How Princess Diana’s 1997 trip to Angola helped change the world

By Zach Harper

September 27, 2019Sep 27, 2019, 9:57 AM GMT+1

Prince Harry will continue his mother Princess Diana’s legacy when he travels to Angola on Sept. 27.

The Duke of Sussex is making a two-day trip to the country as part of his tour of southern Africa, which began on Sept. 23 with stops in Cape Town, South Africa with Duchess Meghan and Archie Harrison and continued with Harry’s solo trip to Botswana on Sept. 26.

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.

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.

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.

Photo: © Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty Images

The sneaker-clad Princess of Wales arrived in Luanda, Angola’s capital, on Jan. 13, 1997. She was there to tour four Red Cross projects in the country, which was in the middle of a quiet period during its decades-long civil war. The conflict had begun in 1975 with its independence and went through three separate periods of fighting. The final round began in 1998. (The conflict finally ended in 2002.)

One-third of Angola’s population was displaced during the civil war, and 80 per cent of Angolans were without basic medical care by 2003, according to the New York Times. Nearly 10,000 children became soldiers during the war, and by 2003 nearly 30 per cent of Angolan children had life expectancies of less than five years of age, the New York Times also reported then.

When Diana visited in 1997, the country was - and still is - one of the most mined in the world. Just last year, more than 150 people were killed in explosions from landmines left over from the civil war, according to southern Africa’s Southern Times newspaper.

Diana was clear about her mission and why she was there right from the start. Upon arriving at the airport, she made a speech to reporters who had gathered.

Photo: © Tim Graham photo Library via Getty Images

“It’s an enormous privilege for me to have been invited here to Angola in order to assist the Red Cross in its campaign to ban, once and for all, anti-personnel landmines,” she said. “There couldn’t be a more appropriate place to begin this campaign than Angola because this nation has the highest number of amputees per population than anywhere [else] in the world.”“By visiting Angola, we shall gain an understanding of the plight of the victims of landmines, and how survivors are helped to recover from their injuries,” she continued. “We’ll also be able to observe the wider implications of these devastating weapons on the life of this country as a whole. “It is my sincere hope that by working together in the next few days, we shall focus world attention on this vital – but until now, largely neglected – issue.”

While there were dozens of journalists there awaiting her arrival, few Angolans in the airport knew who she was, according to a Reuters report from the time. That stood in stark contrast to her status as a very public figure at home.