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BY Mildred Europa Taylor, 3:30pm May 26, 2021,

A look at how Princess Diana’s 1997 visit to Angola helped make the world a better place

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by Mildred Europa Taylor, 3:30pm May 26, 2021,
Diana at an orthopedic workshop run by the Red Cross in Angola that helped victims of landmines. Photo: © Tim Graham Picture Library via Getty Images

When Prince Harry made a trip to Angola in September 2019 as part of his tour of southern Africa, he was continuing his mother Princess Diana’s legacy. Diana’s iconic trip to Angola in 1997, where she among other things stepped out onto an active minefield, did change the discussion around landmines as it put the spotlight on Angola and its landmines.

Indeed, her trip to the country led to an international treaty to ban landmines that same year. In a few months, the ‘People’s Princess’ would die in a car crash in the French capital, Paris, an incident that shocked the world.

Believed to be one of the most famous women in the world then and even now, Diana was not only well known for being a style icon but also for her humanitarian work. She worked for several charities, using her fame to create awareness on many humanitarian issues. Her philanthropic duties made her visit a number of African countries. The Princess of Wales met with some African leaders including Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe on a visit to Harare. She also met anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela in his residence in South Africa where the two talked about AIDS.

In January 1997 when she visited Angola, her children Prince William and Prince Harry were 14 and 12 years old. She had also divorced Prince Charles in 1996. The British Red Cross, which she was involved with, organized her trip to Angola, where she became aware of the work of HALO Trust, a non-profit organization that had been working to clear mines in Angola since 1994 in the midst of the civil war that was ongoing at the time.

During her visit, she did not only meet victims of landmine attacks but also walked through one of the active minefields (a minefield in Huambo in central Angola) alongside HALO students and other experts wearing body armor. Pictures of her visit flooded international media, bringing the world’s attention to Angola and its landmines.

<strong><a href="/tags/0/prince-harry">Prince Harry</a></strong> will continue his mother <strong><a href="/tags/0/princes-s-diana">Princess Diana</a></strong>’s legacy when he travels to Angola on Sept. 27. 
<p>The Duke of Sussex is making a two-day trip to the country as part of his <a href="/tags/0/2019-african-royal-tour"><strong>tour of southern Africa</a></strong>, which began on Sept. 23 with stops in Cape Town, South Africa with <strong><a href="/tags/0/meghan-markle">Duchess Meghan</a></strong> and <Strong><a href="/tags/0/archie-harrison">Archie Harrison</a></strong> and continued with Harry’s solo trip to Botswana on Sept. 26. 
<p>Diana’s landmark 1997 trip to Angola not only fundamentally changed the conversation around landmines, but it is not an exaggeration to say it also changed the world. Her trip and her advocacy there and afterward directly led to an international treaty to ban landmines that same year.
<p>Although Angola remains one of the most mined countries in the world, the awareness Diana raised during that journey are credited with helping Angola in its recovery from its decades-long civil war and with spurring its eventual end in 2002 after it re-erupted the year following her visit. 
<p><strong>Click through the gallery (or keep reading if you’re on mobile) for a trip through time back to 1997, what Diana did in Angola and why it matters.</strong>
<p>Photo: © Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty Images
Diana walks through a minefield in Huambo in central Angola. Photo: © Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty Images

“For the people that were here at that time, which was obviously still a time of conflict, it led to a feeling of acknowledgment, and that their plight was recognized around the world,” Ralph Legg, program manager of HALO Trust’s operations in Angola, was quoted by TIME in 2019. “The people I’ve spoken to who met Diana on that trip have all said how kind, considerate and how genuinely interested she seemed in them.”

Diana while in Angola called for an international ban on landmines. But her call was met with criticisms from some UK lawmakers, who called her a “loose cannon” and said she was “out of line with government policy on the issue”, TIME reported.

Nevertheless, Diana would greatly influence the steps that were taken to ban landmines. Her Angolan trip gave birth to the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction — the international agreement that bans antipersonnel landmines. It is usually referred to as the Ottawa Convention or the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Treaty.

The treaty came a few weeks after the untimely death of Diana. Though she was not present at the signing of the treaty, she was lauded for her advocacy as reports said the treaty that was written in Oslo “took on the luster of a humanitarian memorial to Diana and her cause.” What’s more, experts say the awareness Diana raised about landmines in Angola during the 1997 journey helped the country recover from its decades-long civil war.

Last Edited by:Mildred Europa Taylor Updated: May 26, 2021

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