Road hazards

Office closure

Just received notice that we are to close our office immediately.  A member of the regional intelligence service will be coming shortly to escort all of us out of the building. It appears to be a matter of confusion about our authority to operate in Senegal and nothing related to the nature of our work.  But the notice comes at an untimely moment when the area is experiencing unprecedented violence.

More information to follow.

Bad news travels slowly

Suspected rebels 'kill five Senegalese troops'

(AFP) – 4 hours ago

ZIGUINCHOR, Senegal — Suspected separatist rebels on Monday killed five soldiers during clashes in southern Senegal's troubled Casamance region, the army's public relations wing said.

This is the heaviest toll suffered by Senegalese troops since six soldiers were killed in October 2009 by suspected rebels waging one of Africa's longest running insurgencies in a bid for independence.

"There were indeed losses. Five soldiers died following clashes this morning" in the Bignona area, near the border with Gambia, an official at the military's public relations department told AFP.

A military source in Ziguinchor, Casamance's main city, said the deaths took place in the village of Boutalate, 35 kilometres (22 miles) from Ziguinchor. Soldiers were "ambushed by elements of the MFDC (Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance)," while carrying out an operation, the source told AFP.

Things seemed to be getting better and then this...

Troops wounded in Senegal's troubled south

(AFP) – 2 hours ago

DAKAR — Clashes between the army and suspected separatist rebels left two Senegalese soldiers wounded in the restive Casamance region, military sources said on Monday.

"The army's operation to secure the population came under fire from assailants, leaving two wounded in the ranks of the military" on Sunday, a security source told AFP in Ziguinchor, the main city in the Casamance.

The Senegalese army communications department, Dirpa, announced on Sunday that one of its troops had been shot in the hand after several clashes with rebels near the Gambian border.

Dirpa told AFP the rebel Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC) had been planning to carry out hijackings but were interrupted by the army who caused "heavy losses", saying many separatists had been injured but without giving a number.

Security forces fear the MFDC is preparing to step up its operations in the coming days as it marks the anniversary of the outbreak of the separatist rebellion in December 1982.

Casamance, which is cut off from northern Senegal by the Gambia, has been caught in a separatist rebellion since 1982, and sporadic outbreaks of violence persist despite a peace accord signed in 2004.

A rich agricultural region with lush forests and white stretches of beach, development has been stunted in the Casamance as a result of the unrest.

Dangerous paths and Narrow escapes

Last week entailed a lot of travel to the field including an area in dispute among three different armed factions of the MFDC.  The precarious dominion over this area has translated to the lack of discipline among the men operating in this zone.  Highway robberies are commonplace.  This, despite the fact that there are military sentries along literally every kilometer of road (every half mile or so).  I promise to post films to give you an an idea of the open fields and heavily forested patches you can find while traveling between villages.

We returned Friday evening from a long trip to two communities whose rural populations live with the tensions between the competing factions everyday.  They were a good series of meetings.  After an initial chilling reception, the debate heated up quickly and everyone seemed interested in being heard.  Neighborhoods and villages have been organizing themselves in the past two years to form neighborhood associations with the capacity to pressure the local authorities for action in addressing anything from development to education.  We are seeking to add a "road map to peace" to that list.  These communities are rarely ever consulted on the issues concerning the conflict; however, they clearly offer a unique perspective on how issues have been dealt with in the past at the local level to keep life bearable and they may have ideas - with the clandestine contribution of local rebels - of how these may be reflected on a regional and national scale when negotiations take place. The trip to the area was uneventful.  Aside from very greasy rice, I experienced no other assault on my person during that visit.   

The persons traveling along that same stretch of road the next morning were not so lucky. 

One of my colleagues reported that highway bandits appeared on the road out of nowhere and managed to hijack a large fuel container truck and a small station wagon full of passengers.  Highway robberies will increase as we get closer to Christmas, as people return to their villages with money and gifts.  The truck driver was taken hostage temporarily but everyone was allowed to leave the scene unharmed but without their belongings.  Not two hours after the incident ended, the Senegalese army intervened.  A heavy exchange of light and support weapons could be seen and heard if you, like my colleague, were in one of the many vehicles waiting at the roadblocks that the military had established to keep civilians out of the theater of operations.

I am thankful that everyone in that group of vehicles kept their heads and allowed the bandits to take what they came for and leave.  Lives are still valued here.  In conflicts past and present in parts of West and Central Africa, I would not be able to make such a claim.

As we round the corner of our first phase of activities and rev up for to a very busy January, I look forward to seeing how Christmas is celebrated in this largely Catholic region of Senegal.  I also pray for mercy and compassion among those who are thinking about spending it wielding weapons of war.

