The ICCN “big bosses” and their international collaborators forever justify the need for “capacity building,” which never occurs, prompting more calls for “capacity building,” which never occurs. This institutionalized system of graft perpetually cycles funding back to the international gatekeepers: expatriates with big salaries, GPS equipment, shiny new SUV’s, international travel and conferences, and, increasingly, weapons and other “security” and “logistics” equipment.
Cementing the system in place are the public relations articles and documentaries that peddle white supremacist mythologies in the Smithsonian and National Geographic magazines and films, in Jane Goodall IMAX extravaganzas, and in short pithy fictional “news” pieces by Anderson Cooper on CNN.
It is important for readers not familiar with the Democratic Republic of Congo to understand that most of the city of Goma is overrun with solidified black lava, garbage and human misery, while the relatively untouched embassy row along the shores of Lake Kivu resembles a spa by Congolese standards. There is electricity, Internet access, hot running water and charming colonial era hotels with a 1940’s European flair.
In regional and provincial ICCN offices, directors are appointed to serve the strategic interests of the bosses in Kinshasa to whom they are accountable. “That pleases the bosses above them in Kinshasa,” Katembo wrote, “and oppresses the staff below them without considering the impact on the efficiency of the institution and work.”
International “consultants,” colluding in the “conservation ‘clique,’ gather like hyenas at the kill” of gorilla conservation. We have been provided with the names of individuals associated with well-known global conservation organizations and descriptions of illicit activities of these organizations, some of which are funded through US tax dollars. We are holding them back until DOJ completes its own investigation.
“These people manipulate and handle money from donors on the ground, and the budgets are set accordingly so they remain in good eyes of the Administrateur Directeur General (ADG) and Technical Director (ADT) and their accomplices,” Katembo charges.
Katembo also alleges that UNESCO funding has been expropriated.
Salaries for expatriates, often paid by international donors, are between 5000-6000 Euros ($6850-$8500) per person per month. A measly $200-500 US per month is allocated for Park Operations (includes food, fuel, medicine, logistics needs and equipment purchases). And the Congolese rangers themselves are paid a pittance. Ranger’s bonuses and salaries top out at $20-30 US per person per month—hardly a life-sustaining wage.
In a BBC news opinion piece of September 10, 2007 titled “Conservation Alone is Not Enough,” Wildlife Direct founder Richard Leakey referred to “ludicrously small government salaries” in DRC, where “a ranger earns about $5 a month.”
Richard Leakey’s opinion piece should be addressing the institutional racism inherent in a system which pays (mostly) white expatriates $6000-$8000 per person per month—with all kinds of travel, health, lodging and vacation perks—and $5 per person per month for black rangers living and dying in squalor. Leakey’s comments are further rendered obtuse when we learn that board members of the Africa Conservation Fund backing Wildlife Direct are involved with multinational corporations plundering gold from eastern Congo.
The disparity between salaries of Congolese rangers and those of conservation expatriates parallel those of Congolese nationals employed by the Western “humanitarian” sector: For one poignant example, national staff on the United Nations Observers Mission to Congo (MONUC) payroll went on strike in August 2007 to protest the $10 a day wages MONUC’s black nationals receive, compared to lucrative salaries of the international staff. Congolese nationals who protest at private NGOs like Doctor’s Without Borders or CARE risk retaliation for the mildest complaints about conditions or salaries. Congolese nationals working at a Medicines Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders supported hospital in Basankusu, DRC, who complained (in solidarity) about wages and conditions were abandoned as MSF closed the program and pulled out.
Humanitarianism, like conservation, is the big international scandal in Africa.
GREASING THE GORILLA SKIDS
In the Virungas, Field Station Senior Staff, including the chief warden and financial managers, are appointed according to favors they can supply either to the ADG, ADT or Director Mwamba. “They are selectively and strategically appointed in areas and positions where they have easy access to finances and all logistical support and other facilities from funded projects—provided that they remember to report regularly to the bosses.”
It is in this capacity that Paulin Ngobobo, who is from the same village as the ADG Cosma Wilingula, and without any previous experience in National Park management, was appointed in the southern sector of the Virungas National Park—where the world recoiled in horror at the record number of gorilla killings in recent months.
Anyone who read the regurgitated press releases of Wildlife Direct in the Washington Post or Newsweek will recall that ranger Ngobobo was touted by the mainstream Western media as the gentleman savior of the Virungas—silhouetted against the African sky, nattily attired in spit-and-polished uniform and boots.
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