The Delta

by Tony Park

  Trench silenced him with a glare. ‘We won’t win this fight with inches of paper or wads of money thrown at public relations firms. Sabrina, we should all read it in full and discuss further when we next convene. Now I’m afraid I must ask you to leave us, Sheldon,’ he directed with an aggressive nod towards the young man. ‘You’re not required for the final session of tonight’s meeting.’

  Red-faced, the young man stood and nodded. His chair protested on the wooden decking as he backed out. Stirling felt sorry for Sheldon, but couldn’t deny that the hundred thousand dollars the lodges had pooled for the PR campaign had achieved nothing. The dam wall was complete and the Namibian government would soon commission the hydro-electric power generator. It would be a brave government or world body that turned off the water and electricity to poor African villagers in need of both, particularly in the middle of a crippling drought. Stirling looked around the table at the committee. By no means was the overweight, bullying Trench representative of the other lodge owners. However, they were all relatively wealthy white people who were, it was sad but true to say, more concerned about profits and animals than mothers and babies.

  The group fell into an expectant silence, broken only by the receding muffle of Sheldon’s trainers on the walkway, and the croak of a frog from the shallows below the viewing deck. Far away, a hyena whooped its eerie night call.

  ‘Lady and gentlemen, I’m sure you’re all wondering who the tall, dark stranger at the far end of the table is.’ Heads turned to the man, whose name, Steele, suited him, Stirling thought. ‘Martin Steele is a consultant of a different breed to Sheldon. You may have heard of his company and, if you have, he will need little introduction or time to explain what skills he brings to our table. But I will start by asking him to tell us a little about the business he founded, Corporate Solutions.’

  Jan Nel whistled low. Stirling felt Sabrina’s left hand on his thigh. He glanced at her and saw her disbelief, impossible to hide in her wide eyes. She wasn’t touching him because she wanted him. She was scared.

  Martin Steele stood and the frog stopped croaking. He was silent for a moment as his eyes swept his audience. ‘Mercenaries, hired killers, gunslingers, murderers, war criminals, vultures, assassins. I’ve heard all of these terms and more to describe my company, my people and myself, but I can assure you all that the people of Corporate Solutions are none of these …’

  Steele paused and Stirling stared at him, recalling the name that had been linked to half a dozen conflicts and coups – failed and successful – on the continent in the past two decades. The company had faced allegations of atrocities in Nigeria, links to diamond smuggling in Sierra Leone, and civilian deaths in Angola in the old days. Corporate Solutions needed a PR company more than the Okavango Delta Defence Committee did, Stirling thought.

  ‘… unless you want us to be.’

  Several of the men around the table laughed at the joke. Sabrina moved her hand off Stirling’s leg and muttered, ‘Oh my god.’

  Steele held his hands up for silence. ‘Seriously, people, it may or may not be that you have exhausted your diplomatic options to have this dam decommissioned. That is not for me to decide.’

  There was silence around the table.

  ‘There is a concrete wall across the Okavango, upriver, in Namibia’s Caprivi Strip. Your legal challenges and protests may carry on for years, but that dam is filling up and your time – the Okavango Delta’s time – is running out. Forgive an old soldier if I stick to habits of a lifetime. I would like to begin my briefing with an outline of the situation, as I see it, and then follow on with the details of my offer and proposal to you. I would ask, please, that you leave questions to the end.’

  Sabrina shifted in her chair and for a moment Stirling thought she was going to slide it back and walk out. She looked at him and he shrugged. He wanted to hear what Steele had to say. The Englishman stared at her and she held his gaze for as long as she could – perhaps ten seconds – then reached for her water glass.

  ‘Very well. Situation. Despite your best efforts, and those of other conservationists and the Botswana government, the dam is substantially complete. Given the ongoing drought in this part of Africa it will take longer than expected for the new dam to reach capacity and, as a flow-on effect, the poor rains predicted for the next wet season will exacerbate the impact on users downstream, such as yourselves. Botswana is the only country that will be adversely affected by the dam and its government has run true to form by being diplomatic, nonconfrontational and peaceful. The wildlife in Botswana will suffer, migration patterns will change and people will lose their jobs.

