The Impossibility of Getting it Right

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful concerned individuals can precipitate change in the world ... indeed, it is the only thing that ever has" Margaret Mead

With his usual regularity Rafael Marques, an Angolan, sent me a copy of his paper “Angola: The New Blood Diamonds.” It is a paper based on a Public Seminar at the School of Oriental and African Studies – SOAS University of London - Economics and Development Studies.
This is really a continuation of his ongoing investigations and reporting on diamond mining in Cuango in Angola that can be found in more detail at www.cuango.net, www.africafiles.org/article.asp?ID=12804 and www.africafiles.org/article.asp?ID=13414
He recounts how diamond mining in these areas is simply an “unchecked feeding centre for generals, members of the ruling class and, in particular, foreign interests whose provisions of services cannot be rewarded and paid via more conventional and transparent means.”
“One of the consequences of the collapse of State authority, in the area, is that the threat to national sovereignty stems from the privatization of the State itself.”
“People are, once again, left out in the cold. The government is concerned with the legislation and other political mechanisms to ensure the growth of the diamond sector, but has said nothing regarding the respect for human rights. It simply does not care.”
Rafael continues to investigate and explain his courageous witness for the human rights of his fellow Angolans, but also finds the time to regularly send me messages of support in my own struggle, investigating and reporting on the appropriateness and efficiency of development aid and humanitarian assistance concentrating very much, but not exclusively, on corruption within the United Nations.
I still remember my first encounter, very brief, with Rafael. I also vividly remember a Sunday afternoon spent on the beach, discussing Angolan literature. He had his family, his wife and young son, with him that day, and it made me feel a bit sad since my circumstances were such that I was separated from my own family and my own young daughter.
Our last meeting happened in the early hours of the morning, in a vibrant and noisy pub in Luanda, a chance encounter, a brief hug and a short conversation before he left leaving me with a persistent sense of unease as to what would happen to him. For a while we were each drawn into our own concerns and our own struggles for survival and lost contact. The only obvious overlap in our respective interests occurred when he made a very brief statement on RTP, the Portuguese Television station, that people who work for the United Nations only come to Angola to have a good time.
My concerns are based on my experience, also in Angola, with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and which I eventually recount in a book[1], whose back cover summarizes it so:
“War in Angola lasted intermittently for more than forty years. After a failed attempt at peace from 1994 to 1998 a full scale conventional war broke out again at the end of 1998. This marked the end of a United Nations attempt, lasting more than twelve years, to make peace in this country. It was one of the first big UN missions after the Cold War and turned into a spectacular and expensive failure. Throughout this last "War for Peace" from 1998-2002 the author lived and worked in Huambo, at the epi-centre of the war, implementing a United Nations project. This project, poorly planned initially, was restructured locally and achieved considerable successes before finally succumbing to UN incompetence that saw two thirds of its funding disappear and degenerated into a web of lies, excuses and accusations as the UN refused to provide an explanation to donors, the Angolan government and people, project staff and the press of what went wrong and why.”
In this book I state that I do not fully agree with the above statement by Rafael. People in the UN also come to Angola to make money; lots of it.
It is something that occupied me for a number of years, and from which there are still elements in which I am seeking closure. I was the subject of threats and intimidation by UN officials, yet throughout this saga I received substantial support, in a great many ways, from many Angolans, especially senior civil servants who spoke to me, gave me access to documents and wrote many letters on my behalf to the United Nations.
In his report Rafael Marques starts of on a disturbing note:
“First of all, I would like to share with you a dilemma that has been of great concern to me. Recently, an influential member of the Angolan ruling class gave me a message: that the regime hates me for speaking ill of it abroad.”
He continues:
“In the meantime, on October 16 2006, the Angolan government, through its embassy in Washington, sent a letter to the Northcote Parkinson Fund, which awarded me the 2006 Civil Courage Prize, demanding transparency. It denounced me as a nobody. I should add, they did, however, acknowledge my status as an Angolan citizen.”
In order to make a point here, I need to set aside, only for a moment, the deep-seated misgivings that I have regarding the tendency to call somebody – anybody - a nobody.
The point that I would like to make is this; by default nobody can be such as thing if a national government, especially the government of a struggling but emerging regional superpower, has to take the time and make the effort to pronounce that this is so.
