point that again hit a chord was the concept that Romania had cluster bombs for self defence and if they used them they would commit national suicide. Nothing like bombing your own country back to the stone age. That’s great leadership.

We finished up the talk and no one left. They all wanted to hang about and talk. We all had little groups around us and the talking went on until I said to them, “write your name and email contact down and we will connect you all and help you bring about a strong local campaign”. There was a stampede for the signup sheets.

The three journalists who came also stayed and talked till they felt they really had in depth stories. There are so many facets to this story that if a clever journalist gets involved then there is no shortage of stories they can pull from it.

In the mean team Davor was pumping the car park and collaring students to sign the people’s treaty. He has really taken to the whole mad world of trying to create a treaty and is 100% behind what we are trying to do. I felt although our connection with Bucharest was small in numbers it was of high quality. The Norwegian Embassy and Claudia had pulled so much of this together and the Ambassador had one more trick. He was going to host a dinner with us and as many journalists as he could muster.

The rest of the time in Bucharest became a blur of computer screens and emails except for one short walk in the main central park.

The Ban Bus had a secret problem that was plaguing it and it was the flu. Mette and Daniel had had it and were just shaking it now but I felt the slightest pangs of it getting me. As I spoke my throat was killing me and it was an exercise in pain to squeeze out each word, particularly when you need to belt them out so as to be heard. I was going down and I was not happy.

Claudia met us and we walked to the restaurant the Ambassador had picked. It was a traditional Romanian place that was supposed to serve the best real Romanian cuisine in town. We assembled and the journalists arrived and we settled down to one of the most lively conversations on the cluster bomb problem over wine and a great meal. It was always going to be more meat, as it’s that Balkans. What did raise a few eyebrows was when the meal arrived. It was Brown Bear steaks. It’s certainly not what I would eat but felt that the Ambassador had done a great job in pulling all of this together so tucked in and sent old Yogi down. The wine certainly helped as I scanned the table to see how everyone was doing. Mette was tucking in but the locals were gingerly picking at it politely. There is a polite technique for when you don’t want to eat something that involves moving the food around, making a mess of the plate, then piling it up in a corner. There was certainly a bit of that going on now.

Everyone took to the issue quickly and passionately except one TV journalist. She sounded like an old party hack regurgitating the most banal objections to any form of ban. She made one objection and excuse after the next. I have always preferred arguing with someone who is against what I have to say than someone who agrees and here she was. We went at each other toe to toe for over an hour and one by one her arguments disappeared. She attempted to revisit some of them a second time until she ran out of reasons to disagree. At that she rolled over and started talking about how she could get stories on her network. That is a most satisfying win to me, to really turn an adversary.

When we left we had a heap of new allies from students, to embassy, to the press. The engagement in the country may have started small but it was quality.

The next morning we would be on the road again but going our separate ways. I was grabbing a flight to South Ossetia in Georgia to hopefully find strikes from the recent fighting while Mette, Davor and Daniel would drive to Sofia in Bulgaria then onto Belgrade and Sarajevo, where we would reunite.

What a difference a functional GPS makes. The disk was loaded into Mette’s machine and we set it up next to Davor’s. Instantly they began to argue. Turn left, right lane, sharp turn and on they went till finally Davor’s GPS got the idea and there was a moment of synchronicity between machines. It’s quite stress free to drive out of a city like Istanbul with good instructions and before we knew it we were in the country and heading for the border.

My loathing of borders was starting to rise to the fore as the miles rolled on by till we saw the first sign of what lay ahead. We struck the end of a queue of trucks all wanting to pass into the EU. Truck upon truck parked bumper to bumper and the line of them went all the way to the horizon. We looked at the GPS and were over 20 miles away from the crossing. This must take some drivers weeks to cross! There seemed to be a real roadside community as drivers chatted and drank coffee, resigned to the fact that they were to be here a very long time.

One last fuel stop was needed before the crossing as we were warned about credit card fraud in some of the Balkan countries. The toilet at the gas station had some very weird signs in it. ‘No cigarette butts, Please Flush, Turn Off Water, Don’t put your children in the urinal.’ Now I for one am pleased with the advice as I did have an overwhelming desire to grab a kid and stuff them in the pisser but thanks to this sign and its sage advice was able to restrain myself. I imagine the sign was preaching to the lowest common denominator of patron who would walk in and think a quick method of the kiddies having a squirt or something else was to whip them onto the porcelain wall. The part I loved was the cartoon of the little girl in the urinal. She had a big smile on her face so really, how bad could it be?