  ‘There is a third political force in this debate – the Caprivi Liberation Army, or CLA for short. There has been one armed attempt already to disrupt work on the dam, an ill-fated attack carried out by the CLA.’

  Stirling and others around the table nodded. The Okavango River passed through the Caprivi Strip region of Namibia and the dam was sited upstream of Popa Falls near the town of Divundu, at the western end of the disputed territory. The Caprivi Strip was an historical anomaly, a narrow, four-hundred-and-forty-kilometre corridor of land ceded by the British to Germany when they were carving up colonial Africa. Its proclamation was rooted in a mix of deceit and ignorance. Germany had claimed South-West Africa yet wanted access to the Indian Ocean on the eastern coast for trade purposes. The British ‘gave’ Germany the strip to link Namibia to the Zambezi River, which flowed into the Indian Ocean. What the British didn’t yet know, or weren’t telling the Germans, was that not far from where the Caprivi Strip ended the Zambezi was interrupted by the mighty Victoria Falls, making trade by riverboat from South-West Africa to the Indian Ocean an impossibility.

  The corridor of seasonally flooded land bordering the Kavango, Chobe, Linyanti and Zambezi rivers bore nothing in common with the rest of Namibia, which was a mostly barren land of scorching deserts and wild sandy coastline shrouded in chilling Atlantic mists.

  Ethnically, the people of the Caprivi were Lozi in the main, with closer ties to tribes in Zambia to the east, rather than the Ovambo, Himba, Nama, Damara and Herero people who populated the rest of Namibia. The Caprivians were fiercely independent and had never considered themselves part of Namibia. They viewed the dam on the Okavango as an example of the Namibian government taking resources they considered belonged to the local people and using them to benefit other tribes far away, as well as future water-dependent diamond mines whose profits the Caprivians believed they would never share.

  ‘A year ago, two hundred members of the CLA stormed the Okavango Dam construction site, expecting to sweep through and plant explosive charges on the walls of the temporary coffer dam, constructed to divert waters so work could commence on the main wall,’ Steele said, reminding them of facts they already knew. ‘Instead of finding only local labourers and some German and Namibian engineers, the CLA came up against a Namibian Defence Force infantry battalion of roughly five hundred men, lying in prepared ambush positions. There was clearly a rat in the ranks of the CLA and the attack cost the lives of seventy-two of its members, with a further thirty captured. The detainees are still languishing in jail and awaiting trial. As I understand it, after the attack the remnants of the CLA conducted an internal purge and four of its members were quietly dealt with.’

  ‘Dealt with?’ Sabrina whispered to Stirling. ‘Is this guy for real?’

  ‘Very real, madam,’ Steele said from the far end of the table.

  Sabrina gulped her water.

  ‘But getting back to the situation. There exists, to this day, a strong desire by the indigenous people of the Caprivi Strip to govern themselves. Despite the setback at the dam the CLA maintains a small cadre of highly trained soldiers ready to fight and, if needs be, die for their cause. And we have a dam, consisting of a substantial amount of concrete. Not as easy to destroy as a coffer dam, but not impossible, either.’

  One of the lodge owners raised a hand.

  ‘With
your indulgence, questions at the end, please.’ The man nodded. ‘Now, to the mission.’

  Steele picked up a glass of water and sipped from it. He set it down and leaned on the table, supporting his muscular upper body on his fists as he closed the gap between himself and his audience.

  ‘Mission. Destroy the dam on the Okavango River and bring about a simultaneous regime change in the Caprivi Strip, installing a new, self-governing administration which will be opposed to any future dam on the river in perpetuity. I say again—’

  Sabrina stood up. ‘This is crazy. I don’t want to hear another word.’

  Steele ignored the outburst. ‘That, Ms Frost, gentlemen, is the end of my presentation. There is no point in me going into the execution, administration and logistics, and command and communications aspects of the plan I have developed, unless you are all on board. I’ll hand you back to your chairman now.’