A copy that I receive of this report from www.africafiles.org makes the request that “We need to be ready to defend (Rafael Marques) at any time as we are able.”
This leaves me with an awful dilemma. It is the very same people that had always been so nice to me that now also threaten one of their own citizens. How do I provide the support that this brave and courageous person deserves, not only to reciprocate the support that he always offers me, but also in possible specific circumstances, when it may be required or requested - and especially when it is not requested - without compromising the good and fruitful relations that I had built up with many Angolans of authority over many years and on whom I may have to rely again in the future?
“All Angolans are good people.” I am told by Rosa Gaspar, a dynamic and outspoken woman who lives in a small village in the northern part of the Angolan province of Malanje. Having spent a large part of my adult life in Angola I am inclined to agree with her.
“Not even the government is bad,” she continues, “no Angolan do bad things because they are bad people, they are not corrupt or greedy or violent by nature, only when they are forced to be so. Sometimes they just don’t know.”
Rosa Gaspar had survived many waves of displacement, long separations from her five children, all younger than fifteen, and had left for dead or buried another three children. Her husband, a stocky, muscular and stoic man, had spent many years “hiding in the bush,” the current euphemism for having fought with UNITA, the rebel movement that had waged war, with only brief intervals, from 1975-2002.
She is not the only person that says these sorts of things.
Her experiences are also not unique. Many senior Angolan officials have suffered through similar things.
“The UN hates all Angolans.” She also tells me emphatically. She is also not the only person who says these sorts of things. On 29 November 2006, the BBC transmitted a report on Haiti that included a young girl saying: “The UN hates Haitians,” as part of recounting the abuse that she had suffered at the hands of UN peacekeepers. In spite of this she is one of the lucky ones. The vast majority of abuse meted out to people in the third world by UN officials at all levels (and to some extent by NGO’s) go unreported and unresolved even in the very few instances when they are reported.
Over a period of a few months I had had many conversations with Rosa Gaspar and we had built up a close bond, and I was determined to demonstrate to her that this is not so, although I was there not under the auspices of the UN, but of the Danish Refugee Council.
Unfortunately the Country Director of this Danish Refugee Council, an ex-domestic servant from Sweden, called Yvonne Cappi, soon discovers where my sympathies lie, and I soon find myself treated with the same abuse and disregard she had up to this point reserved for the local people.
“We never trust the local people, that is how humanitarian assistance works!” I hear her shout only shortly after my arrival.
“Is that not so, Mr. Kukkuk?” She tries to solicit my support, the only other foreigner in the room.
A staff member politely and tentatively suggests how something can be improved and made more appropriate. It is a simple matter, yet one that the organisation had gotten consistently wrong for three years.
“When the ship has a captain, the sailor has no say.” This staff member is told, before being dramatically and arbitrarily demoted and sacrificing by far the largest part of her salary.
Exasperated by this and much more I solicit the support of the Desk Officer, Anders Engberg, based in Denmark.
Upon his arrival I point to the large number of documented complaints that had built up over the years, complaints that this same person had in fact ignored in the past, and how they are mostly framed in the language of racism. From past experience I know that concerns framed like this are often dismissed and glossed over.
“It is not really a question of racism, but rather of a complete disregard for human beings.” I say by way of starting my argument.
“(Yvonne Cappi) does not have any regard for human beings, I agree with you, but over and above that she is also a racist.” I am told.
That is the last thing that we agree on before I myself become the subject of accusations.
“I cannot be expected to do that.” I say in my defence, “to do that would require me to break the law.”
“We don’t care. We have our rules and you shall do what you are ordered to do.” I am told.
It is not the validity of the law that is in question – it is not that kind of law - simply the requirement of me having to comply with it.
Several times I point out that demands made upon me would require me to misrepresent what the organisation is doing or to break the law or both. Each time I receive the same response.
Anders Engberg’s priorities are purely and exclusively devoted to receiving money from the donors so that he can then receive his salary.
In a last attempt to divert attention from an unprovoked attack on me and return to the relevant issues I claim that staff at the organisation had been abused to the point where many of them have no personalities left.
“I have spoken to her many times about that, she is not going to change.” I am told.
