Borderlines

by Michela Wrong

  I scrunched up a few newspaper pages and dropped them into the grill, dousing the crumpled paper in lighter fluid. My hands were shaking as I struggled with the box of cheap Chinese matches. The first match exploded like a sub-standard firework, the second broke at the stem. On the fourth attempt, the flames took. I waited impatiently for embers to form, then cracked open the passports and fed them, one by one, into the fire. It was surprising how long it took for the stamped pages to curl slowly into charred onion rings and turn a lustreless sorcerer’s black. The certificates were a lot quicker, their ornate calligraphy buckling and withering in seconds.

  Burning the money was more painful. As I peeled off each creased, hundred-dollar bill I thought of the long chain of sacrifice, hope and good intentions that had placed these well-thumbed notes, with their faintly gamy aura, in my hands. The taxi drivers, telephone operators, cleaners and nurses out in the diaspora who had worked double shifts, slept fifteen to a room, collected supermarket loyalty points, all to be able to send this money home. And how it had been smuggled into the country tucked into cleavages above pounding hearts, slipped into underwear and hidden inside sweaty shoes, treasured by each grateful recipient, counted and recounted for the eventual contribution it would make to the planned Great Escape. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ I mumbled as I stirred the notes to ashes. There was an assignment for me, should I ever succeed in leaving this country: paying off this moral debt.

  It was done, just in time. Yonathan had reappeared in front of the house, brandishing my cigarettes. As I thanked him effusively, pressing a large tip into his hand, his nostrils crinkled, picking up, perhaps, a whiff of charred paper on my clothes. He shot me a curious glance but said nothing.

  Fifteen minutes later, I was in a taxi heading to the office. When we reached the junction between Giolitti Street and Liberation Avenue, I asked the taxi to pull up. Across the road, behind the ugly cement bollards designed to thwart suicide bombers, its walls fringed with barbed wire, sat the US Embassy. I could walk across there now and ask for protection. It would be the easiest thing in the world. The terms of the necessary deal would not have to be spelled out between consenting adults: top-level intervention and a flight home in return for a privileged view from inside the President’s Legal Office. The officials would be discreet and sympathetic and would try not to say anything censorious, but we’d all know. Snooty Miss I-Can-Manage-On-My-Own would have been taught a timely lesson in who her real friends were. I looked up at the mirror, where a plastic-beaded crucifix swung from side to side, and met the driver’s eyes. I would not give them the satisfaction. ‘OK, no, let’s go.’

  Ignoring the buzz of comments and exclamations – ‘Yes, yes, it’s me, bit of a cock-up at the airport’ – I took up my customary position at my desk. A pile of witness statements sat waiting to be appraised. I shuffled through them, trying to convey an impression of routine activity to Sharmila and the interns. I leafed through tallies of raided livestock, looted corrugated-iron roofs, trashed clinics. The micro-costing of war, so petty to the outsider (‘Four goats, including ram. One camel’), yet so vital to those concerned. But nothing connected.

  When Barnabas finally returned from the ministry, he was carrying my passport. The page with my visa, a pretty affair of curlicues, flowers and tropical birds, none of which I’d ever spotted during my time in Lira, was now scarred by a large, angry felt-tip cross. A covering note from the Ministry of Immigration read: ‘As of 14/11/05, the entry visa and work permit of Ms Paula Shackleton are cancelled. A government protocol will ensure her safe boarding of the Alitalia flight at 2315 hrs tonight.’ I felt my face flush, although I could not tell whether it was from anger, humiliation or relief. In the politest possible way, I was being deported.

  I was right to burn it all. I’ve been searched, scanned and patted down at many frontiers, but all those were desultory inspections compared to what I underwent on my final passage through Lira airport, overseen by Green Eyes and my silent government minder.

  I was still braced for an ‘Excuse me’, a hand on my shoulder and a request to come this way as I queued at the bottom of the aircraft steps. Even when the Airbus doors closed with a sealing whumpf and we were trundling down the runway, I refused to let myself believe I had escaped. I waited till I felt the weight of the aircraft float off the ground and heard the wheels clunk into place in the undercarriage. Then I turned my face to the window, where the city lights were already being swallowed by the vast darkness of that great plateau. As the aircraft banked and shrugged off the contours of the familiar landscape, I closed my eyes. I was done with Lira, I knew, and it was done with me.

