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Kitabı oku: «Warlord», sayfa 3

James Steel
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Chapter Five

‘You stink of piss.’

Eve’s older sister, Beatrice, looks at her askance and waves the flies aside that are buzzing around them.

Eve’s pagne is soaked in urine and the wetness has spread up through the cloth and into the waist of her tee shirt. She has no more clean clothes to wear; she has gone through all the ones given to her by her family in the two weeks since the rape. She feels dirty and uncomfortable, she is wet when she lies down to sleep at night and she is wet when she wakes up in the morning. The smell of sour piss is the constant companion in her life now.

Her rape was violent, involving four men and the barrel of a rifle; the metal foresight cut her deeply. It is part of the practice of warfare in Kivu province, an attempt to destroy women and smash the society they traditionally hold together. It has left her with a fistula, a tear in the wall of her vagina into her bladder so that urine constantly seeps out.

Her family look after her but their patience is finite – many victims of rape are rejected by their husbands and thrown out of their houses. She feels lucky that her family has not done that. She is broken and ruined and knows that it is her fault. Eve’s head sinks lower and she shuffles away from Beatrice.

Where is my baby?

The thought recurs in her mind at least once a minute.

The two women are squatting on the ground on a low rise overlooking the refugee camp, rows and rows of palm-leaf shelters, covered in white plastic sheeting in a sea of dark brown mud. It is morning, with a cold, grey overcast sky, there is dew on the ground and people’s breath smokes. They hear the chopping of wood, a babble of voices, the hawking and spitting of old men. It smells of mud, shit and wood smoke from the cooking fires.

People are packed into the view everywhere, clothed in a clashing kaleidoscope of patterns: red, yellow, blue, green, tartans, stripes, every possible combination of brash local styles and Western cast-offs.

Women wash naked children as they stand in battered metal bowls, making them blow their noses into their fingers and then deftly flicking away the snot. Older people stand around in groups with their arms folded and talk quietly, the men dressed in tattered old suit jackets to try to maintain some dignity. They look gloomily at what their lives have become: forced by the endemic warfare from their home villages into the camps, they cannot work and have no control over their destiny.

Everywhere there are kids, running around the shacks, playing, laughing and chattering. For them this is normal life, it’s what they have grown up with. They are dressed in rags, adult tee shirts that are stained and ripped and drag in the mud. All are barefoot, their feet and ankles covered in purple ulcers from cuts that weep pus. It is a noisy, hectic, dirty place to live.

Worst of all though is the fear. They have food from the UNHCR and other NGOs but they have no law and order and the constant uncertainty is etched in deep worry lines on people’s faces. Militia groups can wander in from the bush at any time, just as the Kudu Noir did with Eve.

They have no protection from them. The Congolese army, the FARDC, all are as bad as the militias, which is what they were before they were put into another uniform and then not paid by the central government. As former President Mobutu famously said to those generals who asked him for salaries: ‘You have rifles, why are you asking me for money?’

Rape is another one of the FARDC’s specialities. As for the police, the PNC, they don’t get out this far into the bush; they stay in the towns and anyway are just unpaid bandits who live on bribes.

When the Kudu Noir had finished with her, Eve couldn’t walk. She crawled under the piece of corrugated iron that had been her front door to hide. It did then provide some protection for her; to cover their tracks the Kudu Noir fired a white phosphorous mortar over where they had been – the airburst shell split the night with a white flash and showered burning pieces of felt soaked in the chemical. The ground around her was covered in an impossibly bright light that spewed white smoke. Wherever the pieces touched huts they burst into flame. Peering out from under the metal sheet she could see figures running around lit by orange flames and the banana palm leaves on the edge of the camp twisting in the heat.

Her hut was burnt to cinders and with it all her possessions: a short-handled hoe for tilling her vegetable patch, a plastic basin for washing, a metal cooking pot, two pieces of pagne cloth, a comb, a small piece of soap, some dried cassava, three cooking utensils, a candle stub, a tee shirt. That was it, that was her life.

Eve gets up and moves painfully away from her sister. She thinks about her boyfriend Gabriel: what will he say when he gets back from his trading trip? Will he reject her like her husband?

She rubs her forehead as if she has a terrible headache.

Where is my baby?

Fang stops shouting into his BlackBerry, hangs up and returns to his armchair, facing Alex as if nothing has happened.

He shakes his head. ‘I have a steel shipment on a freighter getting into Port Sudan and the harbour master is a pain in the ass. We pay him too much already and he wants more – we go to Mombasa if he don’t like it.’

Alex feels slightly bemused by this but doesn’t show it. ‘You were saying about the Rwandan involvement in the project?’