We passed truck after truck till finally the border was ahead and the games could commence. The first window said “go”, the second was immigration, then customs, then police, then there was the car registration check, then another customs, then we had left Turkey. Ahead lay Bulgaria and all the mystery of, well, I can’t think of anything mysterious in Bulgaria. Even vampires were Romanian.

The whole border crossing was being rebuilt and was in total chaos. A trail of orange cones led us through the rubble towards the Bulgarian frontier. Bulgarian window number one was a few women in a booth that checked the car papers then returned them along with a tiny USB stick.

“What do I do with this?” said Davor.
“You could try stuffing it up your ass,” replied one of the women.
Davor instead plugged it into the car radio but nothing came out so tossed it on the dash board.

Nice, onto window number two.

This young guy was all grins and smiles. No idea what his function was as he went through our passports and papers and felt compelled to tell us all about Quebec and his ex Canadian girlfriend and that she dumped him and he likes North American girls and did Davor like Canada better than Serbia and what was it like in Australia and Norway is nice too he thought and Canadian girls are very nice and…… It was obvious why the Canadian dumped him, he spoke a monologue of unrelenting crap.

One window followed the next and paper after paper was scrutinised and scrutinised again. This is the border to Fortress Europe after all and no one was getting into the Big House without proper papers. Immigration, Police, Quarantine, Vehicle check, another mystery window then Customs.

The young guy waved us aside and came up with a flashlight. “Where are you from, where are you going, open the back.” He had a little poke and prod then asked about the wrapped up photographs.

“Photographs,” I said. That will let the cat out of the bag I thought.
“Photographer, photojournalist?” he said.
Here we go, out the back Fido and empty the car.
“Oh no need to see more I like photography very much,” he beamed and waved us on.
Now that was weird. It was the second time in my life I’ve not been treated like a pariah by customs, the other time being in Lebanon.

We drove on then found another customs check. That makes sense as the last guy would let any Tom, Dick or camera-carrying psychopath in. This guy was the real deal, he had the face on of a petty despot and would probably only laugh if we ran a dog over. He began climbing in the back door and Davor was doing his level best to calm the way. He emerged from our 12 tonnes of loaded equipment wanting to know who and what we were.

“The Ban Bus,” confesses Davor. “We are driving around Europe trying to get a ban on cluster bombs. Our official had that look of should I arrest them for they mentioned the B word or should I wave them on.

“So where is a good hotel to stay around here,” asks Davor. That seemed to break the ice and he gave directions then we were on the way. One more window to go. Each window had a sign that said ‘No money to be paid here’. I imagine that was to inform us that we were not to be conned by corrupt border officials. The final window had the same sign and this is where we were to hand in the USB stick with all of its mystery information.

“You must pay,” said the window’s occupant. “Nine euro, cash, and that includes tax.” Yeah, sure, maybe but we hand over the money regardless and at last we are on our way. Mette sighs, “That was worse than Afghanistan.”

The road out of the border had very tacky ‘Duty Free’ stores and the odd very rugged hooker lining the sides as the road quality collapsed to pot holed goat tracks.

Our wonder run with the Turkish GPS map evaporated exactly on the border and we were back in the realm of a mystery drive. Now it was night and Bulgaria is not renown for its fabulous road signs. Davor’s GPS had no more competition and instructed us to drive in rivers and in a variety of directions. One of the directions was obviously correct as we traversed the four points of the compass, we just didn’t know which it was. The locals came to the rescue and we finally found Sdara Zagora which is a mid sized regional town but all we were interested in was a bed for the night.

The first we came to was the ‘City Hotel’. It looked a bit over our budget but we stopped to ask anyway. The surprise was it was very cheap so we checked in.
“You are from Australia!” said the girl at reception, “I have always wanted to go to Australia,” as she leans forward and gives a nice set of doe eyes.
“This is Daniel, a nice Australian guy, this is my girlfriend, Mette, goodnight.”