  33

  TRANSCRIPT OF SESSION, 15 NOVEMBER 2005

  DECISION

  Regarding delimitation of the Border

  between

  The State of North Darrar

  and

  The Federal Democratic Republic of Darrar

  By the Commission, composed of:

  His Excellency Judge Ulrich Mautner, chairman

  Professor François Rainier

  Eddie Connors

  VENUE: Small Hall of Justice, Peace Palace, The Hague

  The State of North Darrar represented by:

  His Excellency Mr Simon Gebreyesus, Foreign Minister of State of North Darrar, Agent

  His Excellency Mr Hailu Gebremedhin, Ambassador to the Netherlands

  Winston Peabody, Legal Adviser to the Office of the President, Melville & Bart, Co-agent

  Paula Shackleton, Oxford University, London School of Economics

  Ismael Aregai, University of Lira

  The Federal Democratic Republic of Darrar, represented by:

  His Excellency, Minister of Foreign Affairs Mikael Senai, Agent

  His Excellency Mr Gebre Selassie, Ambassador to the Netherlands

  Henry Alexander, Newton & Maud, Boston, Member of the Bar of the District of Columbia, Co-agent

  Reginald Watts, Newton & Maud, Boston

  Spencer Greene, Newton & Maud, Boston

  Katherine Hughes, Newton & Maud, Boston

  Joel Winter, Yale University

  Tracey Mulligan, Brown University

  With onlooker status:

  Michelle Winthrop, US State Department, Washington

  Alan Middleton, US Ambassador to the State of North Darrar

  Brett Harris, economics officer, US Embassy to the State of North Darrar

  Johan Svenstrum, Ambassador of the Republic of Sweden to the Federal Republic of Darrar

  Alistair Ruddock, Ambassador of the United Kingdom to the Federal Republic of Darrar, holding rotating EU presidency

  Shu Wan Jing, Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to the Federal Republic of Darrar

  Bosire wa Bosire, head of UN Mission to the Horn of Africa (UNMHA)

  General Jaime Sanchez, commander-in-chief of UNMHA

  Members of the international media

  JUDGE ULRICH MAUTNER: Let me welcome you all to the Peace Palace on this foggy winter’s day.

  Given the importance of what is about to be announced, I took the decision to invite not only the parties directly concerned, but those members of the international community whose role will be to facilitate and monitor subsequent developments. The inclusion of these weighty witnesses will, I hope, focus everyone’s minds on the work that is to come. In the coming months and years, the very principle of international justice – this commission’s raison d’être – will be put to the test in your two nations. Your legal teams have shown commendable dedication in preparing your respective cases and I thank all the witnesses and experts for their contributions. But this, in itself, will not suffice. Arbitration’s purpose is to produce an award, and for today’s award to have any value, it must be respected politically, diplomatically and militarily.

  Your governments’ duties will be to anticipate, direct and weather domestic response to what happens here today. We do not underestimate the challenges or complexity of tha
t task, but as an institution created to administer international law, such factors have not been allowed to influence our decision-making. Our concern is that you remain cognisant of the undertakings your governments made on signing up to this arbitration process. To underline this point, and at the risk of being accused of melodrama, I would like, before I read out the award, to put a simple question to both parties to the dispute. Foreign Minister Simon Gebreyesus, does your government stand by the commitment it made under the 2003 Tunis Agreement that this commission’s ruling will be final and binding?

  FOREIGN MINISTER SIMON GEBREYESUS: We do, Mr Chairman.

  JUDGE MAUTNER: And you, Foreign Minister Mikael Senai?

  FOREIGN MINISTER MIKAEL SENAI: Hand on heart, we do.

  JUDGE MAUTNER: Thank you. I will now read the award. I appeal to all those present to remain silent until this procedure is complete. We anticipate that feelings are bound to run high, but this is not the appropriate forum for comment or criticism. My officers have been instructed to eject anyone who fails to respect these rules.

  Given the well-informed nature of this audience and the limited time available to us, I intend to omit a read-through of the procedural and substantive introductions that open our report, along with the definition of the commission’s task and exploration of applicable law. Let me proceed to the nub of the matter on page ninety-five and present the detail of our findings, moving geographically from western through central to eastern sector. I must ask Mr van Straaten to oblige us with illustrations as I do so.

  After a couple of minutes, the ambassador had leaned forward to whisper in my ear, ‘Why are they doing it like this? Why don’t they just give us the place names?’

  Winston whipped round. ‘Silence,’ he hissed, then turned back. It was the first time I’d seen him lash out at a Lira official.

  Judge Mautner was picking his way along the spine of the border with the fastidiousness of a diner dismembering a sole on a plate. His delivery was generously sprinkled with grid co-ordinates for latitude and longitude, degrees of divergence, numbered terminal points, tributaries and mountain ranges. But towns and villages were barely mentioned, and the focus of each segment of the map displayed on the screen was so close and tight it was hard to grasp where the agreed overall border lay, which side had won and which had lost.

  Strictly speaking, Judge Mautner was doing exactly what he had been hired to do: experts on international law rarely go in for broad-brush assessments. But as I looked at the row of expectant journalists – BBC, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Xinhua, CNN, NPR and five international newspapers – I thought: That’s why. Stripped as far as was possible of its human content, this bone-dry map reading was the commission’s attempt to slow down news delivery. Several reporters had maps of the Horn of Africa unfolded in front of them but their expressions were as baffled as the ambassador’s. Deliver a dense enough judgment, the commissioners must have thought, and it will force the parties to count to ten before declaring themselves vindicated or wronged. I could just imagine them congratulating themselves on a wheeze that would prevent any reporter sprinting out halfway through Judge Mautner’s reading to shout a headline into his mobile. I hoped they were right. Maybe all they had actually come up with was a formula for future misrepresentation.

