Watched

A short story

The connection was scratchy, but the voice was clear, “I’ve been watching you, you know.”

“Yes,” I replied with more bravado than I felt. “I know. Should I be afraid?”

He chuckled, “No, don’t fear us. I needed to find out if I could trust you.”

“Trust me?” I queried. “You were on the verge of being arrested. Why does scaring me help you trust me.”

He laughed again. “I watch out for them even more than I watched you. Your movements, your contacts indicate that you are not one of them, or part of their apparatus. Even if you did not know it, they are not watching you, or listening. So now, we can safely meet.” He paused. “I am a democrat and a freedom fighter.”

This guy was careful I thought, much more than most dissidents I encountered in this dusty African capital on the southern fringe of the Sahara where I plied my trade as political officer at the U.S. embassy. The James Bond aspects of his approach were odd, but opposition figures did have much to be suspicious about. The reach of the president’s secret police was astonishing; and their tactics brutal. Critics of His Excellency disappeared into the jails, or more frequently these days before even getting to jail, with disturbing frequency.

“Okay,” I agreed, “but it will have to be my way.”

Two days later in the late afternoon I sat waiting at a small table on the terrace at the Golf Club. Because of the heat and the fact that the course was mostly windblown sand and dirt, the club did not attract many players. A few hard core drinkers, however, were well into their beers. A tall very black African approached. “It’s me,” he said, “Call me Jean Claude.”

I suggested a walk, so we strolled out the first fairway, found a bench and talked as the sun turned fiery red and sank into the Chari River. Jean Claude told me he represented southerners, the black Africans of the nation, who had been its educated class, its first administrators and provided the first president. In later years, all the progress and leadership provided by the south was swept away by desert warriors and their brutal rule. Now was the time Jean Claude asserted to reclaim their birth right. He acknowledged some southern participation in government. “Stooges,” he called them. But they too, he alleged could be brought into his movement. He sketched out a vision of political power based on mobilizing the southern majority to act as a coherent whole, break the stranglehold of the capital and assert regional autonomy. Once done, the south could strengthen its own institutions and evolve into its own independent state. He saw the process as one paralleling the evolution of southern Sudan, but without the need for a nasty war.

I heard him out and asked about the oil. His solution to that was revenue sharing. “All the president wants is money; money to buy arms and feather the nests of his cohorts. We will use the money to better the lives of our people.” Jean Claude closed with the pitch that I knew was coming. He wanted Americans to know of the struggle. He wanted our support – moral, if not material. Mostly he wanted assurances that we would restrain the government from using U.S. trained anti-terrorism forces or equipment against southern patriots. I said I took note of his ambitions and promised I would not betray his confidence, but that I could not promise either support or that the embassy could dictate how to employ the anti-terrorism troops. We agreed to stay in touch.

Jean Claude slipped out the gate of the golf club. I ordered and nursed a beer while thinking it over.

“Patron,” the club manager interrupted my thoughts, “please, don’t bring that man here again. It could go bad for me.”

“Why?” I responded.

“He’s a political ghost. He is the first president’s grandson.”

In following months the political temperature went up. Broadsides appeared vilifying the regime, editorials in the quasi-free press got tougher, new web sites appeared, especially one called action sud that blatantly called for southern autonomy. There was talk of tribal oathing, creating action cells, lots of agitation in southern towns. Southern politicians in the capital too began to adopt a more militant stance. Throughout I kept in regular contact with “Jean Claude;” mostly by phone, but and we met occasionally. He stayed out of the limelight, but seemed to be the motor of the movement. I heard that the security police were after him. I did note that anti-terrorism troops were deployed to two southern towns.

National legislative elections were approaching. They offered the opportunity for some success for southern power. I told Jean Claude of Stalin’s observation that it does not matter who votes, what matters is who counts the votes. He nodded grimly, but assured me that party poll watchers and international observers would be vigilant.

Lo and behold! The elections were okay. Southern power parties swept their home region and held a near majority in Parliament. Jean Claude’s first phase succeeded.

I tried to call to congratulate him, but could not get him on the line. After several days of futile efforts, finally, he called back. “I’m done,” he rasped wispily. “Finished.”

“No,” I rejoined, “Every thing is going well. Your plans are working. You cannot quit now.”

“No, my fate is death.” He coughed. “I have SIDA and the infection has spread. Victory is now up to others.”

A week later he died.