The rooms were huge and lavishly decorated in Polish post-Modernism with a massive plasma screen on the wall, not that there was anything on worth watching. One ad I did catch was for power tools and it looked like the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition with scantily clad sweaty babes drilling, sanding and any imagination can work out what was bouncing with the jack hammer. Klass with a capital K.

Muteber was our local contact person here and she was waiting at the hotel for us. She’s an ex journalist and has taken on the work of trying to get Turkey to ban landmines as well as cluster bombs. A great deal of excellent work has been done by her and her colleagues and Turkey acceded to the treaty simultaneously with Greece in 2004. This is where skilled negotiations are needed to take two countries whose issues are linked and get them to remove a weapons system in a way that neither feels vulnerable to the next. Neither did it first and neither last. I am sure this is what will be required for the cluster treaty, to get Greece and Turkey to the table at the same time.

The program for actions in Istanbul have been a bit of a mystery to me and Muteber explains what she has planned. Tomorrow will be largely a way of engaging the media. She has lined up a ‘Press Conference’ to be held in Taksim Square at midday tomorrow. This uses her old media contacts well and gets to the widest audience. A plan is hatched and all seems good. We wait at the hotel for her to call us at about twelve and drive up to the square, do a lap then drive into the middle of it. Davor brings up a small detail about police permission. “No, there is no permission” she says. A few eye brows are raised and visions of Midnight Express run through my mind. Turkey is not renowned for its gentle and tolerant police force. Recently a young guy was beaten to death in custody by the police for handing out some anti government pamphlets. That set a tense scene for actions between civil rights groups and the powers that be.

“If you ask for permission from the police to protest you will be told no. If you hold a ‘press conference’ then you can do that anywhere with no permission. We will do a press conference,” says Muteber. It felt a little like playing chicken with the police but you must always bow to local wisdom so that plan was locked in and we ate possibly our last supper before prison food was to be the norm. I was working my alibi out already. Kidnapped by a mad Norwegian with her Canadian/Serbian henchman and forced from country to country looking for the best price. As I am fat and lazy they were having trouble cutting a good deal so the odyssey continued.

If we ended up in jail I needed protection. I wasn’t going to be anyone’s bitch. I’d gag Daniel and sell him for protection as someone called Bubba then break out in the dead of night. With a plan securely hatched I was feeling better already. Bring on tomorrow’s action.

The morning was grey and dull and threatened rain. That’s the easiest way to keep the media away. We needed to do some work on the Ban Bus as we remove all of our magnetic signage each time we cross a border. It had to go from stealth van back to Ban Bus. The signage had been flattened overnight and was reluctant to stick flatly to the van. Just when it was looking ok a sign would begin to peel then drop to the ground. We rolled them the other way and tried to crease edges back to the car till finally it was once again the Ban Bus. The phone rang and Muteber said come so we loaded and drove off.

The drive was only a few hundred metres and we re-entered the square and all the traffic chaos from last night was still here. Taksim Square is one of the busiest places in Istanbul and people were everywhere. As we drove along the side I spotted one TV camera then two then more. The lenses swung our way as Davor mounted the pavement and drove into the square. Muteber had delivered and had turned out a full media pack. We drove into the middle of them and jumped out with a selection of large photographs from cluster strikes around the world. The media pressed in and Muteber began the brief in Turkish. This gave me a chance to see who was there. In TV crews we had at least 7 then at least the same again in radio then print journalists and photographers as well. More than 20 media professionals were here for a word on cluster bombs and the Ban Bus.

The real coup was getting some of the big hitters like CNN, CNBC, PRESS TV, DHA and NTV. All did in depth interviews and took the B roll field footage that Daniel had put together. Mette was dashing here and there getting the presence stronger with more pictures out and photographing the scene. Our ‘Press Conference’ had been a great success.

Behind the cameras was a cordon of police. There were cops with automatic weapons, attack dogs that snarled and strained on their leashes and the odd spook in the very bad suit with a radio who mingled with the crowd. All good but I was wondering what it would take to get a reaction from them. The media began to leave after an event that lasted over 40 minutes. Short, sweet and of major impact is the perfect event. We packed up as quickly as we had arrived and were soon back in the hotel.

