A View From The Foothills

by Chris Mullin

  Friday, 3 September

  Sarah sulked all afternoon because Ngoc refused to let her go to the cinema with her friends. I am deeply unsympathetic, thinking of little Jacqueline and her family in the starch factory in Lira. Then we turned on the television to find that the siege in southern Russia has ended in huge slaughter. I advised her to think of those children and their families every time she is feeling sorry for herself.

  Tuesday, 7 September

  Jack made a statement on Sudan. While it was being drafted a message came from Colin Powell saying that he’s proposing to describe what is going on in Darfur as genocide when he appears before his Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday. Immediately alarm bells started ringing. A declaration of genocide will raise the stakes dramatically.

  Thursday, 9 September

  Colin Powell dropped his bombshell (‘… if this is genocide, which in my opinion it is …’). Immediately, the calls started coming in: do we agree with the Americans and, if so, what are we going to do about it? Ancram issued a weaselly statement accusing us of hiding behind the African Union, but stopping well short of calling for military intervention. It was decided that I should do Channel Four News, Newsnight and Today. Michael Williams, Ed Owen and I hastily agreed a Line to Take (‘It may be’) and off I went. The line can be held for now, but not for long. ‘One way or another,’ said Michael as we parted, ‘British troops are going to end up in Darfur.’

  Home on the 21.00, taxi from Durham, to bed, 1 a.m.

  Monday, 13 September

  Another hurricane bearing down on Florida. This, though it pains me to say so, is good news. The only hope of the Americans waking up to global warming is for them to be hit where it hurts – in a Republican swing state.

  Tuesday, 14 September

  The Residence, Khartoum, 6 a.m.

  Arrived, exhausted, four hours ago, having flown all day. Not a wink of sleep. Tortured all night by some sort of generator or water pump in the ceiling above the guest room, turning on and off every couple of minutes – the same as in Maputo. Even a sleeping pill didn’t work. Result: I am worn out and angry. Not a good way to start a trip like this. In half an hour we must be up and on our way to Darfur.

  9 a.m., Nyala, South Darfur

  A pair of helicopter gunships, evil, green hawks, sit on the tarmac a little way from the terminal. These are the weapons that have helped create the mayhem to which we have come to bear witness. According to the Swede, who is managing the aid operation at the airport, the gunships take off most evenings just before dusk and reappear several hours later. It is unclear where they have been or what they have been doing (the last reported use of gunships was 26 August ). He tried to get close enough to take their registration numbers, but was chased away.

  Also, two huge Ilyushins disgorging Sudanese policemen in blue uniforms, a band playing; the minister of Social Affairs, resplendent in a white jalaba and head-dress, greets us with an insincere handshake. The police are crowded into open-topped trucks and driven away, waving and singing. Oh, and a VIP lounge. ‘The Sudanese are good at building VIP lounges,’ says the Ambassador. ‘If only they were so good at building schools.’

  Within 15 minutes we are airborne again. This time in a white UN helicopter.

  Airborne, between Nyala and Zalingi

  The land below is surprisingly green, intersected by meandering, dried-up, sandy river beds. Two months from now, once the rains are over, this will be a barren wilderness, but for now it is fertile. Now and then evidence of cultivation and circles of bare earth where tulkels once stood; once or twice we saw a herd of sheep or cattle. By and large, however, the land is eerily empty.

  11 a.m., Zalingi

  We land on the edge of a huge encampment; shacks as far as the eye can see, white plastic sheets stretched over improvised wooden frames; plastic sheeting, the tell-tale sign of refugees everywhere. Except, as I am several times reminded, these are not refugees; they are IDPs, Internally Displaced People, homeless in their own country.

  There is a large police presence in the camp. According to Max, the UN man, they weren’t here yesterday so they must be for our benefit. There are also surly security men, one attached to our party, eavesdropping on every exchange. We must tread carefully, there have been reports of arrests as soon as foreigners leave. The head of security appears and the Ambassador, an Arabic speaker, leads him away from our party so that we may talk to the IDPs without interference. I engage a group of women collecting water. Mainly they are dead-eyed, most have lost someone in their family. The questions and the answers are always the same:

  ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘Because we were attacked.’

