Black Children Sell Best

Chapter 1

Twisting by the pool

Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity - Martin Luther King Jr.

The temperatures had soared well above the 35 Celsius mark and the shade of the hotel-branded umbrellas was welcome, as was the slight breeze from the Olympic size swimming pool, with its waters being refreshed by a series of fountains which sent a pleasant mist across the area. On upholstered deckchairs, pasty Europeans - twenty-something year olds - frolicked, their white skin almost as blinding as the sun above. Waitresses scuttled back and forth serving chilled fruit juices and cold water, while their chalk-colored guests chatted on Facetime, greased each other up with organic coconut oil or floated in the crystal clear waters like bloated and forgotten albino tadpoles. All the while the sound of a wok being stirred by a sweaty chef in the kitchen and the clinking of warm glasses being exchanged for cold ones, and Ed Sheeran’s soothing, albeit plagiarized Shape of You wafted into the azure. A mural to the left, just outside the beauty salon and massage ‘clinic’ depicted happy Sub-Saharan people, freely trading exotic fruit and enjoying themselves as much as one can without depicting sex and booze; although, upon closer inspection the fruit vendor seemed to have a rather close relationship with his donkey. In any case, as Ed continued his ode to some woman’s body, I finished my Ugandan beer and stepped outside the compound walls.

Ah yes, I had forgotten: This was South Sudan. Within seconds, a group of refugee children was tucking at my pant legs demanding donations. Across the street a woman with bare breasts, the shape and size of a three day old Calzone emptied a spit bucket in the path of an oncoming Hummer. Inside, INGO workers which made up 99% of the guests, were pretending to be on the Riviera, while outside the miserable

failure that is South Sudan went on about its business of being starved to death, raped and pillaged by a government

which couldn’t have given the proverbial two shits about what happens to its country beyond selling its oil and other natural resources. A day prior I had been to the South Sudan NGO forum’s weekly briefing, where we heard that the UN had issues with access to vulnerable populations. Arms were being smuggled and displaced people were hiding in marshes as to escape more of the same, namely raping and pillaging by whoever was in charge of their area. The last time I had been here was in 2013 and yet, despite billions in aid and foreign assistance – probably countered by the same amount in illicit

foreign trade – nothing had changed. In fact, if anything, things had gotten worse. Take, for example, Yambio, a lovely spot about a couple of days’ journey (rainy season!) West of Juba. A well-known business man brings in 23 Camels worth of arms and ammunition. Now, it’s difficult for the average person to assess how much a camel can carry, but let’s just say it’s enough to start a small war. Said man is monitored  by the UN and other agencies, watched as he delivers his cargo to the faction or factions that paid for it, and then makes his way – in

no particular hurry, I might add – back across to Uganda, Kenya or any other neighboring country, to get more. Meanwhile, the UN releases an alert saying that consequently the risk of armed clashes in the area and probably the state, has gone up quite a bit and INGOs quickly respond by

starting disarmament and peace projects, while having their extremities shot off with ammunition from brand-new assault rifles. Let me be clear here: The person delivering the weapons and ammo is known, the recipients are known and both their itineraries are known. And yet they are allowed to go about their destructive business, while the so-called humanitarian world including the UN – which by the way has armed ‘peacekeepers’ – sit idle-by until the deal is concluded, and then respond to the resulting humanitarian catastrophe.

My solution? Hire nothing but former, and still heavily armed soldiers and policemen to do the work neither INGOs nor the UN are obviously willing or capable of doing! A large group of hardened veterans and military contractors would surely mop up the situation prompt smart, while saving ma & pa, plus any other well-meaning taxpayer around the world billions of dollars. If you know the perpetrators and are aware that the so-called sovereign state they are in doesn’t give a hoot – with its government of Hummer-driving corrupt criminals who stand against anything that even remotely passes for humanity - stop all aid and send in the commandos. Hold back the do-gooders and by-the-pool, fresh-out-of-Uni sun-seekers for the next wave. They can come in and think about gender and LGBTQ equality when the bad guys have been stopped in their tracks, and kept for good from raping, torturing and dismembering civilians or politicizing what is really a conflict about oil, minerals and gum Arabic.