Another expatriate, recruited on a short-term contract to resolve the serious problems on one project, where most of the donor funds had been wasted by the serial recruitment and subsequent dismissal of staff, without ever doing what it was designed to do, in exasperation at not being able to do anything himself writes:
“I’m sorry to say that if it wasn’t for the (Danish Refugee Council) stickers on the cars & buildings; I can easily at times mistake this organisation with some mismanaged private run family-business from the colonial times.”
Over the following weeks as I then realise the need to get away from this spurious organisation and trying to figure out what the least confrontational and damaging way would be to do this, I am contacted again.
Receiving an apology for being ignored for so long, I am then told, on 4 December, that if I leave immediately it may still be possible for me to arrange an alternative income for myself for the month of December.
“I have an income for December, I do not need to go and look for one.” I respond and then become the focus of a vicious and vindictive campaign to get rid of me without providing any justification or compensation.
Documents that allow me to remain and work in Angola, and which is in the possession of the organisation, disappear mysteriously.
I receive a signed notice: “We remind you that you shall observe secrecy with regard to any situation and any information that you have become aware of in the course of your employment and which, due to the nature of the issue, must be considered confidential.”
I am required to agree to this by signing the document.
Yet again I can rely on the support of a number of Angolans, ordinary citizens and civil servants alike. A young woman from the office of the deputy prime-minister, Aguinaldo Jaime, rushes about tirelessly on my behalf. I am summoned to the office of another civil servant.
“We value your contribution to Angolans and are available for any assistance you may require.” He tells me.
Every day, sometimes twice a day, he phones, inquiring after my welfare and if there is anything that I need from him.
Even the notorious Immigration Department do all they can for me by bending their inflexible laws and regulations to breaking point.
Fortunately the campaign against me proves to be as amateurish and inept as the projects of this organisation and I am soon, with generous compensation, and without having to have signed myself to any secrecy, able to pursue my own interests.
During the following months I would many times question whether I should not have followed up on the abuses that I had witnessed, and the waste of public money, with more vigour. Sometimes I felt that more could be achieved by challenging the system as a whole and encouraging it to change rather than concentrating on specific instances.
The option and opportunity to resolve the issues through constructive dialogue was not left open to me. It is not left open to anybody.
The correct course of action, of course, is to always do a little bit of both. Point to specifics and then link that to weaknesses in the system. Many times serious issues cannot be resolved because people concentrate on things and events rather than the links between them.
What took me a long time to realise was that I was dealing with people who are desperate to be seen as the good guys. I have no problem with this; it is the absolutism of this pursuit that is of such concern. There is also an attitude based on the notion that we intend to do good, therefore everything that we do must be good. The problem with this notion once again lies within the fact that it is not based on any notion of self criticism and, more disturbingly, is not tempered in the slightest by any outside pressure or processes that can define, quantify and evaluate the extent and nature of this so-called good.
Stumbling out of a confrontation with the United Nations and into another with an international humanitarian organisation made me realise, for the first time, what the core of the problem is. Following, with intense interest, the work of Rafael Marques to protect the rights of his countrymen drives the issues further towards the core of things.
We – like everybody else – are the most important people around. It is an important principle, can only be important, even vital, if it applies, and apply equally to all of us. It is important to realise that people are more important than their institutions, people are always people, institutions are only valid for as long as it realises this.
The problem is also that people are people that can often do things that are stupid, or bad and even evil. People can do this for many reasons, sometimes because they had not been told the whole story; sometimes because they had taken hold of some idea or set of ideas that has given them the excuse to regard other people as expendable, or bad or even evil.
It is not always possible to know that you are right and they are wrong. The important thing is to keep on trying to find out. It is truth that matters – not the sort of truth that is simply an image of ourselves; thinking the way we think, doing the way we do, turning policies into megalomania and reasoned certainties into dogma.
The first step in being wrong is not allowing the free exchange of ideas, attempting to turn of the lights of knowledge and to demand that our particular certainties are the only possible certainties.
The only way to react when seeing something wrong is to shine a spotlight on it, and to point it out to others.
When dealing with people and institutions that are generally more good than they are bad this frequently has the desired, positive, effect. It is when dealing with people and institutions that are generally more bad than they are good that one could quite easily find oneself in trouble, the target of all sorts of threats, insults and insinuation.