‘Yes, it’s delicate because they carried out massacres in Kivu when they invaded it in the main war between 1997 and 2003. So the people there hate them and they can’t send troops back in on a permanent basis. That was a big part of the international treaty at the end of the main war, that all the eight countries involved would get their troops out of Congo.’ He shrugs. ‘There are no good guys in Kivu. So now they have to try this.’

‘So what is “this”?’

‘Well, they have agreed to provide logistical support for the military operation from Rwanda. Because of the international pressure they have been under in the past and their activities in Kivu, the Congolese would not accept them just sending troops into Kivu on a long-term basis. They have been very clear about this in our negotiations.

‘We are envisaging a large Battlegroup operation that cannot just appear in Kivu – it will have to be established in secret in Rwanda first and have a supply chain running through there to the Kenyan ports.’

Alex nods. His military mind is attracted by the idea; it sounds feasible. Suddenly he stops himself.

What the hell are you doing? This is not something you are going to get involved in.

He throws out more objections to try to rubbish the plan.

‘OK, but what about the UN? I mean, they have substantial forces in Kivu and they are not just going to say OK to this sort of deal. It is unprecedented in modern times; the US will go mad on the Security Council. They can’t just let China grab a chunk of the middle of Africa.’

He looks at Fang in exasperation, sure that he has found a way to stop the flow of smooth certainty.

Fang nods to acknowledge the point but continues undaunted.

‘Yes, you are right, there are about five thousand UN troops there but the Congolese government won’t tell the UN in advance of the deal. In terms of the UN troops, they are allowed into a country only at the invitation of that country’s government, they don’t invade places. The Congolese president will simply withdraw their invitation as part of the lease agreement and they will be confined to base and then have to leave. It will just be presented as a fait accompli and there is nothing that the UN or the US will be able to do about it. If a sovereign state decides to lease some of its territory then it can do it.

‘You are right though – they won’t like it. But China and Russia will veto any action that the US want to take through the Security Council. The Americans don’t have any troops anywhere near the area; there is nothing they can do about it. The Congolese President will issue a decree and sign the province over to us and then it is Year Zero for the Republic of Kivu. We’ll have free range to start again and build a new country.’ He shrugs. ‘Although we may keep some UN troops on to continue policing work – we will see how it goes because they could be useful. No one in Kivu is very keen on them. They have been there since 2003 and they haven’t stopped the fighting. They stop it blowing up into an international war but they have been pretty ineffectual at bringing law and order. The province is just a series of fiefdoms run by different local groups.’

At this point Alex gets annoyed. ‘Well OK, but what about the local people? I mean, have you consulted them about this?’

Fang makes a moue but continues, ‘Well, the project is being developed with local political partners, the whole government will be run by them. We have found a local politician without links to any of the militias and he has agreed to be our front man.’ He looks at Alex pointedly and then adds, ‘I mean, you have to be realistic here, Mr Devereux – there really is very little government in Kivu. That’s the problem. There is some control in the areas around the main towns but outside that it is anarchy. There are thousands of rapes there every year. For most people government just doesn’t exist. This operation will establish law and order and give them the hope of a bright economic future.’

Alex sighs: he isn’t getting very far with puncturing the plan. He holds up his hands in acceptance of this.

‘All right, all right, I accept all that. But why does China want to be there in the first place? I mean, if it’s so awful?’

‘Ah, well. You see, you have a very Western view on Africa. Your media portrays it only as a basket case, a land of poverty and starvation or, even worse, a place full of smiley people who dance a lot.’

Alex has to nod ruefully; the shallow and patronising nature of most Western media coverage of African issues is a bugbear for him.

‘But in China, we see Africa as a long-term investment opportunity. The main thing we want in Kivu are minerals. The trade in tin, gold and coltan is worth about two hundred million dollars a year at the moment because it is all artisanal mining, just guys with hammers and spades. But once we get in there and mechanise it, it will be worth billions.

‘The main mineral we want is coltan: columbite-tantalum. We need the tantalum for pinhead capacitors in things like mobile phones, laptops and game consoles.’

Fang grins, thinking about the future. ‘When we get going, the profit margins will be immense! But apart from that, we have big plans to develop the agriculture export trade in Kivu. It’s very fertile and has a great climate. We want to use Goma airport as an export hub for cut flowers, fruit and veg to the Middle East and Europe. We’ll come to rival Kenya pretty quickly and the return on capital will be very attractive.