Then we can have the French stubble-bearded, Gauloise smoking –don’t-give-a-shits, the tentacle-haired, permanently pre- or post-menstrual poster-children for post-1960’s feminism, the fresh-out-of-college, bespeckled, Google-corporation types and the simply salary-hungry-educated-but-otherwise-useless oxygen-thieves that make up at least 60% of the industry have their fun. But before we let these folks decide what is best for a local population, let’s get rid of

the clutter, the criminals, the corrupt, the war mongers, suppliers and the power-hungry who stop at nothing to fuel their Swiss bank accounts. In very plain terms: Let’s take care of business first. It’s a principle understood by all and as valid across the world as any other; so why not live and operate by it here in South Sudan or any other shithole we are supposed to care so much about?

Oh yes, I forgot: It’s not about solutions, it’s about survival of the best funded. It’s about an aid industry that thrives, the more misery there is in the world. It’s about pasty people in deck chairs by the pool, telling their loved ones back home how loathsome their work is and how deplorable their own living conditions. It’s about business and salaries and money to be made, on the back of those who are suffering.

"Oh, waitress...another cold Bell please, while I write my book.

And sorry about those poor people out front."

Refugee huts in Darfur

Chapter 2

What happens on tour, stays on tour

The only way to prevent prostitution altogether would be to imprison half the human race - Isabel Paterson

Much has been written about the Oxfam sex scandal. You know, the one where staff in Haiti, including the country director, allegedly had orgies with prostitutes – some underage - in a mansion-like premises rented by the organization. The backlash of course was significant and spared nobody; least of all the industry at large, which has since been scrambling to play little Dutch boy, as the dam of integrity continues to spring one hole after another.

But why are people actually surprised? Given how charities work and how they hire staff, the question should really be why this doesn’t happen more often. In other words, why do aid workers not get ridiculously high and then hump aid recipients all the time? The question is as uncomfortable as the answer is embarrassing, because that is exactly what happens. It is of course not what we are led to believe by charity advertising, according to which nothing but the kindest, most morally intact and sane people, go about doing nothing but kind and extremely virtuous things as they spread their love and goodness for the poor. This obviously is, even to the most naïve, utter rubbish.

Ever since a very clever person coined the saying whatever happens on tour, stays on tour, the sentiment has been taken up by many a sector, and – shock horror - the aid industry is no exception. Talk to any colleague about the good old times in South Sudan, Darfur, Guatemala, Iraq or wherever the four winds of aid and development had blown them about before, and you will hear some real knee-slappers, which mostly only humanitarians get; not because the rest of the world is too daft to understand, but because aid, at least in the eyes of donors and the public, is serious business and the notion that aid workers live it up is irreconcilable with the lofty image of the industry and the immaculately philanthropic way it likes to portrait itself.

But are we really so naive, that we believe ordinary human beings sent into some of the most traumatic, indescribable examples of human misery and deprivation, violence and unspeakable evil the universe has to offer, would rise above even the oh-so-perfect assemblies of the UN and perform their often emotionally intolerable duties in a way that would rival the patience and moral integrity of a saint? The irony is as sad as the truth is first world view-shattering.

This was actually going through my mind as I sat at the edge of the Nile one night, relaxing in the relative luxury of a container camp turned ‘resort’ and watching various things, alive and dead float past as dusk slowly set in across the river. It had been an interesting trip to say the least: relocating field staff in the North, who had refused to do so even under direct fire. The news had come while I was attending our annual security conference in London, which I had cut short to assist with getting these field office rebels out before things got even worse than they already were. In the space of less than 15 hours I found myself transported from an English lodge in the lush and idyllic countryside somewhere north of London to some of the most barren and desolate regions of South Sudan. After much debate with the programme director in Juba, who was dead set against my trip up north, initially claiming it was too risky, but eventually admitting he didn’t want me to see certain aspects of their work. Eventually the lanky Ugandan had reluctantly agreed, albeit under the condition we charter a plane and that he would be part of the group, not least, as he put it rather ominously, to explain to me what I might be seeing. The ensuing trip had been as odd and dangerous as it had been costly. In light of the situation, planes available for charter were as rare as hen’s teeth and the one that the office managed to locate ended up charging US$6,000 per hour in the air.