Agathe's Obligation

A short story

It was just after dawn, but the morning was already hot and dry. There would not be much sweating today, Agathe thought to herself, I’ll just bake in the oven. She adjusted her police cap on her short cropped curly hair, cut up to a flat top. She looked smart in uniform; a light blue shirt, dark skirt and sensible shoes. A MINURCAT arm band identified her as part of the United Nations peace keeping operation in Chad. Of medium height with a solid build, Agathe had already lost the svelteness of her girlhood, a time she remembered with fondness in the far away green hills of southern Rwanda.

Eastern Chad was a wind swept land, covered now after the rains with wispy grass. Scraggly trees dotted the plains up to the edges of the rocky hills. Agathe smiled as she looked out upon hundreds of acres of maturing millet planted by the refugees. Coming as she did from generations of farmers, she knew how gratifying it was to see food bursting from the land. A good harvest would provide a nutritional buffer above the World Food Program rations. Additionally, some earned cash would greatly improve morale and the fairly miserable quality of rural life.

Agathe was happily greeted by dozens of children as she walked through the refugee settlement. She picked up Arabic phrases, but some kids called out in French or even in English. The refugees here were Sudanese whose families and tribes had flowed easily across the nearby border until Janjaweed raiders destroyed their herds and homes causing them to seek succor in Chad and international protection. Protection was Agathe’s job. She was one of six Rwandans assigned to the peace keeping operation in Chad. She along with fifty other police personnel from African nations were scattered among the twenty or so refugee camps strung out along the dusty frontier. They were backed up by a 3,000 man military force.

Policing the camp was not so tough. It was not the urban, packed camp, seething with political and ethnic hatred that Agathe experienced as a teenager in Zaire. There was no sense of impending doom and no swaggering, often drunk, genocidaires to avoid. Yet there were issues – politics bubbled along. The evil government of Bashir and his Janaweed thugs were thoroughly despised. Internal politics manifested themselves in the quest for extra ration cards, prominence on camp committees and thus access to international aid or NGO jobs. There were police issues, too. Domestic violence and petty theft were the most common, but individual disputes too regularly needed refereeing. Although it was not as big an issue here, in the northern camps, efforts had to be made to keep Sudanese rebel groups from recruiting youngsters for their military operations.

Agathe’s duty was to be present at the health clinic, to assure that the several hundred refugees stayed in line (they almost always did) and waited their turn. Once she had calmed emotional agitation after a (natural) death and she had otherwise ensured other orderly funeral processions. The clinic was a good place to listen and Agathe was frequently approached with various complaints.

“Madame?” a young woman queried.

“Yes,” Agathe responded, “Good morning.”

The girl introduced herself as Fatima. She was slender, fine featured, dressed head to foot in the local style in an off-yellow wrap; her head carefully covered. She nervously gathered her courage and asked if they could have a private talk. Agathe assured her that confidences would be respected.

“My uncle,” Fatima said, “wants to take me for a wife and says he will force me if I do not agree. I am only seventeen. He said today was the day. He will come for me tonight. My father is dead, my brothers too young and my mother depends on the family. She cannot help me. I detest this man. Living with him would mean slavery and rape. Can you help me? Can you hide me?” She began to weep quietly.

Agathe felt the girl’s desperation, but as yet no crime had been committed. Local culture sanctioned arranged marriages that often had some element of coercion to them, especially between older men and younger women. “Tell me more about him,” she asked.

“Moussa,” Fatima replied, “serves on the camp committee. He is a big man here, but carefully hides his ties to the rebels. He compels youth to leave their families to join the rebel forces in the bush.”

“Ah ha, so he is a recruiter?”

“Yes, but he also demands money, a tax from camp residents to support the war. And now he wants me.”

Agathe mulled this over. As a policewoman she had learned not to be hasty. Fatima’s story rang true and Agathe knew from painful personal experience the power that men held in the camps. No one – policeman or woman, soldier, peace keeper or responsible adult - had been there to help her when she was savagely raped over several days by a genocidaire gang inside the refugee camp in Zaire. Rather than defeat her, that incident convinced her to be strong and ultimately to join the police. Perhaps this was her test. She concluded this abduction won’t happen in this camp on this day.

“We need a plan,” Agathe told Fatima. She asked for the location of her mother’s compound and the whereabouts of her uncle’s. They conspired. “Okay, then,” Agathe concluded, “we’ll be ready, do your part.” Agathe hurried away.

Darkness fell like clockwork. Several hours later a feeble moon shown down through the lingering haze casting a muted light on the sleeping camp. Movement and cries arose from Fatima’s compound arousing the neighbors. Shortly Moussa dragged the protesting girl through the fence into the pathway.