  Sabrina resumed her seat and Trench studied the faces of every person at the table. ‘Questions?’

  ‘Questions?’ Stirling said to himself. Bloody hell, he thought, it was hard to know where to start. ‘I’ve got one. You reminded us all that the Caprivi Liberation Army has already had one try at destroying the dam and failed. Security at the dam site remains tight. How can you hope to get in again?’

  Trench looked at Steele, who nodded, and said, ‘As I’ve just said, I’m not going to go into details until I have your support – and, quite frankly, your money.’

  The muttered laughs and snorts were more a release of tension than genuine mirth. Steele continued. ‘However, the CLA’s strategy was flawed last time around. They thought that by blowing up the dam they would get their people to rise up spontaneously along the length and breadth of the Caprivi Strip. In effect, they put all their eggs – or bullets – in one basket. The strategy I have in mind is different.’

  Sabrina raised her hand, and Steele nodded. ‘I’ve been to the dam site recently, as part of a protest blockade. Stirling’s right. The security is tight as a drum. We couldn’t get within five kilometres of the wall. We were stopped by police and army checkpoints.’

  ‘I have a plan in mind to get past the security,’ Steele said. ‘But I stress again the strategy I’m proposing is not just about the dam. If we blow the wall and the Namibian government still holds sway over the region then it will simply be repaired or rebuilt in time. We don’t want just a hole in a wall.’

  ‘No, you want a war,’ Sabrina said.

  Steele shook his head and met her glare. ‘I want justice, for a people denied it.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ Sabrina said. ‘You want blood and money.’

  Trench raised a hand. ‘Hear Martin out, Sabrina. The Caprivians do have a legitimate claim on their land, which has been denied by their government for decades.’

  Steele stood again. ‘In 1964 a pro-independence group based in the Caprivi Strip, the Caprivian African National Union – CANU – made up of Lozi-speaking peoples signed an alliance with the Ovambo-dominated South-West African People’s Organisation, SWAPO, to combine forces in the fight against the whites in South-West Africa. It was a marriage of convenience, which made military sense at the time. The South African military would be fighting on two fronts – SWAPO guerillas, supplied from and based in Angola, and CANU’s forces, now aligned with SWAPO, but with safe havens to the east in Zambia. CANU and its successors have always claimed that the agreement between CANU and SWAPO stated that once independence was gained from the whites a referendum on self-determination and self-government would be held in Caprivi. According to CANU, SWAPO later reneged on the deal.’

  ‘Yes,’ Sabrina interjected, ‘but SWAPO says CANU gave up such ambitions when the deal was signed in 1964.’

  Steele shrugged. ‘It’s academic. There are people who are prepared to take up arms and fight for the establishment of a Caprivian homeland. Linguistically, ethnically, culturally, this has always been a separate part of Africa. Even the German colonial administrators of South-West Africa lost interest in the Caprivi Strip once they realised they couldn’t sail down the Zambezi River to the Indian Ocean. For much of its history it was administered by the British from here in Botswana. It wasn’t until the mid-twentieth century that the South Africans even bothered to build a road linking the Caprivi to the rest of South-West Africa. These people want nothing more than to be able to determine their own future. They are people of the river, people to whom the waters of the Okavango, the Chobe and the Zambezi are sacred. The Caprivians will never dam your river.’

  ‘It’s not actually ours,’ Stirling said. ‘It belongs to all the countries it traverses.’

  Steele thumped the table. ‘Exactly! Yet why should Angola and Namibia be able to rob water from the people and from the wildlife of Botswana? The Botswana government will continue to protest but they will never go to war over water.’

  ‘They’re too sensible,’ Sabrina said.

  Nel lit another cigarette and coughed. ‘I know some Lozi. They’re good, honest, hard-working people. They feel robbed, disillusioned. They think the world has ignored them and left them hanging out to dry and I believe there is truth to that. If things hadn’t been so bad in Zimbabwe all these past years then the UN might have paid more attention to the Caprivians.’

  Steele took up the thread. ‘There are more than eight thousand Caprivians living as political refugees in Botswana. Many of those people want to return home and are prepared to fight for the right to do so.’