  ‘Who by?’

  ‘Arabs.’

  ‘When will you go home?’

  ‘When it is safe.’

  Ragged, fly-harassed children follow us everywhere, stretching out grubby hands to be shaken; astonishing how cheerful and resilient they are. Many, of course, are not yet old enough to know what deep trouble they are in.

  Evening, Government Guest House, Nyala

  An unflushed toilet, a black cesspit; a sink, hanging at an angle of 30 degrees to the wall, uncleaned in living memory; the shower emits a spurt of water and then gives up the ghost, the bed sheets washed … weekly? Monthly? Still, this is only for one night. Think of the people in the camps.

  We are entertained to dinner by the provincial Minister of Physical Planning and Public Utilities, a soft-spoken, civilised, courteous man; a hydrologist by profession. ‘We have to get the tribal chiefs together,’ he says. ‘That is the only way to resolve this.’ Later, as we are drinking tea, he whispers, ‘I want to go back to my profession.

  Politics is a dirty game.’

  Wednesday, 15 September

  Kass

  Dusty, fly-blown, 50 miles north-west of Nyala along a potholed road. On the way we stopped at an abandoned village. Only one tulkel was burned, but that had been enough to cause everyone to flee. The rest were looted, a few earthenware pots the only evidence of habitation. According to a passing Arab this was one of six villages here and they are all empty. Over the road, a large herd of cattle. Whose cattle are/ were these? Men on camels glide through the bush, a little distance away. Every one an Arab, there are no Fur left.

  In Kass the IDPs are camped out in the town centre, in schools, public buildings and in every available space, too terrified to move even to the designated campsite, a kilometre away. The compound of the girls’ school is crammed with the destitute and yet, incredibly, the school is functioning. Through the classroom windows, girls in blue tunics and white headscarfs, sitting at their desks as though everything outside was normal. I talked to a crowd of men, one had lost four children. Same questions. Same answers: ‘We were attacked … by Arabs … on camels and horses’ (and in one case, police in Land Cruisers). While we were at the Médecins Sans Frontières clinic an injured couple were brought in. Their story was that they had recognised their stolen donkey in the custody of a passing Arab. They had naively reported the theft to the police and had been badly beaten for their pains. In a square near the town centre, huge queues for the monthly food ration and in the middle a ragged woman, lying motionless on the ground. How long can this go on? How long before the attention of the world drifts elsewhere (already the food pipeline shows signs of drying up)? How long before an epidemic sweeps the camps?

  By nightfall we are back at the Residence in Khartoum. Clean

  water, good food, a flushing toilet. The misery of the camps but a fading memory. We have looked the damned in the eyes. Shaken their hands. Sympathised. But with the wave of a wand (or more precisely three hours in an ageing Antonov) we have returned to our world and they are still trapped, light years away, in theirs. We are but visitors to the inferno. Tourists in Hell.

  Thursday, 16 September

  Camp Tillo, Nuba Mountains

  Off again at dawn in a windowless Antonov flown by ubiquitous Ukrainians. Every pilot in Af
rica is either Ukrainian or South African (I tell a lie, we did come across a Bulgarian helicopter pilot). How did anyone get around Africa before the break up of the Soviet Union and the end of apartheid?

  At Kauda we are met by General Wilhemsen, the highly respected Norwegian in charge of the Nuba Mountains Monitoring Commission. Then by helicopter across a vast, verdant plain, fringed by low mountains (cf. the Plain of Jars, without the bomb craters), to the sector headquarters at Kauda. Here we are greeted by Nigel, a very English Englishman. Almost before our feet have touched the ground, Nigel is bending our ear on the iniquity of banning hunting with hounds. Satellite television has reached even this remote place and Nigel seems to have watched every minute of yesterday’s debate. Apparently there was a bust-up. Demonstrators broke into the chamber and crowds of baying hoorays (Nigel’s wife and daughter among them) laid siege to Parliament. All much more exciting than a decade of civil war in the south of Sudan.