Rolling through town on a Friday morning

Will we stay or will we go?

Some of you have already seen the news.  My organization has suffered a heavy blow that is threatening its operations all around the globe.  Every morning I wake up praying that some resolution has been found so that this sword of Damoclees does not hang perpetually over our heads.

I have been here before.  In 2004, I had made significant in-roads with one rebel leader (currently awaiting trial as a war criminal in The Hague) in a remote village in the district of Ituri.  It was my third visit to his hideaway and he had allowed us to develop plans that opened paths for the sick and wounded to seek assistance in a hospital located across enemy lines and return.  Before that decision, most had not been allowed to go at all or if they had been able to get to the hospital they would not be allowed to return because they may be spies for the enemy.  I remember distinctly the early morning call that came over the satellite phone.  "The funding has been withdrawn.  Return to base.  Cancel all commitments."  Easier said than done.  People had put their lives and reputations on the line to get us as close as they did.  Now, I had to turn my back on them and wish them luck.  Fortunately the little guy (as I used to refer to him) did not take revenge on our intermediaries.  But I will never know what kinds of tribute they had to pay to buy back his trust.

When we received notice yesterday that our organization had been accused of massive fraud and was under investigation.  Immediately thereafter, the rumors began flying.  Reports of hundreds of millions of dollars at stake.  That the organization will go bankrupt.  That all its offices will close.  It is a lot to absorb and process, especially when I am still developing the contents of our strategy here.  The fact that this incident is being covered by the U.S. press tells me that it is far more serious than we are being led to believe.

We have also received assurances that the project is on solid footing and to continue working as if nothing has changed.  So, we do as we are told.  I have too many dishes spinning on too many poles to stop and wait for an answer.  Our donor meets with the senior staff later this morning and will have a final answer for us then.  We are a fairly new project, so it is also understandable that we may be first on the chopping block if anyone is going to be asked to stop activities.  We have spent the least and have invested the least.  The donor could recover with a new organization that has an unblemished - or at least a less blemished - record. 

But Focusing on the "what ifs" just saps my energy, so I will not update this blog on that front until I hear something concrete one way or another.


Thanks to all for your prayers and encouragement.

Housing and Security

I am slowly moving into my 4th week in Ziguinchor and nearing the end of the point where my employer is able to support my residence in a hotel. I came across a colossal house on the edge of the river with a magnificent roof top terrace that is about the size of my entire house in South Bend.  The ultimate venue for an outside salsa party.  I was very very tempted to take it, when two things emerged.  

Almadie house in Dakar

The first was the rent.  It is about 1,200 dollars a month. Not a whole lot when you compare to prices in the Almadie neighborhood of the capital, Dakar, where a three bedroom house can go for as much as 3,000 dollars a month.  But it is miles above any rent here in Casamance.  Most of my staff pay only 30 or 40 dollars a month for a three or four bedroom house - more if the house has ceramic walls and floors - a real good idea for this climate where moisture gets trapped and turns your house into a haven for mold.  I looked a few apartments for 120 dollars that were more than large enough to suit my needs, but the problem is finding an apartment that is available for long-term rent.  Most are looking for temporary arrangements as tourists move through town looking for alternatives to the hotels.

Image and peace work

 

The other dilemma with the house is that it sends the wrong image.  It screams "here in this giant house abides the rich American spending his way into a peace agreement."  The subtle more humble approach that we have adopted clashes with the lifestyle that this house displays.  So, I am off again in search of alternative digs.  I will try to convince one of the apartment owners to give me a chance ti be  long term renter if I pay a supplement.  The one apartment that really peaked my interest is attached to a house where a mixed Senegalese couple live with their infant child.  He is an artist and she is a humanitarian worker.  They both seem very nice and it is located in a very family-oriented part of town.  It is poor but calm and social with kids in abundance playing in the streets, women doing one another's hair, and just a good vibe overall.

The three main components for remaining safe in a conflict environment are acceptance, deterrence and protection.

Acceptance is by far the cheapest and easiest to develop early on.  It is finding a way to communicate the work that you are doing in a way to get the acceptance of the community and the principle actors in the region.  Sometimes it is just a matter of sitting down with a community and hearing what their concerns are and then saying that you have heard them and will be respectful of their views.  Other times it means hiring staff from the local community or perhaps even placing a number of local youth, women, and elders on the board that evaluates the decision-making process in the development of projects in the area.  Living in a house in that community sends a particular message about my approachability and offers a chance for me to have easy access to community concerns.  If someone should intend me any harm, acceptance offers little defense except the support of the community that may speak on my behalf.  In places like Darfur, we used acceptance as much as possible but had to rely on deterrence to great degree as well.