‘The other big draw for us is that we are building the Chinese corridor from Tanzania to Sudan, up through the middle of Africa to open the whole continent up to trade, and we can’t put the railway through Kivu at the moment because of the fighting so we need to pacify the province first.’ He grins and points at Alex. ‘That’s your job, Mr Devereux.’

Joseph has just raped a woman.

He has never had sex before and is not sure what he thinks about it. His confusion is not helped by the fact that he is drunk on home-brewed beer. He staggers back across the bumpy ground following Lieutenant Karuta towards the firelight. It is dark and the FDLR troops have made a big campfire in the centre of the village to accompany their ongoing celebrations. He can see figures around it silhouetted in the firelight and hear them singing and shouting.

Everyone in the platoon is drunk, they have been eating and drinking all afternoon, stuffing themselves after months hiding out in the deep bush in western Kivu province.

Joseph stumbles along, doing up his trousers. Lieutenant Karuta regards what has just happened as a rite of passage for an FDLR soldier and led the initiation on the woman that he had hamstrung in the maize field in the morning. She had only crawled a few hundred yards by the time they got to her in the evening and it was easy to follow the marks on the ground and the bloodstains smeared on the maize stems. More men are finishing their business behind them.

They rejoin the main group and the men leer and wink at Joseph. He’s the youngest in the platoon and a new recruit. He’s a rather gormless-looking boy, heavily built and with shaggy hair from months in the bush. They giggle and pass him a gourd; he sits down on a log looking dazed, drinks deep and then stares into the bonfire.

After a while, the initiation continues – they blindfold him and make him walk around the fire. The soldiers have fun shouting and pushing him about and he feels scared.

‘Now you do target practice, boy!’

‘What?’

He feels Lieutenant Karuta’s hot, sweaty arm around his shoulder and his beery breath in his face. ‘Come on, you fought well today but you need to learn how to fight better.’

He leads Joseph away from the fire and then a rifle is shoved into his hands. He fumbles around, gets hold of it properly and slips his finger onto the trigger.

‘Whoa, whoa! Careful!’

Men around him laugh.

‘I can’t see.’

‘Doesn’t matter, just point the gun here.’

Karuta’s rough hands guide his so that the rifle is pointing slightly downwards.

‘Now select automatic.’

He clicks the small lever on the casing downward, proud that he can do it blindfold.

‘OK, now give it the magazine.’

Joseph pulls the trigger and thirty bullets blast out.

A howl of laughter goes up around him and Karuta claps him on the back.

‘Heh! Well done, Hutu boy!’

Joseph grins, not sure what he has done, and tentatively pushes up the blindfold.

Sitting on the ground in front of him with her back propped up against a log, her hands tied behind her and a rag stuffed in her mouth is the woman from the maize field. Her body is riddled with bullet holes, her face looks ridiculous with the mouth wedged open with rags but there is an expression of terror frozen in her eyes.

Joseph stares at her aghast.

Karuta carries on laughing. ‘You see how easy it is to kill someone! Come on!’ He throws his arm around him again and wheels him back to the fire where there is another huge cheer as he stumbles in.

Joseph is numb.

‘Hey, come on!’ Karuta shakes him and starts singing a war song to get him over it. He jabs his rifle in the air and shouts at the men to get on their feet. They all jump up, grab their rifles and start jogging on the spot, shaking their rifles in time. Their black faces gleam silver with sweat in the firelight as they sing the words over and over again.

Hutu boy, why are you sitting down?

Kill your enemy!

Kwa! Kwa! Kwa!

They make machete gestures with their free hands.

Hutu boy, why are you sitting down?

Kill your enemy!

Kwa! Kwa! Kwa!

Chapter Six

Sophie’s car pulls up to the barrier and the soldier steps towards her window. He is heavy-set with a fuzz of stubble and a sergeant’s stripes on his uniform.

She winds down her window and he leans his rifle on the ledge.

‘Your papers! Where is your accreditation?’ he says in the aggressive, officious tones of Congolese officials. She smells beer on his breath. As he leans in to take the documents his wrist stretches from his sleeve and she sees he is wearing three gold watches.

Six other soldiers stand around the car. Their faces are impassive but their eyes flick back and forth watching everything, rifles held across their chests, fingers on their triggers.

Usually white NGO workers are regarded as neutral in the multi-sided conflict in the province and only get minor hassle for bribes rather than serious assaults. They float around in white Land Cruisers like some magic tribe with ‘No weapons’ stickers on the windshield (an AK-47 with a red cross over it) proclaiming their neutrality, but Sophie still feels nervous. The edge of the manila folder in her grasp is damp with sweat.

She opens it to show the sergeant. ‘All our papers are in order and we have our permit à voyager here.’ She shows him the document on the top of the stack in the folder.

