The war is officially over, and today the two factions share power in an uneasy coalition. But the legacy of the war remains in the form of an estimated nine to fifteen million mines buried in the Angolan soil. Both sides laid such mines, and neither side bothered to mark where they laid them. As a result, Angola has the highest number of amputees per person of any country in the world. Bombs, artillery, mortars, they all get removed.
Land mines stay behind.
Winslow has spent 14 years as a foreign correspondent. Sowing the Dragon's Teeth is his first book. The World caught up with him in Boston, just after his return from the Ottawa conference at which 120 countries, not including the United States, signed a treaty to ban the production, use, and export of antipersonnel mines. The rebels had encircled the town with belts of mines, and there were little knots of civilians going out and walking in the minefields. The city had been under siege for months, so that they had to go out in search of firewood.