If you’ve ever been to Geneva, you’ve most likely seen the broken chair.
Five tonnes of wood make up this gigantic sculpture. It was constructed in 1997 by Daniel Berset to symbolize the impact of landmines during wars and after they have passed. The Broken Chair has only three legs with the fourth being broken halfway up. Despite this, it stands tall and proud and, with a height of 12 metres, facing the United Nations to serve as a stark reminder to all visiting politicians and diplomats that their work can have impact.
In addition, Handicap International commissioned a broken chair exposition in Geneva during the month of June, to highlight individual stories, successes, and challenges in the plight against landmines and the impact on victims.
The exposition is placed along the quai Wilson, right in front of the Hotel President Wilson. Named after Woodrow Wilson, this hotel is rumoured to have the most expensive suite in the world on its top floor, which was once apparently trashed by a Saudi Prince.
The stories on the boards placed along Quai Wilson are unsurprisingly compelling. The sponsoring organization, Handicap International, was created in Cambodia in 1982 after three doctors saw the large number of amputees filling into refugee campus escaping the Khmer Rouge regime. The amputees were never fighters in the war, but instead were victims of anti-personnel mines that littered the Cambodia/Thailand border.
The physicians did the best they could to help the amputees by creating makeshift limbs with wood, leather, leaves, cloth, and whatever other odds and ends they had on hand. But, after a while, they became tired of making these deliberate massacres easier for their victims to bear. Helping the victims recover was no longer enough, so they decided to do something to stop the use of such barbaric and inexact weapons. Handicap International was born.
Then, in 1992, inspired by the work of Handicap International, six NGO’s founded the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. Within five years, the Ottawa Convention of 1997 was signed; banning the use, stockpile, production, and transfer of antipersonnel mines. The campaign founders were then awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
While great progress has been made, leftover landmines still litter countrysides, injuring and killing many each year; while illegal mines are still produced and used in war. The work of Handicap International and symbols such as the broken chair continue to remind us that the problem has been assuaged, but not yet solved. It is not perfect, but it is progress.
