Ruralite Cafe: Published 11/14/02

By Lynn Hotaling - Associate Editor

Concert's message transcends music

Ten-time Grammy winner Emmylou Harris and fellow performers Bruce Cockburn, Patty Griffin and Tift Merritt (a native Tar Heel who stepped in for an indisposed Mary Chapin Carpenter) were ambassadors for a cause.

Asheville was the second stop on a five-show tour across the Southeast. Billed as "Concerts for a Landmine Free World," the programs offer audiences a rare, intimate look at outstanding musicians performing without their bands and backup singers.

Instead, the featured artists accompany and harmonize with each other in a unique acoustic in-the-round format. Since the concerts' 1998 inception in Washington, D.C., dedicated musicians have carried their message to audiences across the United States, Canada and Europe on behalf of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based international human rights organization that assists civilian victims of armed conflict in countries overseas and raises awareness of the global crisis of buried landmines left in the wake of war.

While the music was sublime, the message was chilling.

As riveting as the performers was Bobby Muller, president of VVAF and cofounder of the 1997 Nobel Prize-winning global campaign to ban landmines.

"They've become a weapon of terror," Muller said. "When the war ends, the mines stay in the ground. They have no 'off' switch, and they don't recognize any armistice."

Landmines buried in Cambodia during the 1970s are still injuring people today, Muller said.

Most casualties in places like Cambodia, Angola, Mozambique and Afghanistan are women going into the forest to gather firewood or kids taking farm animals to graze, Muller said.

Harris, who described Muller as her hero because of his work on behalf of both military and civilian victims of war, modeled an exquisite silk shawl woven by Cambodians she called landmine "survivors."

"They were victims, but now they can weave these beautiful scarves and earn a living, so they're survivors," Harris said as she described one of the VVAF's postwar assistance programs that help those injured by landmines learn to support themselves and their families.

Sold under the name Joom Noon (the Cambodian words mean "gift of hope"), the colorful weavings are produced by an innovative VVAF microenterprise in Preah Vihear, a remote region of Cambodia.

The ultimate goal of the VVAF's Campaign for a Landmine Free World is an international ban on the indiscriminate weapons, Muller said. To date, 114 countries have signed a treaty to that effect, though the U.S. is not one of them, Muller said.

Harris, my very own personal all-time favorite singer, launched the concerts after accompanying Muller on a trip to Cambodia and Vietnam. As a result of her firsthand exposure to the hardships faced by landmine victims and the devastation in those mine-infested regions, the songstress recruited other musicians to help her raise public awareness and consciousness.

For her dedication to the cause, Harris, the recipient of Billboard's prestigious Century Award in 1999, received a non-musical award - the Patrick J. Leahy Humanitarian Award - earlier this week for her "tireless efforts to focus attention on the plight of landmine survivors worldwide."

VVAF supporters, including the award's namesake, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), paid tribute to Harris during a benefit event Tuesday at the Birchmere Music Hall in Alexandria, Va. Former Harris bandmate Rodney Crowell and current musical companion Buddy Miller were joined by Steve Earle, Guy Clark, John Prine and others in honoring Harris.

"It's not good enough to say we won't put any more landmines in the ground; we've got to get them out," Harris has said. "It comes down to basic courtesy, something you learn in kindergarten: You clean up your mess when you're through. Until we do, these countries are going to be hostages. They're going to continue to live the war many, many years after peace has been declared."

For more information about the VVAF and its programs, visit the group's website, www.vvaf.org. Joom Noon Scarves, handwoven in Cambodia, are also available through the site. According to Emmylou, they make great Christmas gifts.

Back to Archive: 11/14/02.