Malawi 2004 - 2007

Public Violence

 A narrow bustling street, really an alley, in Nairobi. On either side are women selling mangos, Irish potatoes, tomatoes, bananas, maize, from the floor. Their shouting, and laughter are stirred in with the sounds of traffic to create a porridge of noise. As I agonise over which pile of potatoes I should choose my ear registers a change of key. The sopranos have become shrill, the bases are barking. Through the excited crowd I can see a man just ten metres away, agitated, shouting, desperately gesticulating. He runs out of ideas so rips off his jacket and throws it down at the feet of a woman. Somehow he seems to squeeze out of the scrum and disappears from view .

I turn to Ndambuki. " What was that about? ". " I think he stole something - he was lucky not to be necklaced. That often happens to thieves ". *

The pot continues to boil. There seems to be further activity. Eventually a triumphal shout is the signal for the tightly knotted scrum to unravel. Two young women, arms like creepers around each other, dance past in a state of high excitement. Women shout at each other across the alley. A boy of about fourteen years emerges , arms aloft, eyes alight. He sees me as he passes and turns.

" We've got the champion ". " what ? " . "Our girl won the fight ".

I ask "Why were they fighting? ". "Over money ".

My liberal youth worker persona engages.

" Isn't it better to have friends than money?"

He is ready for me. "We have to fight. We have to fight for our money; we have to fight for our freedom." He says with passion.

" You are right, we have no idea." I agreed.

He turned and ran to join the post-fight celebration leaving me wishing that I had had more time to talk to this young man with a lot to teach me. 

Life is acute for people who can't afford to relax and have to fight everyday just to survive. The pressure intensifies around any competitive situation. Call boys, the name for bus boys , surround you, grab your arm, your bags, your ear-drums in a desperate attempt to drag you to their bus for the scraps they get from the drivers. They stop only to push or harangue each other.

Fruit and vegetable sellers shout over each other to persuade you to buy their onions that are the same price as the person next to them. No soft sell here.

It not surprising that this sometimes spills over into violence, in fact it's extraordinary that does happen more often. It is not unusual to see playground stampedes towards a fight in a market between men or women. In Naivasha, which ironically lends its name to the Sudanese peace agreement, I saw a bus boy knock another youth unconscious with one blow. No-one took any notice and the damaged boy eventually dragged himself to his feet and staggered off down the road. (In the same area some weeks later young Masaii warriors fought Kikuyus over a dispute about the diversion of water - fifteen died.)

Sometimes this playground brawling mutates into something more dangerous and insidious. On one occasion the baying of a mob drew us to the porch of our building. Two men ran past on the road with a pack in close pursuit. There were gun shots (into the air) before they gave up the chase. The cause of this was social, personal and political. The President had been on the radio to say that he was going to crack down on the illegal immigration by Nigerians. Nigerians are the new Asians. They run the garage and car businesses. One incident between a Malawian and a Nigerian business owner was the catalyst for them being chased out of town.

This week I came into work early. I remarked to someone that the market was loud this morning. There was an unusually high level of background noise. Later that day Desmond told me why. At six o'clock that morning the call boys had mobilised. Some said it was because the irish potato sellers were also calling passengers. Others said it was annoyance with baggage carriers who were stealing and causing the call boys to be harassed by the police. Whatever the cause the call boys fought with the opposition and drove them from the field. Within the hour the defeated group had regrouped and returned, this time carrying panga knives (machetes) and cudgels. One had a gun. For an hour the police were not in control and by the time they had arrested the gun-toting leader one man was dead and many other in hospital with wounds.

Interestingly, this major event has not appeared in the newspapers, but the gossip chain provides enough fuel to keep the fire alight. Desmond suspects political undertones. There has been increasing animosity between the President, who is arresting corrupt politicians and upsetting his own party, and the former President who has been accused of plotting an assassination. The UDF party has a history of using youths to intimidate opponents and Desmond would not be surprised if this trouble was generated to de-stabilise Lilongwe.

Today, as we drove along the main street in front of the market we passed a heavily armed convoy of soldiers in trucks. They later marched through the market in full kit singing marching songs. A show of force to dissuade trouble-makers ? How fragile is police control.

The third story emerged only days later. A man had purchased the land that vendors used near the market. He sent boys to collect tax from vendors on his land. The fight had emerged from this situation and the landowner had eventually been beaten so badly that he had died. Every riot tells a thousand stories.

Football has also been the host for violence. Across Africa there was a spate of deaths at football matches during World Cup qualifying matches. Euro-style riots took place after matches. This also spread to Blantyre, the second city and home of the Flames. 