“Halt,” a voice rang out and four lights blazed into startled faces. “Police. Let the child go.”

Moussa explained that it was a family matter, an arranged marriage in fact. He insisted on his status as a member of the camp committee. When interview by Agathe’s police superiors, Fatima said she was being taken, she thought, as an unwilling recruit for rebel forces. She told of Moussa’s role in seizing other youths, said she was only seventeen and wanted to stay with her mother.

“Moussa,” the policeman concluded, “we’ve long had an eye out for you. You know recruiting is not allowed. The punishment for it is expulsion from the camp. You will go with us now and tomorrow will be conveyed to Sudan, never to return to this camp under threat of prison.”

Still sputtering his importance, Moussa was led away.

Agathe exchanged a knowing nod with Fatima, then followed her leader into the dark.

Golf in Africa

Following is a piece that I wrote about my golfing experiences in Africa that was published in the April 2007 edition of the Foreign Service Journal.

Best and Worst Golf Courses

One valid subjective measure for rating an overseas post is the quality of the golf experience. In that spirit, I offer the following observations.

On becoming the consul in Mombasa, Kenya, I rented a house that backed up to the Nyali Club golf course. It was finally time for me to learn the game and become inculcated into the arcana of golf rules and, especially the formality of a British-origin club. I joined and, depending upon the season, played upon lush green fairways or hard-packed clay over fossilized coral rock. I regularly jumped my back fence for a few practice holes in the early evening. Baby monkeys carted off balls, doum palms ate them and the rough hid puff adders. Most refreshing during competitions was a cold fresh lime drink under the palm trees between nines.

The course in the middle of Kampala was full of ardent players. Thought modest, the prizes - a bicycle, a set of kitchen utensils or a bottle of scotch – were items beyond the reach of many players. Despite the fact that few players were British, an English sense of decorum prevailed. One did not fail to doff his hat upon entering the bar. Most entertaining were rule-committee arguments and rulings conducted in an open fashion over beers on the terrace. Real tension rose once a year in the regional competition organized on tribal lines; we foreigners were allocated any region where more players were needed. In keeping with Uganda’s strife plagued politics, the contest was war by other means. However, it all ended amicably in a huge drunk.

The course in Bangui became one of my favorites. It was not much of a course, with poorly mown fairways and oiled-sand greens, but it had very cold beer. As it happened either Political officer Stacy Kazacos, the only Central African Republic member Martin Yando, or I won every competition for about a year. This infuriated the largely French membership. My triumph was to capture the CAR national championship in 1995. Unfortunately, that was the last year it was played: the golf course succumbed to the ravages of civil strife, and has not reopened.

Kigali has a winding nine-hole course that crosses and recrosses an infernal stream. A challenging course, its fairways are narrow and grass greens unpredictable. The club had a mixed membership of Rwandans (mostly army officers who learned the game in Uganda) and international personnel. I tried to interest now-President Kagame in golf, but he preferred tennis (he rarely lost). Once a year we decorated the club house with left over July 4 bunting and played for the “American Cup.” We cooked hotdogs. I gave away putters, bags, balls to the winners.

Other memorable African courses that I know include Firestone East, located on a vast rubber plantation in Liberia. The main challenge was getting to and from the course, 40 miles from the capital. Players had to run a gauntlet of roadblocks manned by former dictator Charles Taylor’s goons and child soldiers.

The midtown course in Kinshasa is low lying with lots of water hazards. One rarely lost a ball, however, on account of the ever-present “crocodiles” – men who waited patiently by each pond, waded in and retrieved your ball for a small sum. In contrast the course in N’Djamena, Chad, had little vegetation but lots of sand. We carried around a swath of outdoor carpet to hit from into inconsistent oiled browns. Heat was the issue in Chad. It was already 95 degrees when we started at 9 a.m. and often 120 by the finish.

Djibouti’s course resembles Chad’s: sand and rock decorated by remnants of plastic trash bags. Heat and humidity, each about a 100, necessitated a dawn start. I would roust a caddy off his sleeping mat – they slept on the club veranda – and head out. One morning with a tail wind and good bounces, I had a legitimate sub-par round. The golf gods were telling me that even in Djibouti, they smile down on lunatics. A year later, my crowning achievement came on the course in Bujumbura. I aced hole number 12, a 180-yard, uphill par 3…bounce, bounce, in!

So which is the best or the worst? I can’t say. I liked them all. I needed them all! For without a golf course, any post is the pits.