Moral dilemmas

Last Thursday something awful happened which laid bare the moral dilemmas of working under the Vienna Convention (diplomatic rights and obligations). It also reminded me of a similar dilemma about non-intervention I was confronted with personally a few weeks ago.

I should start by telling you that the charming young française who recently frustrated my budding management efforts is no longer the section's latest acquisition. The position of most junior member has now been taken by another young expert, a 26-year old French economist, a bit of a cowboy and as enthousiastic and wild as a young puppy dog, he's all over the place.

On Thursday we sent Puppy Dog on a one-day mission, his first here, into the bush together with representatives of two other donors, government representatives, and an army escort to inspect a project set up to reincorporate ex-combatants (from the numerous past civil conflicts here) into society again. Massive efforts to which my employer makes large financial contributions at a centralized level, whereas the project itself, in this and other ccountries in the region, is managed by another large donor.

As the convoy returned from the project late afternoon they tried to catch up on time lost during the day in order to be back in the capital before dark (security). Roads in this country are most of the time riddled with potholes and/or not asphalted at all. This particular road has however been renovated recently, so they were travelling at great speed, like 130 km/h. Very dangerous, as high grass and shrubs grow right at the sides of the road due to poor road maintenance.* Often people on the road, including small children, step back into roadside bush until cars have passed and then come out again, frequently to be hit by the next car that they hadn't heard coming. However, that was not what happened in this particular instance. As the convoy was racing back to the capital, with an army car up front, they followed a left curve in the road, cutting it for marginal time gains and thus driving at high speed on the left hand side of the road in a curve with no visibility on oncoming traffic. Sure enough, an oncoming rickety old pick-up truck with 6-7 people standing in the back suddenly emerged on that same left lane. The lead car of the convoy swung back to the right hand lane. So did the second car in the convoy, with Puppy Dog and the government's representative in it. Nevertheless the oncoming pick-up truck also had to make a rash manoeuvre to avoid a head-on collision. It is not clear whether the people in the truck panicked and jumped offf the truck at the sight of the second car coming on, or whether they were simply thrown off because of the wild swings the driver had to make not to hit the convoy. I presume the latter. The result seems to have been ghastly as 6-7 people hit the asphalt at a speed of about 80 km/h. The convoy stopped about half a mile further down the road. Government and army people took a long while to deliberate, then finally, after much urging by the people they were accompanying, decided to send back one army car to see what had happened. They came back to report on several severely wounded, included somebody's skull split open, and a little girl with one or several limbs torn off. (Believe me, this is as sickening for me to write as it is for you to read.)

Our new colleague turns out to be a amateur firefighter with a training in first aid. As the clock was ticking precious minutes away, he insisted several times and with increasing frustration that he be allowed to go back and assist the wounded. This was flatly refused by the government representative, who cited security reasons and the fact that the mission was already running late as it was.... These same security reasons didn't stop him, urged on by the foreign mission, from sending the complete armed ascort to go and pick up the wounded - thus leaving the misssion unprotected anyway - and drive them in the back of their pick-up trucks to a nearby countryside medical post. The foreign mission hasn't actually seen the wounded, but to tell by the nature of the injuries reported by the army (which the government guy almost immediately tried to talk down as mere 'scratches'), there is little doubt in my mind that some people involved in the accident are almost certainly not going to survive their ordeal. Medical facilities here, and especially those in the provinces, are terrible, see my story about M.'s surgery. Driving somebody with a fractured skull to hospital in the back of a pick-up truck will certainly not do him any good. And then the little girl, and the others with equally terrifying injuries, jesus.

Obviously Puppy Dog came back to the office seriously upset that evening , so I sat him down and we talked about it. Of course I can understand his deep frustration. I had to praise the self-restraint he had shown by respecting the fact that formally he was under the host government's orders at the time of the accident and by not following his basic instincts and running half a mile back to help. I am not even sure it would have made much of a difference given the terrible medical care the injured would receive afterwards, or at least that was what I told him.

But ... somehow it doesn't feel right. I must admit that I am not even sure how I would have reacted myself and whether his decision not to ignore the government's man's orders to stay put was really the right thing to do. Honestly, I don't know, and I guess that counts against me, professionally.

It reminded me of another incident, a few weeks ago, that had nothing to do with traffic but everything with the principle of non-intervention. I intervened in my quality as a diplomat, with the reticent approval of my superior, at a police station on behalf of our nanny's half-brother (more on African family relations some other time), a small time magouilleur as far as I can tell with hindsight, involved in a dispute over unpaid bills dating back a few years ago. While in custody, he had been threatened with imminent execution that day by a notorious local thug (an army man, and therefore untouchable), aided and abetted by the police station guards who had just let him walk into the prison. He had been sent/hired by the party to which the nanny's brother owed money in order to speed up the paying of the bills. I went there just to make the point that his case was 'followed' by us and that I merely wanted to ascertain that he was, and would remain, in good health. After some negotiations, including a long, polite but tense phone conversation with the commander of thye police station, I managed to see him, after the guardians had initially denied he was even there. He was OK, not terribly comfortable of course but he seemed, unlesss I am mistaken, somewhat less impressed with the situation than our nanny and her sister.

Apparently my intervention helped, as he has been treated correctly afterwards, although he is still in custody without formal charges etcetera as far as I know. With the wisdom of hindsight however, I probably reacted too impulsively and with insufficient knowledge about the case, rushing to action when I saw the terror on our nanny's face when she told me about the death threat. We just can't get involved in every individual case, and this one was a rather doubtful one at that. But should I have waited for a complete file to be compiled while a death threat was issued by somebody quite capable of following up on it? I guess from a human point of view my intervention will be judged by some (and certainly the nanny, who was deeply grateful for it) as the right thing to do, but this one is almost certain to count against me professionally. So be it.

So, some lessons learnt:
1. A human life isn't worth much here, as I had already started to realise before. Completely innocent people's lives have quite possibly been ended or else ruined. I am almost sure that the government and army will not do anything for them, although messages will be passed on our part in this respect.
2. Working in the framework of international agreements and conventions, like the Vienna convention can give rise to terrible moral dilemmas. I'm sure there are thousands of examples out there, much more painful than the ones cited here. For instance, on a completely different, vastly vastly more awful level, Romeo Dallaire's experiences as a UN general during the Rwandan genocide come to mind. It's all part of the game, and of the career path that I have chosen. But it's difficult and will require all the sound judgment that I can muster.


* It makes you think of our efforts to renovate roads in the capital and elsewhere in this country. Most people here walk for lack of means, and asphalted roads make for comfortable walking. Driving behaviour is terrible here, and the rehabilitation will almost certainly lead to more victims as any new stretch of asphalt leads people to drive recklessly fast. The price of progress, I guess...