Muriel, a Dutch volunteer, went to the Blantyre stadium to be greeted by people defecating on her from the tier above. The followers of Bakili Bullets from the same city (sponsored by Bakili Maluzi -the former president), having run out of opponents, fought each other forcing the cancellation of a club election for committee members. The growing number of dispossessed young men (more than 50% of the population in Malawi and some other African nations is under 25 years) is a recipe for increasing levels of disorder at best and a huge pool of potential recruits for militias.

As Desmond and I discuss the situation the sun comes out and a garrulous happy group of teenagers pass by and wave. We are reminded that a lot more than 50% of the population manage to stay happy and positive in spite of the tough lives they have to lead. 

* Note: Necklacing - in Burundi, Human Rights organisations are worried by motorcycle vigilantes who chase suspected thieves and place burning tyres on their necks, usually resulting in death. The people blame it on the breakdown of trust in the police to prosecute thieves.

One of CEYCA's successes has been initiating research that led to a coalition of NGOs that persuaded the Ministry to separate under 19s from the adult prison population, where it was common for boys to become the 'wives' of older men and suffer many forms of debasement and abuse.

Desmond is involved with UNICEF in an attempt to challenge the stagnant and Byzantine systems that lead to abuses of the young people's rights. On his last visit to the remand wing Desmond discovered that a boy of about 16 years was lying in a fevered stupor in the prison yard. The prison staff can do nothing because his custody is the responsibility of the police; not simply the police but the officers from the arresting station. There is no money for medication. Desmond is worried that the boy will die. The staff say he has scabies but his body is wasting, his eyes are yellow and he is getting weaker. It is likely that his family does not know he is here and should he die they will never grieve over his body. This is a matter of life and death for the boy, but a matter of irritated indifference to the authorities. In spite of an afternoon of phone calling to The Human Rights Commission, Prison officials, various policemen , the social welfare services and UNICEF the boy is still laying in his sweat stained blanket in the yard some three days later. Desmond and Collins have been asked to screen the boys on remand and present a report to UNICEF.

As with most countries Malawi's prison system was designed to meet the needs of a small population of 2,000 prisoners. It now tries to cope with close to 9,000 prisoners. Prison is the main blunt instrument available to deal with the increasing levels of theft and disorder that is often blamed on the confusion between democratic freedom and licence to do what you like. More informed sources note that criminality increases in the 'hungry season' when food starts run out. In our distant past people were condemned by the owners of property and sent to the Antipodes for similar reasons.

We walk the 200 metres to the market and I am surprised to find the prison wing just 50 metres away down a side street. The entrance to this prison is a rusting link fence gate hanging ajar from barely coping hinges. The fence that encloses the compound is topped with strands of drooping barbed wire that not even birds will trust as a perch. Some five metres back a group of lounging men is draped across chairs and benches. One of them reluctantly drags himself from his chair and opens the gate further. We are taken to a low brick building where we are greeted by a tall middle-aged woman in her early forties, I guess. She is Mrs G, the chief officer of the prison. Her clothes are drab and faded betraying the low pay, which contributes to the gloom that seems to surround her. We enter her office. I am offered a chair, Desmond and Collins are offered a low table to sit on. There is some embarrassed talk about the lack of action over the sick boy. She is powerless to do anything and Desmond does not wish to blame her. She opens a dust-covered visitor book, fidgets with wooden filing trays on her desk and gets around to telling us about the inmates. There are 64 juveniles. Thirteen are convicted of murder. Thirty six are for ordinary crimes and the rest are on remand. She apologises, we cannot go in yet. We are not the first visitors. Conversation withers and dies and I become aware of the dirt on the walls. It has been a long time since anything that could be described as paint has made an intimate acquaintance with these walls. Large areas are covered with dirt and mud. Around the doors are dark brown patches laid down by thousands of trailing hands. A notice board contains a few dust-covered photos of a similar scene re-photographed through the years. The scene shows uniformed prison officers paraded in military rows, being inspected by a man bearing an erect sword. 

After five minutes the regional director arrives with an enthusiastic young English woman in a trouser suit. She is from DFID and talks a lot about meetings. The regional director appears diffident and is relieved to get out as the woman sweeps off to her next meeting. It is our turn to view the prisoners.

We abandon the gloom for the brightness of the African sun that makes us squint to bring into focus an intimate earth square surrounded on three sides by twelve doorways leading to rooms that might have been stables in an English setting. I cannot clearly see the rooms and do not want to pry further. They seem to be empty - no sign of beds. The boys are standing around the compound like prisoners from a scene in the Great Escape. They are made to sit on the earth in rows. I am struck by the lack of aggression in this scene. It all feels very passive. 

The boys are barely dressed. All lack shoes, one boy literally has his arse hanging out of his ripped trousers and most tee shirts are badly torn. Mrs Gwonde speaks in a kindly way in Chechewa . Some talk back to her. My eye wanders over to the boy who is lying on his own at the side of the compound. This is the sick boy. Close by is a huge iron pot with a pounding log for maize leaning against it and a smoky fire underneath. Desmond talks to the boy and we are ushered back into the gloom, where Desmond and Collins are to check the status of the boys on remand.