  We set off by Land Cruiser along an almost unnavigable road to the headquarters of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, a huddle of stone-walled, thatched tulkels in a picturesque little valley. Nigel is in the driving seat. The Ambassador next to him. Which is just as well because for most of the way there Nigel is going on about the hunting. I keep my mouth firmly shut. A meeting with the SPLM leaders. Speeches. Always the same theme. I have heard it all over Africa: ‘We have nothing. We need everything. Please help us.’ On the way back Nigel is talking public schools.

  Saturday, 18 September

  The Residence, Khartoum

  Breakfast with Colonel Symonds, a British monitor in Western Darfur.

  Then a live interview with Edward Stourton on the Today programme, who wasn’t up for the possibility that what has happened in Darfur was anything other than genocide or that the attacks by the rebels might have played a part in unleashing the catastrophe. How easy everything must seem from the comfort of a Today studio.

  A day of appointments. We raced back and forth across town in the official Range Rover, flag flying from the bonnet, weaving our way through the traffic with the aid of an energetic police motorcyclist. No tantrums or fist-waving, just balletic arm movements (sometimes rising in the saddle and waving both arms simultaneously) and lo the traffic parted. A true artist, a pleasure to watch him at work. We called on the ministers of Justice, Humanitarian Affairs, Foreign Affairs and, finally, on Vice-President Taha in his mansion by the Blue Nile. How reasonable they appear. Charming, fluent, civilised. Apparently sincere in their desire for peace. And yet these are members of one of the world’s worst governments. This, after all, is a land of the cross-amputation, where torture, random brutality and corruption are endemic; where the government is at war with a fair swathe of its own people and has unleashed unspeakable horrors in the name of restoring order.

  Then back to the Residence for a meeting with the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative, Jan Pronk. He was followed by the head of USAID, Andrew Natsios (who arrived, sirens blaring, in a convoy of Land Cruisers with blacked-out windows, a truckload of soldiers bringing up the rear). This was followed by a press conference, interviews with Reuters, Channel Four and a man from Panorama, and a visit to a human rights organisation.

  And then this evening 40 people came to dinner: among them a man from the President’s office, resplendent in white turban and jalaba, and surprisingly indiscreet. The catastrophe in Darfur, he said, was the work of four people – ‘We call them “the Taha clique”.’ Besides Vice-President Taha himself (‘very sneaky’) this consisted of Nafie Ali Nafie, Minister of Federal Affairs (and a former head of the security service), Salah Gosh (current head of Security and Intelligence) and Awad Al Jaz (Minister of Petroleum). It was they, he said, who unleashed the Arab militias in response to a rebel attack on Al Fasher in April last year. When it got out of hand they sealed off the province and misled the rest of the government, including the President.

  ‘How did the President find out?’

  ‘When the foreigners told him.’

  The Taha clique, he said, funded their activities by using off-budget oil revenues (he told the Ambassador that up to half Sudan’s oil revenues are unaccounted for, some disappearing into bank accounts in Switzerland and Malaysia). All this was recounted with a broad smile. As though it was a great joke. At no point did he attempt to lower his voice. I later ran this past HE, who said it squared with everything he had been told although there were those who said that the Taha clique included President Bashir himself.

  I did my last interview (with the BBC World Service) just before midnight, packed, wrote thank you letters and at 2 a.m. Bharat and I were delivered to the airport for the flight to London – so tired that I practically kissed the steps of the plane.

  Monday, 20 September

  Up at 05.30 and at my desk in the Commons by 06.45 tapping out a note for Jack on my Sudan trip. Then to the FCO for a day which included meetings with the President of Malawi and lunch with John Garang, the leader of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement and a mountain of paperwork. I am writing this at 21.30, still at my desk, having just discovered in the press round-up an article in the Mail on Sunday, by a loathsome hack called Peter Dobbie saying what an idle, useless bunch we MPs are.