He grunts in reply and takes it from her.

‘You are in a security zone, this is a military installation here!’ He points at the cement block building with a rusting corrugated iron roof and ochre paint that is flaking off like a skin disease. Bullet holes are dotted across the front of it and there is a larger one where an RPG exploded. Piles of rubbish and plastic bags are caught in the grass and bushes around it. The ground on either side has been used as a latrine by the soldiers and drivers. ‘You must park over there, switch off the engine and deposit the key with the security manager for safekeeping.’ He points to a teenager with a rifle. ‘I will confirm your accreditation with the captain.’

He snatches the folder away from her and marches into the building.

She glances nervously across at Nicolas who calmly reverses the vehicle and parks off the road where the teenager is pointing. He then reluctantly hands over the keys and they sit and wait in tense silence. Sophie gets out and paces up and down, glancing at her watch and the building. Nicolas leans against the jeep and lights a cigarette.

Five minutes later the sergeant comes marching back out with the folder and strides up to her.

‘There is a problem with your documents. You must come and see the captain.’

‘What?’

‘Your permit à voyager is not present, you must see the captain to explain yourself!’

Sophie is incredulous and stares at him. ‘My permit à voyager?’

‘Yes.’

‘It was on the top of the folder.’

‘There is no permit.’

‘It was on the top of the folder.’ She raises her voice and gestures at him in exasperation, trying to think how he could have missed it. She is tired, hungry, frazzled and desperate to get to the clinic. Her frustration boils over. ‘It was right there! I showed it to you!’ She snatches the folder from his hand, opens it and shows him the place where the blue document had been.

The sergeant stiffens and glares at her angrily.

Nicolas is suddenly at her side. ‘Ah, Monsieur le Directeur, can I offer you a cigarette?’

The sergeant brushes him aside and grabs the folder back from Sophie, jabbing his finger at her and shouting, ‘You are in contravention of regulations on a military installation! You must see the captain immediately!’

Four other soldiers run over and stand around him.

Sophie glares back at him, refusing to be intimidated. ‘We have vaccines – humanitarian aid – in the Land Cruiser that will go off in an hour’s time if we don’t get it to the clinic! This is for the children of the Congo! Your children! OK, fine, let’s go and see the captain!’

She marches off towards the building and the sergeant and the four soldiers hurry after her. He pushes in front of her as she gets to the door and then halts outside a chipped and scratched inner door. He knocks and then opens it and walks in, Sophie follows; she is so angry she is not afraid.

The room is bare with grey breeze block walls and a hurricane lamp hanging from the ceiling. The captain sits behind an old plywood desk which is empty except for an old IBM PC and keyboard with a power lead but no plug. He stares up angrily at the commotion of their entry; both the sergeant and Sophie’s faces are flushed with anger.

They both start talking at the same time.

‘Here is the illegal traveller!’

‘The permit à voyager was on the top of the folder! I showed it to him when he took it off me, you know you have it! I have vaccines to deliver in an hour or they will be ruined!’

The captain sits and looks at her insolently from his chair, head on one side.

‘We can issue you with an emergency permit à voyager for a thousand dollars.’

‘A thousand dollars! Jesus Christ!’ She looks at him as if he is an idiot. ‘We don’t pay bribes. Where do you think I am going to get that kind of money!’ She turns and points angrily at the sergeant next to her. ‘You had it! This is ridiculous! Can we stop playing …’

The captain bangs the table and is on his feet in one fluid move. He switches from angry insolence to rage in the blink of an eye. He moves round the desk to stand in front of her and pulls his pistol out of his holster at the same time. The gun suddenly looks very large and solid as he points it at her.

‘You are an alien travelling without the correct documentation! You are coming in here and making accusations against my men! You come in to my office and you do not salute me! Why do you not salute me?’

He slaps her across the face with his left hand.

Sophie is stunned. No one has ever hit her before or threatened her with a gun.

Her indignation suddenly turns to helpless terror and a feeling of total powerlessness. She has overstepped the magic line that surrounds white NGO workers, pushed her luck too far and broken the spell. She is in a small room with five large men. She now knows what it is like to be a local Congolese, totally at the mercy of the men with guns.

There is nothing she can do, no clever argument, no grand family connections, no degree from Oxford, no right or law that she can wave at them to stop them doing whatever they want to her.

₺117,27

Türler ve etiketler

Yaş sınırı:
0+
Litres'teki yayın tarihi:
30 haziran 2019
Hacim:
431 s. 3 illüstrasyon
ISBN:
9780007443291
Telif hakkı:
HarperCollins
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