Chairs are brought for us. The first two boys are brought in. I am taken aback as the first shuffles into the room and immediately sinks to his haunches. He walks in this position like a chimpanzee across the room and sits at Collins' feet. I have to stifle the desire to give him my chair. Collins asks the boy for details about his arrest and his family. His court detention order ran out last December. He is being held here illegally and nobody is interested. Collins leaves the room. I don't feel I can add anything useful and do not make contact with the boy. The boy, who is seventeen, draws his knees up to his chest, wraps his arms around his legs and rests his face on them staring down at the floor. He stays like this for several minutes. What is he thinking about? 

At the other end of the table is another boy of a similar age. His eyes are ablaze with anger but his expression is empty. There is razor wire around his soul. " you are barred from my world just as I am barred from yours ". He answers questions, but he is not available. He does not look at your eyes. He talks to inanimate objects and only sees you when you are not talking or looking. 

As the boys move through two by two the room becomes stifling. There is an overpowering smell - the rancid stench of degradation.

A boy of thirteen approaches the room, his head and shoulders bowed forward. He hesitates at the door unsure whether there is any further deference or supplication to be offered. He has the sun and moon with him. As he talks his face is illuminated by a child's soft smile. As Collins turns away and writes the sun fades and the night-moon arrives, gradually disappearing behind a cloud. He too stares at the floor as if looking into a well of unfathomable depth. He seems to age before my eyes. This child has been in prison for nine months of his precious childhood. His charge - stealing MK 4000 about £20. He has not been to court and has no idea when he will. Collins turns to him with another question and the sun returns to his face. 

As more boys come through I look at the detention sheets. Almost all of them are for petty crime, usually theft. I start to think about what a lottery this is. Only fifty metres away is a market packed with people who probably have far stronger credentials for membership of this particular club . It feels that the work CEYCA is trying to do is vitally important. These juveniles are stuck in this Kafkaesque world where the police do not talk to the prison, the courts do not have a system for reviewing orders and the social services are overwhelmed.

And what of the sick boy? Well, further calls located the local police officer. It was agreed that the boy must get to his family some 85 kms or three hours distant. The boy would first have to be taken in his fevered state to the police station in which he was charged in order to be given bail. But - no the police had no responsibility to get him home. The boy's buttocks were so ulcerated that he could not sit up, so he needed a car. Social Services agreed to take the responsibility but the car dispatched was involved in an accident and their other car was being mended in a garage. Desmond agreed to accompany the boy next day with a local social work manager. He was taken back to his poor family who now have to find a way to treat his illness and get him back to answer his bail at the end of July. It seems that he too was put into prison by the police because of the theft of a bicycle. There is no court order for his detention. The boy claims that he took the bike after his employer failed to pay his garden-boy wages. When he still received no payment he sold the bike. No authority has tested this assertion.

We hope that we can sell the idea to the prison that staff can make their contact with the boys more productive. At present the boys do nothing in the yard while the staff do nothing in their room. UNICEF will probably offer resources for recreation - CEYCA will hope to be able to offer staff training - Mrs G will talk to staff. - hopefully, DFID will hold meetings about systems and alternatives. Things may improve, but don't hold your breath.

SOME TIME LATER

I have just returned from Zomba, a pretty town in a snug bowl in the middle of a circle of mountains. This is the picturesque setting for the Southern Region central prison, which is both an infamous political prison of the Banda era and now the home of high security prisoners and a juvenile wing. Enoch, a Kenyan, is working as the HIV/AIDs co-ordinator for the region's prisons so we are able to make a short visit. 

The prison was built in the 1930s as a contribution of the colonial administration to Malawian progress into the civilised world. DIFD continue the tradition in a more modern style and are about to fund a major refurbishment of the prison.

This is a different world. At least the surroundings seem to offer space, recreation and contact even if the cells are overcrowded. In this poor soil it was possible for something to flower. As we walked through the football-field-sized compound we were greeted by adult prisoners in clean white cotton suits consisting a shirt and frayed shorts. These were the trusties. They were enthusiastic and spoke English well. Enoch told me that they had access to some education and sport. He assured me that he had seen little mistreatment and that there was generally a good atmosphere. We also met prison administrators who were eloquent, well-informed and keen to do well by the inmates. The warders were more military and less sympathetic. 

Collins also took some German visitors to visit a model juvenile wing at Dowa. They reported that it was an open prison with good facilities and a well-motivated staff. This taught me how easy it is to make generalised judgements about conditions and issues in Malawi. My upset at the truly horrific scenes in Maula led me underestimate the progress being made by DFID's prison reform programme. There is even a growing Community Service Scheme for young people.

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