The next problem was our lack of any sanity coming from the GPS. As we had got into Istanbul on a wing and a prayer we did not want to go out the same way. We wanted to find the Garmin dealer and get the disk with the Turkey maps on them. The taxi dropped us outside the dealer and the chaos was only starting.

“No, you have bought it online so use your code and get it there.”
“The code doesn’t work and will not download.”
“Yes, download, you must use the code.”
“No, code doesn’t work, give us the bloody disk.”
“Code, you must have code.”
“We have the code, it doesn’t work.”
“Give me code.”
We might now be getting somewhere. Mette went online and found the code and the dealer could then run it through his machine, open the file, download the program and make us a disk. All’s well and we walked outside. After a few paces Mette said, “I wonder if it will work?”

There were a few hours left so we headed for the ancient mosque of Sultanahmet or what was the original basilica of Saint Sofia. Saint Sofia was built in 500AD by the Emperor Justinian and it amazes me that such a structure could be constructed 1500 years ago. Mette had brought the ‘Ban Cluster Bombs Now’ banner and wanted a photo of it in front of somewhere very Istanbulish and this was to be the spot. We rolled it out in the street and the shot was made amongst quizzical looks from passers-by. Another country ticked off the list.

There was just time for a quick look at the Cistern, an incredible underground water storage system built at the same time as Saint Sofia, then into a restaurant for a meal as the sun set amongst minarets and domes. Istanbul had gone very well and it was onto Bulgaria tomorrow.

Muteber wanted to see us before we left and we met before lunch and went for a walk through town. It was one of the first moments of actually winding down. She pointed out some beautiful pieces of history then it was time for Turkey to end and the road north to begin.

But away from the dollars and cents and back to the people..

Greeks really are animal lovers. In the din of road noise and shattered bearings in the fans I could not sleep. Standing in the dark gazing out the window I see another act of animal kindness. A woman walked down the back lane in the middle of the night oblivious to my presence and has a big bag of something. It ends up being cat food as no sooner did she appear then a few local strays turned up. She had little bowls in hidey holes about the place and was putting a handful of food in each. The cats stroked her legs and tucked in for a midnight snack as she wandered off to another secret rendezvous. I followed her only a few metres and there she resupplies another secret stash. It’s just another tiny piece of the jigsaw that makes me feel that there is a huge social conscience here and getting public pressure against cluster bombs is possible.

The morning comes and I have one more engagement at the University of Macedonia. A Professor there has invited me to talk to her international relations course. We battle the traffic to the University and get out of the taxi. I find a guard and ask him where room 7 is and he looks at my note and says, “Not here, this is Aristotle University”. The taxi driver has taken us to the wrong University. Panic sets in as there is only 20 minutes till I’m to talk. Luckily the right university is close so we run off down the street to the right place. In the front door and I ask a student where room 7 is. No idea is the reply. We ask a few more till finally someone has an idea and we head to the 3rd floor. Asking more people we are finally directed to a small theatre with a 7 on the door, made it with a few minutes to spare. Daniel has come down with a very nasty flu and is looking like a mercy killing will be the best option. We wait as there is still a lecture inside. A few students arrive and hang about the corridor too. The lecture runs over time till I start to feel a little uneasy. I ask a student if this is the international relations class of Mrs Perraki. She says no. More panic! I’d been sent to theatre 7, not room 7.

We head off again with Daniel constantly blowing his nose on toilet paper. He is starting to sound like a horn chorus in a British Hunt Club. “On On, Honk Honk!” A door is ajar and a guy sitting and writing.

“Excuse me, do you speak English?”
“Of course.”
“Can you tell me where Mrs Perraki is and her international relations class.”
“Yes, Mrs Perraki is upstairs, please come with me.”

Off we go to the next floor and the offices of other professors. Mrs Perraki’s door is locked.

“She must be in class, room 7 did you say?”
We head off again as Daniel strikes the chorus at the rear till finally we arrive at room 7.

Mrs Perraki’s face lights up as her guest lecturer enters all sweaty and flustered.

“Very sorry for the late arrival” and start to pull out the data projector and computer. I launch into the talk as everything is starting up. This is an international university where the working language is English so there are no language barriers here.