One major form of deterrence is decreased accessibility. It means getting a ride to work with the company vehicle and changing itineraries on a regular basis.  It also means living in a house that has walls high and reinforced enough to make an aggressor think twice before attempting to breach it.  It means having an unarmed watchman in front of the house day and night. And it means having a well lit compound for obvious reasons. It also means traveling in unarmed convoys with other NGOs who are traveling along the same path with a similar or same itinerary.  Thankfully, conditions in Casamance are such that deterrence has not proven unnecessary measure, thus far. I pray that it never will. One thing to remember with deterrence is that it reduces the risks, but not the threats, by reducing vulnerability.  The threats remain the same

Protection is the measure of last resort.  Very few NGOs are willing to operate in any environment where protection is a requirement for their presence in the area.  It requires deterrence in the form of armed guards, armed convoys, and more rigid requirements for movement and lodging.  These conditions night apply to NGOs operating in places like Iraq, Somalia, or Afghanistan.  It is costly both in terms of actual dollars and also to the integrity of the program.  The success of a program relies, in part, on building a level of trust between you and your target community.  If you come with an armed escort, live in guarded compounds, and remain totally inaccessible outside working hours, you place yourself outside the reality of your target community.  They do not have access to such protection.  There is not real sense of communion.  Why should they take the risk when you do not.  Protection is by all means a necessary evil in areas where food and medicine are inaccessible and must be delivered by any means possible.  But no one has any illusions that a protection security model is conducive to peace work at the community level or even at the track II level (civil society).  Protection reduce the risks by containing the threat with a counter-threat.  Peaee dialogue and threats of violence are mutually exclusive in my mind. 

NGO convoy

Not too long after I started writing this blog, I got a call from my staff that they were on the road returning to town from their field mission.  It has been slow going.  But we have been putting in place protocols for keeping in regular contact and establishing standards of procedure to stay informed, make smart decisions in the face of armed confrontation, and above all preserve life.  The caller indicated that he was on the road with a military convoy.   

A What?

It went against everything we have discussed thus far about neutrality, acceptance, and image.  Apparently another group of foreign NGOs had formed a convoy and invited our group to join accompanied by armored military vehicles.  It is possible that the escort was necessary for reasons my group decided not to mention.  Those reasons notwithstanding, I advised that they politely excuse themselves to address other unfinished work in town.  It only takes one misstep to tarnish the image of a group like ours. Monday morning promises to be very interesting. 

Stand at the Regional Social Forum

While my team was out and about, I was attending the test run of the upcoming World Social Forum scheduled for February 2011 in Dakar.  During its tenth anniversary, the World Social Forum is going to try a new format. In 2010, social movements and civil organizations are going to organize all over the world their own forums in order to debate alternatives to the civilization crisis that ravages the human kind.  Not sure if South Bend is on board to prepare their own but seems like a worthy cause to me.  Getting all that positive energy going in the same direction at the same time can't be a bad thing.  My group sponsored the trial run here with participation of groups from Guinea Bissau and Gambia as well as from various parts of Senegal.  The meetings had a lot of logistical obstacles to overcome before the forum actually got underway - about 3 hours later than planned.  But once we were in the flow even the frequent power outages did not deter the group from holding the first forum of its kind in Senegal.  The speeches were varied and ranged from frustrations over the lack of alternatives to violence, to talks of increased roles for women in the peace process, and the dissolving of border imposed by former colonial masters.  The entire event took place outside instead of air-conditioned conference rooms as is the norm here with such an intellectual crowd.

Taxi station

After my share of ant, fly, and spider bites each day I retired to the office to check emails and update whatever files were needed in Dakar.  The office 4x4 vehicle is on the road,with the team, so it has been taxis to and fro.  Taxis here are a story of their own.  Rickety, doors barely hanging on. dashboards decorated with Mother Mary statues, Sponge Bob Square Pants, and even pictures of favorite football players.  Never a dull ride. They do have seat belts but hard to imagine the car resisting a crash.  We never actually move more than 5 miles an hour because of the deep crater-like pot holes that are sprinkled throughout town.  Sounds irresponsible to even get into one of these vehicles but it is part of the social and physical reality.  Everyone else is doing it.  That'a good reason, right?

A long weekend ahead.  A text message just came in on my cell phone.  My group arrived safe sound. Tine to work on that Power Point for Thursday's meeting, look for a house, maybe skip lunch today and grab a snack as an excuse to talk with the ladies selling peanuts in the market. They always seem to have the latest news and unique insight on the situation as it evolves in this area.

Peace to my friends and family.