I am certainly not, and I think I can confidently say that neither is Rafael Marques, against anything or anybody. We are both for democracy and justice. We are for it, not only for ourselves - which would make it meaningless - but for everybody. We both make that clear in almost everything that we write and say. There should not be any confusion about this.
In our respective quests we do not claim to speak on behalf of anybody or for the people. We speak on behalf of ourselves and what we believe is right.
It is those that are the main subjects of our concern that make these claims, and this claim is in itself a matter of concern.
This claim – the claim to speak for the people – is implicit even in the names of the major players in Angola; The MPLA, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola and UNITA, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, ostensibly the major opposition party, in reality simply the flipside of the same coin.
The United Nations and International Humanitarian and Development Organisations habitually clothe everything they say in their concern for and representation of the poor, the vulnerable, the excluded and the incapable.
The only way that I can put this in context is to recount here an anecdote that I am very fond of:
In the early nineteen-nineties, as South Africa was embarking on the difficult process to democracy, a politician published a report that stated that 66% of the population of one of the provinces, the Free State, are absolutely opposed to these changes. In a television interview he confidently defended this report: it was done by a very reputable company, the very same one that the government uses in fact; a very large sample was taken, ten times larger than required to be representative of the entire population; only one unambiguous question was asked “Are you in favour of the current changes or not?” There was no doubt whatsoever in his mind; two-thirds of all people, by common consent a very large majority, did not want South Africa to change. He insisted that this needed to be taken seriously.
“What percentage of the people surveyed were black?” He was then asked.
This politician looked surprised for a moment at this strange question, then confused, even offended.
“None.” He said, stating the obvious.
In the subsequent elections the ANC, the party that had fought for democracy, won in that province with a 76% majority. The truth of the matter is that there are not all that many white people in South Africa. The fact that they were in charge for such a long time did not make them the people.
Not once, in spite of their protests over many decades - more than a century - did this politician even think of considering that a black person may have a voice and that perhaps it should be listened to.
There is a tendency, and it exists in all countries, democratic or otherwise, for those in power to simply exclude their critics from their definition of the people.
As criticism mounts this tendency continues until all these politicians really represent are themselves and that all that is left is a pretence, a pretence to represent the people and a pretence that everything that they do is for the people. As this pretence becomes more glaringly obvious so too does the demand that everybody must participate in this pretence and this demand becomes increasingly vicious and violent.
Communists were quite good at it. Capitalists are proving to be equally adept at it.
The purpose of Communism is to protect communism. The purpose of Capitalism is to protect capitalism. The purpose of power and influence is to get it, then to keep it at all costs.
Every single one of us, Rafael Marques and I included – and perhaps especially the two of us – should be aware of listening only to our own voices and pretending that we are listening to others.
Rafael Marques does not pretend to speak for anybody but himself, he is a nobody, even, it seems, by his own admission, and I happen to agree that he is a nobody.
Why then does he attract such a violent reaction from the Angolan Government?
This is a question that I had thought of every since I first heard of him and the first time that the Angolan authorities took excessive measures against him.
The answer is in fact frightfully simple and obvious.
He is one of them.
Rafael Marques worked for a long time as a journalist on the National paper, Jornal de Angola.
Instead of showing the appropriate gratitude for having received this influential position and enjoying the prestige and financial rewards that this would bring he decided to start questioning the very system that offered him so much.
In following his conscience, he reminded every single other Angolan in a position of authority and privilege that some day they too may have to examine their own consciences and make difficult decisions.
It is not an easy decision to make, I know, I have made it a few times myself, not very many people do, and very, very few understand why people would want to do it.
I have my own experience in trying to explain this through a long discussion with James Lee, the UNDP Ombudsman, and in my opinion a somewhat weak and cowardly man, whose only self-esteem seem to come from his employment within the UN system.
“Why are you doing this?” He asks me over and over again.
“Surely it cannot be for altruistic reasons?”
I explain to him my need to find justice, even, if all else fails, a sort of narrative justice, an acknowledgement that things had gone wrong and need to be fixed. He seems to like this explanation yet still seem unsatisfied.
“If you are doing this for money UNDP will not talk to you.” He ventures.
He then tries to threaten me. He warns that severe measures can be taken against me. What he is especially concerned about is an article that had appeared in a newspaper under the headline “UNDP is at Fault.”
