Historical Background

FUNDED

In 1989, when the first stages of setting up a mine action program for Afghanistan were put into place, military trainers from many nations including the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway and other countries established training grounds near Peshawar in Pakistan and commenced the training of the first few thousand deminers in what became known as “Operation Salaam.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The initial concept was to train Afghans, to work as unpaid volunteers, to demine areas around their own villages.  It was believed that Afghans could be persuaded that minefield clearance was a continuation of the Holy War against the Russian invaders. Many thousands of Afghan volunteers were trained, and received pay for their training, but the whole scheme fell flat when the “volunteer deminers” were sent back to their villages.

The idea of doing a dangerous job like demining, with no real medical or organizational back-up, little in the way of equipment, no salary and no insurance coverage, soon lost its appeal and it was not until a proper demining organization was established, with UN funding, that demining in Afghanistan really took off. The organization was named Afghan Technical Consultants (ATC) and it was founded by Colonel Kefayatullah Eblagh, an ex Afghan army officer.

The UN had approached Colonel Eblagh and asked for his advice on overcoming the problem of organizing mine clearance in Afghanistan. His advice was to set up an organization based broadly on military lines, ensuring that the demining staff were paid a good salary, had a pension plan, were properly insured, properly led, supervised and equipped, and had proper medical back-up in case of accidents. The U.N. heeded this advice and gave full financial support for such an organization to be set up, with Colonel Eblagh leading it. Thus ATC was born!

Immediately after its establishment, ATC implemented a pilot project of US$ 240,000 in Kunar Province Afghanistan and started demining operations in early 1990 with an initial staff of 35.

ATC proved itself as a demining organization by completing its first pilot project in an efficient, safe, and effective, manner.

Since then, the organization has evolved into a leading, humanitarian demining agency in the international community and the United Nations.