Nick's Story

 

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[Angola page]          [Tvind and the Angola oil connection]

Toronto, Ontario
Canada                                                                                       Tuesday March 31st, 1998.

To whom it may concern:

I would like to outline some of my experience as a Solidarity Worker' (hereafter SW) in Angola with the Danish organisation ADPP / DAPP (1) and illustrate the inadequate provision made for volunteer workers such as myself. I believe that young people who go to Africa through Tvind are placed at unnecessary risk by exposure to life-threatening diseases without access to proper health care, and lack of physical security in areas where banditry and violent robbery is rife. The security aspect is particularly important in Angola, where my team of 11 young people (ages 18-30) was sent. I was extremely concerned to learn that fresh groups of Solidarity Workers may soon be sent to Africa from Winestead Hall, the site until very recently of another Tvind school, known as a "Small-School".

I spent a period of 6 months working in Benguela, Angola, from February to July, 1996, and completed a 5-month "preparation period" in Denmark prior to this. I will outline the problems my team faced under the following headers: Mentality, Health, Security, and Work. The first heading covers observations on the Danish organisation both at home and abroad, while the other 3 relate to the time in Africa.

Right from the beginning, I found there was a tendency on the part of members of "Teachers' Group", particularly the older, more senior members, to control as far as possible the intellectual and social interaction of all students at the "High-School", and especially those who were going to Africa. I used to jokingly call these more established members of the cult "Tvind Dinosaurs", being the old-guard of the organisation. Most of this inner circle is made up, as it happens, of women, and I have seen the same sort of behaviour exhibited by these individuals in both Denmark, and Angola.

It is difficult to explain exactly how they attempt to make people conform to their own mode of thinking, but intimidation, shouting people down, and the manipulation of group dynamics in a way I can only describe as Stalinistic are common techniques. For example, on one notable occasion at the school in Denmark, I was berated in front of my girl-friend, (visiting me from Canada) and the whole group, for "not participating enough" in a group discussion of issues surrounding, (ironically enough), a film called The Wave, which shows how conformist behaviour can promote the growth of fascism!!

I found the approach taken by the "teacher" of my class to be both offensive and threatening, when she tried to make me conform with the "preparation" I was receiving in Juelsminde. I came to Denmark having just completed a BAHons in Latin-American Studies, and I think she presumed that I must value this greatly, or that holding this degree was very close to my self-esteem. I say this because she would regularly accuse me of being too "abstract / theoretical", at the same time, she would say that I 'thought too much with the heart'! I found these attempts to undermine my confidence more amusing than upsetting, but I found it worrying that somebody would try to attack a person who was about to undergo a tough experience, and be put under a lot of psychological pressure. My best analysis of this technique is that diminishing people's belief in themselves will tend to foster reliance on the group (i.e. cult), and less questioning of the organisation and its aims.

On Friday Feb.l6th 1996, DAPP project leader in Benguela Neil Clark was made personally aware of the fact I was ill with a headache and fever, typical symptoms of malaria. In spite of this, I was not allowed to go for a blood test as I requested until Wednesday Feb. 21st, when I tested positive for malaria, with a very high blood count of the parasite. The level of care available to us in Benguela was consistently very poor, and we were dependent on one local doctor for diagnoses and the prescription of medication. During my second bout of malaria I had to be put in a taxi by a team-mate and the taxi-driver and physically dragged up four flights of stairs to the home of the doctor in an attempt to find her, as I was in a very bad way. Having finally found Dr. Carla and received a shot to bring down my fever, I got home and was found to have a fever of 41(C (a degree higher can often be fatal). Such experiences were not uncommon during our stay in Angola, nor was a lack of real help or support from the permanent DAPP staff.

In general, the project leaders had much better attention when they came down with malaria etc. than we did. We were limited to what was locally available (not very much), whilst they were flown to Luanda for better treatment when necessary. On the fourth (and last) occasion that I had malaria (Plasmodium falciparum, the most dangerous form of malaria, and the one prevalent in Angola), the leader of DAPP's Benguela project insisted that I write a fax describing my case-history to a "DAPP hospital" in Denmark to ask for the advice of the person working there!! This was instead of being flown to Luanda, as Neil wouldn't consider anything beyond the local help available without first getting the word from Denmark. Given the terrible communications between Angola and the developed world, it is unlikely any word would have arrived, and in fact I don't know if it ever did. Obviously, there was no way for the person in Denmark to verify any blood-test results or symptoms, and I feel this was an inadequate and inappropriate response to my continuing illness.

Angola's power grid was largely destroyed by UNITA's forces during the war/s, and Benguela city has only sporadic mains electricity. The project leaders, (living in the city), had their own diesel-powered generator for back-up. Our house in the Cavaco valley did not receive a generator until 2 weeks before we left, despite repeated promises being made from Day One that we would receive one soon. So we were faced with the problem of keeping malaria-patients with very high fevers cool, with no fridge to cool water, or electric fans. Again, the project-leaders had quite different living conditions.

The team of SW's (from the Hornsjo school in Norway) based in Caxito, Bengo Province, had to travel to a private clinic in Luanda for health-care. As DAPP had not paid its outstanding bills here, the clinic would demand payment in advance (US$) for any treatment or medication required. These kind of funds are NEVER available (at least for SW's) from DAPP, and if several members of the Caxito team had not brought large supplies of their own US$, the whole team would have been without medical treatment, including emergency attention and vital malaria tests and drugs.