We had quickly assembled the essentials and made our way to the airport. The front lines were shifting, conflict was headed smack in the direction of our staff’s location and time, more than usual, was of the essence. At the airport we had been greeted by one of the ground staff ‘fixers’, who could get you just about anything short of a tank, and been directed to a lonely single turbo-prop Caravan, where a somewhat disheveled woman in her 50s, wearing Khakis and a white blouse, was leaning on the fuselage smoking a cigarette while the plane was being refueled. There were no introductions. Instead the woman greeted us in a thick Russian accent: Shiiit, I hope you guys don’t stay too long. I have been flying some delegation 36 hours straight all over the place. I’m tired. Without so much as inspecting our small group, she stamped out her cigarette and turned to the clipboard on the seat in the open pilot’s hatch behind her. I hope you have papers, ya? Landing permission! It wasn’t so much a question as a statement as she kept her back turned towards us. We all looked at each other and collectively shrugged our shoulders. Papers? That was news to us. I guess she sensed our hesitation and turned around with eyes narrow and a stare that could cut through steel. Her hair looked like she had slept in the bush, her eyes were sunken, her skin unhealthily pale and her voice as raspy as 10,000 bottles of vodka. Papers? Permission? she again repeated, emphasizing each syllable, as she looked around the semi-circle of our six-strong group. After a brief and rather uncomfortable silence, the programme director finally came to the rescue and, in the most sincere tone he could muster, assured her that all was in order. This earned him a raised eyebrow and a laser-like glare by the Russian, as if to telepathically probe his mind whether he was bluffing, which of course he was. She held her stare for what seemed like an eternity and then turned back to her paperwork. You know... she suddenly said, as she leaned into the open hatch, sheltering against the wind while lighting another cigarette, ...you have no permission, they will shoot. And if shoot, we don’t land. Or land very fast. She chuckled a bit at her attempt at humor, before continuing to mumble something in Russian. There was a collective gulp from our group as we cleared out throats. Within a few minutes we were airborne and trying to communicate with each other over the noise of the engine. Shortly after take-off the Russian again turned around and lifted one side of her headset: You SURE, you have permission? Two more kilometer and no phone coverage. We cannot contact anybody. I glanced behind me and noted the programme director frantically punching numbers into his phone behind the seat rest. Of course we had no permission, of course there were no papers. He knew it, we all knew it. Yes, of course we have permission, he looked up with a wry smile, trust me, there is no problem. The pilot shook her head, straightened her headset and went back to flying the plane. The rest of us fell silent, looking out the small bulkhead windows, each one of us lost in their own thoughts, while the turbo prop sputtered and propelled us northwards. A couple of hours later and our trusty Russian pilot sat up in her seat as she peered ahead, across the plane’s nose. There, you see, not far, she again took off one headphone muff and tilted her head, indicating I should have a look. I ducked and stood behind the pilot’s seat following her index finger as it pointed at a bunch of small structures on the horizon which grew in size with every mile. Up to this point we had been flying fairly low, but within seconds, the plane ascended sharply as she tried to reach a safer altitude. I fell back into my seat and gave the sleeping programme director a nudge. Things were about to get interesting. As we reached what looked like a tiny red dirt airstrip next to a cluster of tulkus, traditional South Sudanese huts, far below us, the pilot made a sharp right turn and began a wide circle around the area, all the while eagerly looking out left and right in search of some kind of movement. We go round, maybe couple times. If no shoot, we land, she shouted over the screaming engines, while pointing at the small landing strip, now below to our left. We repeatedly circled, while we all watched for what we hoped wouldn’t happen. Before long, a small convoy of 4-wheel drives made its way towards the airstrip at speed; the dust cloud behind it clearly visible and ever-growing. The vehicle in the middle appeared to be a pickup truck, with a large machine gun mounted on its back, to which an olive drab clad figure clung as it swayed from side to side. Around the tulkus, people started running, seemingly at random, in all manner of directions. The single story brick building, no bigger than a single garage and sitting at the entrance to the fenced airstrip, likewise sprang to life. Uniformed men spilled out of the structure and onto the open ground, waving and gesturing in our direction. From above it was like watching a miniature toy diorama kids set up in their backyard; ant-like little  green figures positioning themselves all over the place; some armed, some unarmed, but all very much in a frenzy. Suddenly the pilot put the plane into a semi-nose dive towards the airfield, taking our breath away and sending out stomachs towards our mouths. The plane swooped across the field and the little green men became decidedly bigger, as did their guns. As the plane rose again rapidly after the short sortie, the pilot again turned around, this time smiling and giving us a ‘thumbs up’. No shooting! she said with visible relief. We all returned the gesture, equally glad that what we had feared had not