😠 It”s truly sinful!!
🗣️ An Old Officer”s Remorse and the Lie of Landmines
In 1997, in Wenzhou, Zhejiang, I met an old retired ROC army officer surnamed Chen who was visiting his hometown. When he learned I was from Dongyin, Matsu, he said with a remorseful and somewhat trembling voice that during his service, he was specifically responsible for laying landmines. All the landmines buried on Kinmen, Matsu, and Dongyin, all the front-line outlying islands, were laid by his unit.
Although he was executing orders, it made it difficult for him to forgive himself for the rest of his life, filled with endless regret. Especially after gaining religious faith, his sense of guilt grew even stronger.
Core Truth: The old gentleman told me that laid landmines would constantly shift. After just one rain, one typhoon, the landmines would move, disappearing to unknown places. The original mine-laying blueprints were essentially廢紙 (waste paper). It is impossible to completely clear the buried landmines.
It is unknown how many Communist Chinese Liberation Army soldiers were killed by buried landmines, but it is certain that the number of ROC army officers and soldiers, and civilians, who stepped on landmines and were killed was far, far greater than the enemy”s casualties.
The author recalls: In 1957 or 1958, forty-nine young military officers who graduated from the Political Warfare Cadre Academy were dispatched to Dongyin Island. Fewer than thirty of them were able to rotate back to Taiwan alive. Several of them were blown up by stepping on landmines. If officers who had received full military training suffered such fates, how much more so for ordinary civilians?
💰 The Scourge of Purchasing the M136 “Volcano” Mine-Laying System
The government announced it would spend US$180 million to purchase 14 sets of the M136 “Volcano” mine-laying system, which will lay 13,440 landmines in Taiwan.
This mine-laying system uses the most advanced plastic landmines, which, unlike older metal mines, are not easily detected by mine detectors. What”s more terrifying is:
- Plastic landmines do not corrode.
- After experiencing wind, rain, and mudslides, they shift and are simply untraceable. Once buried, they remain forever.
Do not tell me that there are new methods or technologies today that can overcome this. Because even the corroding old landmines cannot be completely cleared to this day.
During the Vietnam War, the U.S. military sprayed defoliants. To this day, Vietnam has countless birth defects and permanently damaged land. Defoliants and landmines are analogous; they cause harm for over a century.
⛰️ The Island Residents” Deep Pain
The author testifies with his personal experience in Dongyin:
I was born and raised in Dongyin. Before I was fifteen, I couldn”t swim at all. Why? After the troops arrived in Dongyin in 1955, landmines were laid all over the mountains, and all civilians in the mountains were prohibited from going there. There were guards on all the beaches, and fishermen were restricted from fishing, let alone playing or swimming in the sea.
Until I left my hometown, I was extremely unfamiliar with both Dongyin and Nangan. Everywhere was a military defense zone, forbidden military area, or minefield, all off-limits.
How many Taiwanese know this? Once landmines are laid, an area becomes a forbidden zone, wasteland, a dead end, and no one should think of setting foot there.
- Camping, picnics, outings, swimming, diving, playing in the water, surfing, Spring Scream… forget all of it.
- Walking to the beach or cliff, you don”t know if your next step will hit a landmine?
Now Kinmen and Matsu are no longer under martial law, and tourism is bustling. But do you know that many places you haven”t had time to visit still have minefield signs?
🛑 Taiwan is on the verge of eternal damnation
Once Taiwan lays over 10,000 landmines (and potentially more in the future), poor Taiwanese people!
- All mined beaches and mountain platforms will be off-limits to you.
- To prevent enemy forces from knowing where the landmines are, you will absolutely not be told that specific plot of land or area has landmines buried in it.
By then, no one in Taiwan, whether on cliffs or by water, will be able to go anywhere.
We, the “refugees” who have experienced war preparations, martial law, and fleeing abroad, deeply understand the pain of war. Once Taiwan is covered in landmines, with minefields everywhere, travel will be restricted, and every step will be difficult. After entering a state of war, domestic and international tourism will immediately vanish, and people”s lives will enter an endless dark period. For Taiwan, surrounded by the sea, where will the new “refugees” flee?
🙏 Sincere Curses and Appeals
Arms dealers who broker and sell landmines, and all military and political officials. If even a shred of conscience remains, you should not act as running dogs for Americans, harming 23 million compatriots. The moment you comply with American instructions to lay evil landmines…
May your lineage be cut off, and may you die a terrible death!
This is my sincere curse.
I respectfully urge everyone to work together and collectively send forth thousands of curses, so that those evil military and political officials and politicians who lay landmines will soon receive their retribution, lest they remain in the world to harm humanity.
Zhang Longguang 2023.01.12
📚 Small Knowledge about Landmines
The Ottawa Treaty, formally known as the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction.
The treaty formally declares the prohibition of the use, stockpiling, production, and transfer of anti-personnel mines (AP mines).
As of 2007, it has been signed by over 40 of 155 countries.
However, the United States, of course, has not signed this Mine Ban Treaty.