“All those Dollar signs!” He exclaims.
I was not responsible for the layout of this article. In fact all I had done was to provide the information upon which the journalist had drawn his own conclusions. The journalist even concludes that he had tried to contact UNDP to verify the facts but was ignored.
James Lee does not show any dismay at these people; his mirth is directed purely at me. This may perhaps be because they are not available but more probably because, in his mind, I am supposed to be one of them. He simply cannot understand why I refuse to be.
When I dismiss his threats out of hand he comes to the only conclusion that he is capable of: That I am simply looking for a nice UN job. He seems satisfied with this, and although making promises to the contrary, he never again gets in contact with me.
I am sure that Rafael can recount similar experiences and similar difficulties to be understood.
I myself had done some very stupid things in my life, things that had put me in excruciatingly embarrassing positions. I myself am the beneficiary of terrible wrongs; I am, after all, a white South African. It would be stupid of me to try and deny this, and give long justifications or to try and confuse the issue by piling all sorts of irrelevant and unrelated arguments over the obvious facts.
I could easily have been part of the problem; my life would certainly have been easier. It is my choice not to be. It is a choice that has to be made constantly.
I see many similarities between myself and Rafael Marques, although he, in my opinion, is already speaking quite eloquently, whilst I am still trying to find my voice.
We are both people that make as much noise as we can, we say things that people would rather not hear; we name names and embarrass individuals. We both proudly and unrepentantly attach our names to all we say, write and do. We both struggle with the fact that by and large we only manage to preach to the converted and that many of the names that we mention are only because those are the names that crop up in our investigations and that these individuals may also have many redeeming features. We both know that there are real evil bastards out there who need to be exposed but who never sign documents or make public statements. We are both confronted with a great many complexities, a huge amount of information that need to be digested, the knowledge that terrible crimes may lurk not in the documents, laws and public statements but in the cracks between them, and that this need to be presented concisely and coherently in such a way that the deaf can hear and the blind can see. Both our approaches are mostly journalistic in nature. We do not claim to be able to solve the problems. We are simply pointing to the problems and making an appeal to those that are qualified and responsible to do so find these solutions. There are people that are qualified and responsible to do this, or, at least, there should be.
In our own respective spheres we are practically alone in our campaigns.
There are also many differences between us.
Rafael Marques does not struggle with legitimacy.
There is no process that can make him become unborn in Angola. There is no doubt whatsoever about the existence of an Angolan identity and nationalism. Angolans have fought many wars over many generations to define and protect that identity. It is supported by a very rich culture, literature and music. There is an internationally recognised system of governance in place. The institutions to support this governance, the Presidency, ministers, governors and administrators are all legitimised by Angolan laws, according to international standards, and are all filled by Angolans.
A great many Angolans, nobodies, each and every one of them, contribute to many aspects of this governance: Civil servants who arrive at work every day on time and do the best job they can; police stations manned by nobodies who diligently serve the people with the little resources at their disposal, large numbers of young Angolans, men as well as women, joined the military, and a great many of them died to protect their identity.
Granted, many aspects of the Angolan identity still need to be defined, only Angolans can do this, and, amongst other things, they are still in the process of determining who exactly has the right to govern them, how this governance will function and what the exact responsibilities and roles of Angolan institutions could be and should be. Most of all, Angolans want to know how officials in high office are using the power of their office to benefit all Angolans.
This is of great concern to almost all Angolans, I know. It is discussed around dinner tables, in restaurants, pubs and coffee shops. It is the subject of street corner conversations. It is discussed in buses and taxis. Poorly dressed husbands and fathers discuss this whilst working in the fields. Overworked, underfed and barefoot wives and mothers discuss this whist taking their day’s pickings to the market. It is discussed in ministries and embassies abroad. The fact that it is happening quietly does not mean that it is not there.
These are all nobodies; they are nevertheless the only thing that Angola has who can create a credible notion of what it is, or should be, to be Angolan.
It is not an easy process. Many people, Angolans and foreigners alike, take advantage of many weaknesses and loopholes of the current Angolan circumstances for their own benefit.
This is normal in some ways, it happens to all countries in similar circumstances.