After one computer data projector snag I am in full flight and alls going well. The students are quite taken aback particularly when we talk about Greece having cluster bombs for defence. “That means, you will use them on your own soil”. Their faces drop and an outraged feel runs through the room. We certainly have converts to the cause here. Mrs Perraki is going to stay engaged and teach the lessons of the CMC and ICBL in her future courses. We will connect her to the campaign and feed her as much relevant information as possible. She is an International Humanitarian Law Lawyer who is now a professor and a long time member of Amnesty International. She definitely has a social conscience and wants to challenge her students to make a difference, not just a salary.

We head back to the hotel and Davor has driven back to pick us up. Daniel is a ball of sweat and snot and rapidly falls asleep on the back seat for our four hour drive to the border with Turkey. At least that stops him coughing and sneezing.

We drive and chat till we arrive in Alexandroupolis and Davor is making cryptic jokes about the hotel. “Hotel Panorama, maybe because it’s in a panorama, a view, of not the sea,” says Davor. We drive on till we need to turn left and there is no way as all places have no U turn signs. There is a set of lights and the police have a speed trap there working the opposite direction. We pull up at the lights, wait for the green arrow and make the turn up the side road. When we get to the top of the hill we turn around and drive back to the lights to make the turn in the direction we want. The police wave us over immediately and a young sergeant comes up.

“Where are you from?” he asks. “Aren’t the road signs the same in your country?”

We answer and say many are the same. He walks Davor off to point at the road. Daniel and I have no idea what he is on about. They come back and he inspects the vehicle papers. Davor is trying to soften him up and explains what we are about.

“Hey guy, we are doing humanitarian work and you and me are brothers, come on, let us go” he says.

The officer walks around the Bus and reads the signs. He finally cracks a smile when Davor shows him the spelling mistakes and the little bits of extra magnetic signage that we corrected the mistakes with.

“Ok,” says Davor, “now you must sign out petition.” He grins and waves us on.

“Only because you do important work,” his words fade as we drive away.

Mette has had good meetings in Alexandroupolis and although there are no presentations to do there are some excellent contacts made. These will pay off in the future as we focus more attention on Greece and the region. Turkey tomorrow and the whole new country game starts again.

On checkout, Mette logged onto her bank and the money was paid in at last. It had taken 18 days. There had been a screw up somewhere in the bank and as soon as the money was paid from London to Mette’s account in Norway it was bounced straight back to London. Of course the wonder of banking customer service means they wouldn’t dream of telling you there was a problem now would they. There used to be an ad in Australia for a bank that finished with “We never forget it’s your money” but they forget to add “And we have it now, not you!”

Media advisory

Epic expedition arrives in Bucharest

WHAT: Visit to Romania by The Ban Bus: An eight-week campaign trail through Europe to convince all governments to sign a groundbreaking treaty banning cluster bombs, in Oslo on December 3rd 2008. Beginning in Serbia and ending at the signing ceremony in Norway, the Ban Bus will rally public support for the treaty and turn the eyes of the world on governments – including Romania - who are resisting putting pen to paper and curbing the suffering of millions.

Using sound, film and photo recording equipment, the Ban Bus will be recording its journey, collecting stories and generating a media storm in a bid to get every government to do the right thing and sign the treaty.

WHEN: Tuesday 21st October: 10 am: Official Ban Bus Media Conference, Public Forum and Petition Signing: Following the media conference campaigners, using a mobile photo exhibition, specially developed flyers and “The People’s Treaty” will host a public forum to educate residents about this vital issue and Romania’s unique opportunity to help save innocent lives around the world. A film highlighting the humanitarian effects of cluster munitions will also be screened.

WHERE: Photo and filming opportunity - Romania: The Media Conference and Public Forum will take place at the University of Bucharest, Bd. M. Kog?lniceanu 36-46 Sector 5, cod 050107, Bucure?ti.

WHO:
• Ban Bus campaigners on the bus:
John Rodsted: Nobel-prize winning photographer and film maker with twenty years experience documenting cluster bombs worldwide

Daniel Barty: Award winning Journalist and campaigner who has worked with survivors in Asia

Romanian Campaigner: Claudia Iatan

CONTACT:

In Romania and on the bus: Daniel Barty, +381 (0)61 233 1169, media (at) thebanbus.org
In Romania: Claudia Iatan: +40 724 759 986, mc_cla (at) yahoo.com