  ‘Yes,’ Sabrina conceded, ‘I’m sure that’s all true, but starting a war to save a river? Is it worth it?’

  Steele shrugged and sat down. ‘That’s not for me to decide. It’s for you. The Caprivians are ready to fight to seize their homeland, but they need weapons and ammunition – especially the heavy stuff, such as rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and explosives. They need money.’

  Sabrina shook her head and looked to Trench. ‘What I don’t get, Bernard, is why I’m here at all. I don’t have money to contribute to this operation. I’m from an environmental organisation. I seriously hope you don’t expect me to go back to head office and ask for a donation. The moms and pops in Sydney, Ontario, San Francisco and Cape Town who support us would have a collective heart attack if they thought their donations were going to fund a coup organised by mercenaries.’

  Steele took a sip of water. ‘Ms Frost, your organisation chases and boards Japanese whaling ships – technically acts of piracy. Your members chain themselves to shipments of spent nuclear fuels and sabotage bulldozers clearing Amazonian rain forests.’

  ‘That’s different to warfare, where innocents will be killed.’

  ‘My point, Ms Frost, is that your people are prepared to risk their lives for a cause. The Lozi who live in exile in Botswana are ready and willing to risk their lives for their homeland, and to save the river that means as much, if not more, to them than it does to you. Will you deny them that?’

  ‘What is it, exactly, you want from me, from my group?’

  Trench cleared his voice. ‘Legitimacy.’

  TEN

  Sonja used her knife to carve the seared flesh from the leg of impala and handed a strip to Sam.

  His mouth watered as he held the greasy piece of meat in his hand while he waited for her to cut her portion. He felt helpless around her. The least he could do was mind his manners and wait for her before eating – even if he was starving. His stomach rumbled in anticipation.

  ‘Enjoy,’ she said.

  The meat was drier than he expected, and quite bland, but he wolfed down his sliver while Sonja was still taking her time over her portion. He didn’t want to appear greedy, but wasn’t sure what the protocol was for eating a hunk of meat stolen from a cheetah and roasted over open coals. The leg sat on a flat rock Sonja had placed on the coals as a kind of warming and carving surface.

  ‘May I?’ he asked, pointing at her knife.

  She looked at him while she chewed and said nothing. He reached for the knife gingerly. Th
e blade didn’t reflect the glow from the coals as it was coated with a matt black finish. Only the very edges showed silver, where she had been sharpening it. Judging by the way it glided through the well-cooked meat he reckoned he could shave with it. As he cut himself a ragged slice of meat, he found that despite its sharpness the knife was difficult to carve with. It had a T-shaped handle that normally sat in the palm of the hand, with the second and third fingers either side of the shaped shank. It wasn’t a knife for skinning buck or whittling sticks to roast marshmallows with over the campfire. It was a weapon for stabbing. For killing. He placed the knife back down on the rock carefully next to the joint of meat, and retreated back to his side of the fire clutching the slippery meat in his fingers like a wild man.

  As he ate, Sonja glanced at him occasionally, as if to satisfy herself that he was in his place. Other than that she gazed out into the night.

  From a nearby tree he heard a high-pitched brrrr brrr at regular intervals. ‘Is that an owl?’

  She finished chewing her mouthful and swallowed. ‘Scops.’

  He nodded. Another Scops owl called from a different tree, maybe fifty metres away. At least the birds had something to talk about.

  His sense of being out of his depth and deep in the shit had magnified with each passing hour. He’d been unable to get more than a few words from the woman all afternoon, after the incident with the cheetah. Since realising he wasn’t being set up by Cheryl-Ann and that something had gone wrong somewhere along the line he’d decided he had no option but to trust Sonja. Even so, he sensed the little she’d told him about herself and why she was out here in the middle of nowhere contained precious little truth. It was bad enough that he was making a documentary about an environment he knew nothing about, and even worse that when he was put to the test, for real, he had very nearly died. If this brooding, heavily armed stranger hadn’t come along when she did, his body might never have been found.

  ‘Forgive me,’ he said.