This threat to the Angolan identity is very serious but in spite of this there is only one Angolan making a concerted and serious public effort to highlight this threat. There are many reasons why not more Angolans have the confidence to join him in this, and only one of the reasons is because of their deep, and justified, distrust of the international institutions that have been set up to support them in this - institutions that promise to assist them in this and which Angolans expect to be available to represent their interests in instances where their own systems fail or where there are international implications and causes for their plight.
It is the legitimacy of these institutions that is of concern to me and which I am pursuing vigorously. The notion of a global democracy is still in a very embryonic state and there are still a great many loopholes and weaknesses in both the system and the institutions that had been set up to support it. Many people take advantage of these many weaknesses and loopholes for their own benefit. The system is also full of inherent contradictions.
It depends for its existence and survival on the notion of an International Community.
There is absolutely nobody, nor will there ever be anybody, that was born in the International Community.
The International Community includes everybody, but for the purpose of some arguments and certain circumstances, many individuals are routinely excluded. This is the only way to avoid intolerable, inherent contradictions and in some instances the International Community may for all practical purposes only consist of a few individuals.
Much of the formal International Community is simply a motley collection of organisations, a few individuals that had conferred upon themselves a series of mandates of their own choosing, and now function as a mutual backslapping society, giving one another high office and all the power, influence and prestige that go with it.
There are no elected officials representing the International Community, and it is very unlikely that there will ever be.
There is no, nor can there ever be any, inherent legitimacy in the International Community. The institutions set up under this umbrella can only ever depend, for their legitimacy, on the quality of the work that they do and the quality of the people that they employ to do this.
This is a legitimacy that these people had comprehensively squandered.

In my book I attempt to show up the consequences of this fraud, based largely on my experiences in Angola, but do not shy away from criticising the Angolan government either. I take great care to ensure that this criticism is appropriate, and within the rather narrow sphere that I had established for myself as legitimate and already within the public domain. In a few cases there are criticisms that I had raised directly with Angolans. In these cases they accepted this for what it is and responded to it positively. It has to be remembered though, although some Angolans may say otherwise when it suits them, that I am not one of them.
Many of those Angolan civil servants that I know and that speak English had asked for, received and read copies of my manuscript or parts thereof.
I received only one negative comment and this was that I should revise the section on Rafael Marques and remove the inclusion of his article “The Lipstick of Dictatorship.”
“I don’t like it.” Was the only justification that I received for this comment. When I mentioned that such a justification is not good enough, this person thought for a few minutes then offered that all he can think of are reasons why it should be included.
This article is eloquent, confrontational and highly indignant, much more so in the original Portuguese than in English, and it frightened me the first time I read it.
At a very general level it was a direct, frontal attack upon the deep identification with and admiration for the Southern African Liberation Movements that I had had all my life.
By implication its accusations included everybody that I dealt with in the Angolan Government as a result of my work, many of them that I liked very much and some that were, and still are, some of my closest friends.
In some very important ways it also attacked the very justification for me being in Angola and the type of work that I was doing, or wanted to do, there.
The reason that it is included in the book is that this was the first time since the brutal suppression of the Nito Alves Revolt in 1977 that any Angolan had dared to confront the Angolan system head on. To date this person is virtually the only one to do so.
To this day there are Angolan government officials, some of them in very high office, who must wake up every morning, grateful for the extreme stroke of luck that allowed them to survive the aftermath of this revolt.
Because of the nature of my book, I also happen to mention many of the same officials that are now targeted by Rafael Marques.
The deputy prime-minister, Aguinaldo Jaime, was dismissed in the early nineteen-nineties as Minister of Finance, largely as a result of his concern about burgeoning corruption and a lack of clarity regarding the expenditure of state finances.
Although I stand corrected in this, his considerable talents were then lost to Angola as he worked at the African Development Bank.
By the end of the decade he was invited back as Director of the National Bank. He accepted this position only on condition of a great deal of autonomy to set policy and push through difficult reforms. At the bank he was instrumental in stabilising the Angolan economy as well as for a substantial increase in the transparency of government transactions once the funds had reached the central bank.
Aguinaldo Jaime is a highly qualified, extremely intelligent and by all accounts a very decent man, and many Angolans, with their implicit - not always justified - faith in their leadership expect much from him in his position as deputy prime-minister.
