OUR LAGUNA:Landmine survivor comes to city

Nobel Peace Prize winner Ken Rutherford was the keynote speaker at a fundraiser for Landmine Survivors Network Tuesday at Mozambique Restaurant.

The International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which Rutherford was a part of, was awarded the prize in 1997 for the organization’s work on behalf of landmine victims throughout the world.

“Every hour of every day, someone steps on a landmine,” Rutherford said. “The Landmine Survivors Network helps injured people in war-torn countries pick up the pieces and rebuild their lives.”

He knows firsthand the difficult journey from victim to victory over the adversity of dealing with the loss of limbs, eyesight and in some cases, all hope for the future.

“I lost both my legs in Somalia, but I have lived my dream of being a teacher and marrying my girlfriend,” Rutherford said Tuesday.

Rutherford was 31 when his jeep hit a landmine.

“I had thought that bad things only happened to other people,” Rutherford said. “The accident was an eye opener.

“There are hundreds of thousands of landmine victims around the world.”

Together with another American landmine survivor, Jerry White, Rutherford founded the network. Their goal was to create a global initiative to link survivors to healthcare, rehabilitation, peer support, and social and economic integration.

According to White, the network’s executive director, when people detonate a landmine, they are instantly transformed into someone in need of help.

“I needed the doctors and nurses who took care of me,” White wrote in the network’s annual report. “I needed the social worker who told me I could do whatever I set my mind to. I needed my family and friends to support me like never before. And I needed the example of other survivors.

“Luckily, I had all that. I had people who stood by me and with me, and I found my life again.”

Sadly, he said, most landmine victims have no one to help them recover or stand up for them.

Rutherford said the network is working to foster legislation like the American Disabilities Act in other countries.

“We in this country are so privileged,” Rutherford said. “We are trying to provide those rights and dignity to people around the world.”

Eighty-seven countries are littered with landmines. One of those countries is Mozambique, where the network has one of its seven regional offices.

“I was watching a show about landmines in Mozambique and I realized this was a cause we should give to,” said restaurateur Tony Shill. “According to the show, there are about three million landmines buried there. They use rats to try to detect them because they are too light to explode them.”

Shill grew up in South Africa and vacationed often in Mozambique, for which he and partners Ivan Spiers and Bill Brooks named their Woods Cove restaurant.

He had been in contact with Rutherford before Tuesday, but they had never met until that night, although Shill had managed a resort in Missouri for 14 where Rutherford had been a guest.

Corona del Mar High School student Zan Margolis, who founded Club Anthro with fellow student Amanda Knuppel at the school in 2004, was the catalyst that brought them together.

Margolis , who met Rutherford at a Boulder High School reunion attended by her father, a football teammate, invited the Nobel laureate to speak at the school’s annual Community Service Assembly.

“I had gotten a care package [Mozambique spices] from Tony, so when I got the letter from Zan, I suggested she con- tact him,” Rutherford said. “Zan ran with it. Tony ran with it.”

The fundraiser at the restaurant was held after the assembly, which was co-sponsored by the students’ global awareness club and the school PTA.

“Club Anthro is a group of students who feel passionate about international political and environmental issues,” Margolis said. “Since landmines kill and maim 18,000 people each year and 30% to 40% of victims are young people, this issue is on the top of our agenda.”

Last year, the club raised about $3,000 for the survivors’ network.

“I am always amazed by young people who involve themselves with issues beyond their own concerns,” Rutherford said. “I have no concerns about passing the baton to this younger generation.

It is so great to be alive on a night like this. We are delighted that Mozambique restaurant and Corona del Mar High School are working with us to build support for improving the lives of landmine survivors and their families.”

All proceeds from the event, co-hosted by the club and the restaurant, will benefit the network.

Margolis said the restaurant’s generous participation — the buffet tables were fabulous — should help the club raise even more money for the network than it raised last year.

“We feel an obligation to give back to the country that is not only our namesake but is also where so many of our wonderful childhood memories were created,” Shill said.

“The devastation left by years of civil war continues to linger in the form of these horrible instruments of war; we want to give back by bringing attention and raising awareness of the landmines that plague that remarkable country.”

Mozambique is one of the most mine-polluted regions in the world, but it is estimated by the network that 70 million landmines are buried in more than 80 countries.

“Landmines are so inexpensive to make and take no expertise, so bad governments can just litter them,” said Imax filmmaker Greg MacGillivray, who attended the fund-raiser with his wife, Barbara. “We really saw the results in Cambodia and Vietnam.”

For more information about Landmine Survivors Network, visit www.landmine survivors.org or call (202) 464-0011.