Interpol?
If you saw her in a bar, perched on a stool, you’d never believe it. Her blonde hair, fresh complexion, ready smile and piercing blue eyes are much too pretty. But you’d be wrong: she really is with Interpol.
She is seconded from the South African police force and located at the embassy in Kinshasa, where she wears two hats: responsibility for embassy security and management of their ambitious police training and equipment project.
The stories she tells about how the Congo’s management of the aid received from South Africa are appalling. South Africa gave a fleet of four-wheel drive vehicles to the police to manage the election in 2006. Within a week the vehicles had been seized by the commanders for their personal use because they didn’t see why their staff should be given such good cars, while they had nothing. Similarly, most of the police radios which were supplied for the election were sold by the recipients to the public. Recently, because the civil service was very behind in payment of salaries, to pacify senior civil servants a fleet of cars provided in the interests of more efficient government which had been given by another donor were given to them in lieu of salary. That’s it – an official gift of a car from the government, transferred into their name. Whereupon, of course, the beneficiaries seized the opportunity for windfall profits and sold them to the public. One such vehicle had just been bought by our host.
Even in matters of diplomatic relations with South Africa, a country which should surely be considered a friend, the relationship is abused. When the President of South Africa visited the DRC officials were demanding absurd payments at the last minute to give his plane permission to land. Luckily our friend was brought in and sorted it out at the highest level. Similarly the South African Embassy was held hostage over the cars for his motorcade: they were not to be allowed out of the plane until a substantial bribe had been paid. That is, until she used her contacts to get the matter sorted out.
The worst story comes from GTZ, the German aid agency. They had ordered a large quantity of wood for use in refugee camps, but of the 3,400 cubic metres of wood ordered, 2,800 cubic metres (worth about $200,000) was never delivered. GTZ naturally refused to pay the supplier for the wood not supplied. To him, the supplier, this was an outrage. He protested that it wasn’t his fault – the wood had been stolen, so he sued GTZ, successfully. They were ordered to pay him $303,000, which they refused to do. Thereupon their bank accounts in the DRC were frozen and they were slapped with a fine of $924,000. Amazingly, they are still here, operating in force. Not surprisingly most donors now only put money into intangible things like training or immovable things like roads.
Her background is as interesting as her work. She worked as an undercover policewoman with drug gangs in Hillbrow – Johannesburg’s violent drug centre. Later she was transferred, as an obviously innocent Afrikaner girl, to infiltrate the far right movement in South Africa. She told us that it was terrifying for two reasons. The obvious one is that they are well organised, and have multiple arms caches which can be used at a moment’s notice. The more scary thing is how stupid they are and how little they know about the country they live in – they live in a pre-1990 world in which black is bad and white is good. And for that they are prepared to die.
We’re off the subject. She told terrifying stories of her experiences during the last election. There was massive rioting in the streets of Kinshasa, to do with allegations of election fraud by the loser Bemba. He was so frightened of being assassinated that he took refuge in the South African Embassy. This made it the target for the soldiers loyal to Kabila. They were under siege for days, and since he had not requested permission, or given any warning of his arrival, they had been unprepared. They couldn’t use the majority of the building as it was too exposed to the street, so were holed up in the back of the embassy with nothing to eat for days.
It so happens that very near to the South African embassy there’s a patisserie – a nice one. At the end of each day they give any unsold cakes and pastries to street children. That’s a noble idea, but . . . it means that the area is always full of these disaffected kids. They are not tinies: many of them are rough tough adolescents. So?
They just love harassing single women, which she is. As soon as she leaves the embassy they jump on top of her car (a pick up), they bash the sides with sticks, the jump on the bonnet, make faces at her through the windows etc. As she approaches work the same thing happens: if she has the misfortune to be stuck at a junction they hop on. Once she gave a boy who was being particularly offensive a nasty shock by opening the door in his face, and bashing his nose. Since then he snarls at her and shakes his fist every time she passes. In a way it’s lucky that it is an embassy vehicle and the multiple dents are not going to affect her pocket.
A colleague of hers had similar treatment and after a month insisted that she should be repatriated. But her – after six years, with her tour ending in a few months would she come back?
“In a flash.”
That says it all.
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