Our team was housed in a very isolated location, in the Cavaco Valley, c. 10 mins drive outside Benguela city proper. This placed us already at unnecessary risk, in an area known to locals as a malaria hot-spot, and with bullets regularly flying over the roof as armed guards defended the surrounding banana-plantations from theft. The project-leaders, meanwhile, lived in town. I think they wanted to prevent team members from going out at night, and were prepared to put us at risk to enforce a curfew. (Local Angolans who would occasionally drive out to visit us would carry revolvers and assault-rifles in their car for the trip, as a precaution against bandits.) Our one link with the city, and outside help, was a single Motorola radio. We had continuous problems with the charger for this, and the radio was almost never working for the last 4/5 weeks of our stay. This left us completely isolated in case of any medical or other emergency.

We did actually use the radio once in about week 6 in Benguela, when we had an attempted break-in and our guard fired two rounds over the head of an intruder, who luckily fled. Theft, including the possibility of armed robbery, is a daily reality in Angola, and in fact a DAPP residence in Luanda was assaulted by three men in uniform carrying assault-rifles and a grenade -fortunately no-one was hurt. So the physical security risk was quite tangible, and being without a radio was not an ideal situation.

Just before leaving Angola, I had the opportunity to visit the British Embassy in Luanda, where 1 was informed by Miss T. Ann Herd, of the Embassy staff, that any British nationals in the country are 1) supposed to be registered with them for the duration of their stay, and 2) are to keep in regular contact with the Consular representative in whatever part of Angola they are in. DAPP had registered the presence of the two Brits in my team with the Embassy, but had not made us aware of this potential support available to us from our country's diplomatic mission to Angola.

I believe this is typical of DAPP's efforts to maintain control over the SW's, by keeping them cut off as much as possible from all other influences. In the event that an SW wanted to leave the country, we were totally dependent on DAPP to help us go home, given the lack of communications and infrastructure in Angola in general. One of our team members did decide that she had had enough, and needed to get back to Holland, and faced huge problems getting out of Angola, due to a marked lack of cooperation on the part of DAPP. (When she got home, she was told that she was lucky to be alive, with the parasites and illnesses she was carrying).

Furthermore, Angola is (still) politically and militarily precarious, and should a rapid evacuation of foreigners have become necessary, as in the past, close liaison with the British Embassy would have been crucial. l am not convinced this would have been easy, when we were completely out of touch with them in the first place, and unaware of the existence of their local representative.

On Saturday, May 11th, I took a Red-Cross flight from Huambo, in the interior of the country where I had been on a study-trip, to Luanda, from where I would be transported by DAPP to Caxito, in Bengo Province, some three hours by car from the capital. However, DAPP-Huambo neglected to inform DAPP-Luanda by radio that I was en route, and so I was left waiting in Luanda airport for some 4 hours, until after dark. This is not by any means a secure situation; taking a taxi from this location can lead to armed robbery or murder, and their are no safe facilities for waiting inside. During this 4-hour period, DAPP's Luanda office was not answering the 'phone, or it was out of order. Luckily, I did have the number of the United Nations' 24-hour radio-operator in Luanda, "Alpha-Zero", and could ask them to contact DAPP by radio. This they did, and somebody finally came to pick me up. This to me is just another small example of wantonly irresponsible behaviour on the part of DAPP, and without the UN support, I would have been in a dangerous predicament.

I arrived in Angola on February 10th with high expectations as to the work I could accomplish in the nearly 6 months ahead of me. In reality, I had to approach my "Project Leader", Jeanette Rasmussen, repeatedly to get any money or materials to work on my initial project; and by my "Midway Meeting" on April 10th., 2 months later, she had still not even applied for grants to enable me to start on other pending construction projects. The budget for a project to build 124 UNICEF latrines in the area, my major undertaking in Benguela, was not made available to me until just 6 weeks before the end of my stay.

Jeannette actually obstructed my progress (and that of all other projects in her section, Child Aid) by hogging the project vehicle almost the whole time for her own use. This was when several projects might need building materials bringing from the market, and there was no car to fetch them in. (SW's meanwhile traveled on foot, or by bicycle). Her level of commitment in general appeared to be very low; she would very rarely show up to (much less organise) any community actions (such as cleaning up the ground around a school), and would rarely answer her radio before 9:30 or 10:00 am, when the working day supposedly began at 7:30 am. I would say that this mis-use of a valuable vehicle, and the failure to channel necessary funds to volunteer workers such as myself (described above) amounts to a serious under-utilisation of resources, and in fact this point was made to both Jeanette and Neil Clark repeatedly.

Neil Clark, Jeannette's direct boss as head of DAPP Benguela, I feel was culpable for her behaviour, as he refused to intervene in the running of 'her" projects. We discovered a letter on the hard-drive of the computer in the SW's house which someone had written to Neil in December of 1995. This letter was about Jeannette, and described exactly the same problems that we were experiencing with her; i.e. total lack of help, and normally actual hindrance of development projects. The wastage in both human and material terms of such an attitude in a "Development-worker" is hard to quantify. There were numerous occasions when this person let local communities and their leaders down very badly on promises she had made, and the damage this does to a relationship that must be one of trust is huge. I did meet several exceptional individuals in DAPP-Angola, who demonstrated a high level of commitment and competence. It was my bad luck to have to work with someone at the other extreme; the point is that the DAPP managers who were made aware of this problem by us did nothing to remedy the situation. I have seen numerous examples of a lack of concern with real development objectives on the part of DAPP, and a greater concern with the image of the organisation, and the well-being of its permanent members.

I hereby authorise anyone who so wishes to use this information...in bringing these facts to the attention of all interested parties.

Sincerely,

(name omitted from web at author's request) njmossgill@hotmail.com

Toronto, Canada. Tuesday, March 31st, 1998