  Tuesday, 21 September

  The Foreign Office

  A note from Des Browne confirming that he will, as promised, raise to 18 the age at which girls can be imported into the country for arranged marriages. A little victory in the teeth of official foot-dragging – both here and at the Home Office. Ann Cryer and Alice Mahon put me up to it. They are inundated with desperate young Asian women trying to escape violent husbands or rapacious in-laws. The whole thing is a giant racket. If I could get away with it, I’d recommend raising the age limit to 24, as the Danes have done.

  Thursday, 23 September

  Sunderland

  To Hartlepool for a couple of hours’ canvassing. A deeply depressing experience. Lib Dem posters everywhere, lots of ‘outs’, entire streets with only a handful of ‘weak’ Labour. Some too weak even to drag themselves away from their television sets to answer the door. An unpleasant blond, forty-something woman was overheard to say that she was ‘sick of the lot of us’. (‘I’m not that keen on you either, love,’ I wanted to say.) No one mentioned Iraq. A general air of indifference, apathy, depression. We’ll be lucky to hold on …

  Monday, 27 September

  The Labour Party Conference, Brighton

  A brief encounter with Gordon Brown and entourage in an upper corridor of the Metropole: he inflicted what I took to be a friendly punch on my right shoulder and walked on without either slackening his pace or altering his facial expression. ‘Behaving yourself?’ I called after him. From behind, only an icy silence. That’s my card marked. What I should have said was, ‘Brilliant speech, Gordon.’

  Tuesday, 28 September

  Brighton

  For the first time in several years I went in to listen to The Man.

  Outside there were several thousand baying huntsmen and their hounds. And inside, too, as it turned out. About 20 minutes into the speech half a dozen zealots rose in their seats and heckled The Man to a standstill. He handled them well, remaining calm throughout and quickly getting back on track. Ten pledges, some rather modest (among the promises flashed up on the screen behind him was a promise to build 10,000 new social houses by 2008). His tone throughout was non-confrontational; there was even an air of contrition, but no actual apology. At no point did he sound like a man contemplating retirement.

  Wednesday, 29 September

  Brighton

  Out with the Ramblers Association for a five-mile hike across the Downs followed by a pleasant lunch in a village pub. A last-minute change of route in order to outwit the Countryside Alliance, who, we were told, had laid on a big ambush. In the event, they lost our scent. Very satisfying.

  I walked most of the way with Clare Short, who seemed happy and relaxed, but still very down on The Man.
‘He should have made his support for the Americans conditional on a Middle East peace settlement. That was his moment. The Americans didn’t want to go it alone.’ She had pressed him on this. ‘He said, “If I get Bush to publish the Road Map, will that make a difference?”’

  She had said it would.

  ‘“I’ll ring him and come back to you tomorrow.”’

  That, according to Clare, is how she was talked out of resigning first time around.

  Thursday, 30 September

  Brighton

  On parade first thing this morning for Jack’s big speech. I, inadequate as ever, in my crumpled number three suit, the one purchased at Heathrow, en route to Addis. Shoes unpolished since yesterday’s walk on the Downs. Jack has a thing about shoes. His are always gleaming. I suspect he judges others by the state of theirs, in which case that’s another little test that I fail miserably. Sure enough, he glanced down at my feet as soon as he entered the green room and, it may have been my imagination, visibly winced. Never mind, he was in great good humour. ‘I shall tell conference what a fine fellow you are.’

  ‘Don’t put it to a vote.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  Much laughter.

  Jack has been in his element this week, spending hours in back rooms, sweet-talking the unions out of backing a resolution calling for withdrawal from Iraq. Needless to say he has triumphed. ‘The Politburo has met. It’s all sorted. Just like the early eighties, except that no one smokes anymore.’

  In the event he was rewarded with a standing ovation.

  Thirty-four children killed in Baghdad in a series of car bombs aimed at American soldiers.