There are many moments in the history of Angola when the country had been saved from calamities even greater than that which besets it now. In almost every instance Kundy Paihama, the Minister of Defence, was in some capacity or another, instrumental in that rescue. He is held in very high regard by a great number of Angolans on all sides of the various political and social divides. Kundy Paihama is himself a member of a group of people who are trying to maintain a distinct identity in the face of tremendous odds. He is one of very few senior Angolan officials to speak several African languages and to do so proudly. Many times that I had seen him with ordinary people he seemed much happier and at ease than when he is surrounded by important men dressed in impeccable suits. I believe him when he says “We are also human.”
Both these men are influential and powerful politicians who deserve to hold high office. If they had not been born as Angolans they would have been powerful men in other countries.
Both these men have the capacity and opportunity to do many positive things at a difficult time in their history, yet not nearly as difficult as previous times, when these men had shown what they are capable of, and did so with dignity. These men are as easily part of the solution as they can be part of the problem.
I ask them not to squander the opportunities that they have, and had worked for, but to use it judicially in the interest of all Angolans. I am also asking them to acknowledge that every single Angolan has a voice and an opinion, and that they should be allowed to use that voice without fear and that, at the very least, it would be listened to. There are many Angolans that can, and would gladly, assist them in finding solutions to the multitude of challenges that they face.
I am asking this as a nobody, not even an Angolan citizen, but as a human being. I am also asking on behalf of my daughter, who was born and lives in Angola, and who I am determined shall not inherit, as an adult, the same Angola into which she was born.

Those of us that are concerned often resort to all the myriad policies, laws, academic papers and formal investigations for the arguments on which to base our concern.
Yet it is often the small things and chance encounters that provide the clues as to how disturbing things are and how urgent it is to find a solution.
In a coffee shop a stranger sits down next to me and introduces himself as a UN official. He laments how his agency is receiving so little support from donors that there is almost nothing for him to steal. He remarks on how some months he is even obliged to live entirely off his own salary.
After a public talk on Angola I am approached by a man who claims to be involved in diamond mining in Angola. He tells me:
“We have a legal agreement with the government. We cannot mine if there are people living there. The police were reluctant to remove them so we contracted a legally registered security company to do it. They had a legal contract to do this, they were not thugs. If people got hurt it is because they resist. If they just move off our land by themselves there would be no trouble. The corrupt Angolan authorities are trying to complicate my life with social responsibility and development. All I want is my diamonds. There is nothing wrong with that.”
I try to explain to him that the diamonds are not his and can never be, no matter how many pieces of paper say so, especially if these pieces of paper are based on the letter and not the spirit of the law. I try to explain that the legitimate use of force is limited to duly mandated authorities linked to national governments to be used sparingly and in rare instances. I try to explain that he is not an Angolan citizen, that he does not reside in Angola, that he has no intention of spending his wealth anywhere near Angola.
Unrepentant he maintains that all he wants are his diamonds; nevertheless he refuses to tell me who he is and what company he represents.
Every time I fly into Angola I end up sitting next to some charlatan – businessman, UN official, Aid worker – who proudly informs me on how they are going to Angola to make a quick buck and then to bugger off. It is a feeding frenzy and every vulture wants a part of it.
Only once do I sit next to the daughter of a well-known and influential member of the Angolan ruling class. She shares with me her frustrations in being unable to find, in Angola, a job commensurate with her intelligence and qualifications.

Rafael Marques summarises this with chilling conciseness: “one has to understand the word “confusão” in the Angolan mindset. Its literal translation means confusion. But, it also means a window of opportunity in which one can play without rules and the winner gets to set the rules.”
If this is true then by definition one can never rely on the winner to change the system. We are expected to believe that these days the United Nations are so very busy reforming themselves. The Angolan government is in the midst of a very active campaign to demonstrate how much they are doing for the benefit of Angolans.
The best that both these institutions can do, by definition, is to make new rules that are more convenient to them. It is only by listening to the voices around them, and pressure from the outside to make them listen, that will lead to meaningful change, and get rid of this mentality that there must always be winners and always be losers. In the real world either everybody wins or nobody wins.


[1] Letters to Gabriella, Florida Literary Foundation, 01 June 2005. ISBN 1891855670