  I sat with the report open before me, struggling and failing to find my bearings. It had been a manic journey, fuelled by guilt, fear and a hunger for absolution. I knew my days as an employee of North Darrar were over, but I also knew that I needed to hear Judge Mautner’s gavel come down that one last time. I had landed at Schiphol, immediately boarded the train to The Hague, hailed a taxi at the station and walked into the Royal Delft, giving the ‘Never Less Than Welcome’ logo over the main desk a wry grimace as I took the stairs in twos. ‘I’m here. I’ll explain later,’ was all I’d said to Winston, suppressing the instinct to unburden myself. A curt nod from him, and I’d just had time for a three-minute shower before the team assembled in the lobby. I was simultaneously aware of a huge fatigue, to be paid for at some later date, and a driving restlessness.

  I craned my neck to look at Winston and Kennedy, huddled together like doctors over a patient. Brows welded, Winston was staring at Judge Mautner with absolute concentration. Before him on the table was a list of place names, collated under three headlines: WESTERN, CENTRAL, EASTERN. As Judge Mautner read, Winston’s pencil ran down the villages and towns: a tick if we’d won our argument, a cross if it had gone to their side. The marks, I knew, were entirely for Kennedy’s benefit: Winston had long ago internalised North Darrar’s geography. Taking it for granted that the award would be incomprehensible to a politician, he had come prepared. Mimicking Kennedy, I was reduced to taking notes of Winston’s notes.

  In the western sector, we had essentially won the argument. With the exception of the villages of Achamew and Golpik, the commissioners had taken our side. The west was secure. But no one gave a fig about the west.

  Judge Mautner began on the central sector. Tick, tick, tick, went Winston’s pencil. Then, opposite the name ‘Shanti’, he placed a cross.

  ‘No, not Shanti,’ blurted Kennedy, ‘Not there.’ I had a sudden vision of our three wise men, their expectant, laughing faces and gleaming eyes. We had failed them. Judge Mautner continued reading, ignoring the interruption. Collateral damage, I told myself. Sanasa is what matters. Sanasa represents overall vindication or guilt.

  Judge Mautner paused, took a slow drink of water and surveyed the room. He was ratcheting up the tension with all the subtlety of a pantomime artist.

  ‘And now we turn to the all-important eastern sector. Given the confusing existence of two versions of the 1899 correspondence between the Negus’s secretary and the Italian Foreign Ministry, the commission decided to rule both inadmissible. Evidence of subsequent conduct submitted by the Federal Republic of Darrar’s counsel also proved problematical’ – Winston’s lips twitched at this – ‘and the commission accordingly agreed it did nothing to undermine clear evidence of an uninterrupted pattern of unchallenged administration dating back to the Italian colonial period.’

  This time I didn’t need Winston’s list or the foreign minister’s excited, triumphant bark. Sanasa was ours. We had pulled it off. A temazepam calm flooded my limbs. I bowed my head, overcome by a feeling of loosening, the unravelling of some tight internal knot. When I opened my eyes, Winston was looking straight at me, honey-coloured eyes alight. The way a lover might look at the woman he is about to marry. When I remember that moment I see a man afire, all blazing eyes and golden mane.

  Things seemed to shift into slow motion then. I watched with curiosity as Kennedy slowly pulled an Orthodox crucifix from inside his shirt, kissed it, clenched both fists and buried his head in the crook of his elbows. Hey, drawled a voice in my head, I thought these guys in the Movement were atheists. I looked across the room, dreamily noticing Henry Alexander’s strange grey colour and that Reginald Watts was trying not to cry. Languidly I took in the fact that the other side’s ambassador and foreign minister, in defiance of instructions, were engaged in febrile sotto voce conversation. Sloth-like, I turned in my seat to survey the room. Some of the journalists, I could tell, thought they knew what had happened; the others were still lost. My languorous gaze moved to our VIP observers: UNMHA’s Bosire wa Bosire and his general, the bevy of Western ambassadors, the woman from the State Department, Brett and his boss, then stopped. Something was wrong, I thought, but I couldn’t immediately place it. They looked so … unsurprised. Yet so tense. Like a bar crowd watching a football match as it goes into extra time, knowing everything is still up for grabs.

  And then Judge Mautner rapped his gavel on the desk, and I snapped out of my reverie. ‘Please, everyone, if I can beg your attention, we are not quite done,’ he said. There was an edge to his voice. ‘Not done at all.’

  Silence descended. He adjusted his glasses and began to read.

  ‘The commission has so far confined itself to the
crucial task of eliminating historical and political ambiguities over the trajectory and course of the border that have blighted relations between two Red Sea nations.

  ‘However, we are well aware that such ambiguities do not, in every instance, lead to war. A poorly defined frontier does not ineluctably imply conflict. Alternative methodologies for resolving disputes exist. It is in this context that the stance and behaviour of parties to a conflict becomes of pressing relevance.

  ‘The Tunis Agreement, as you know, catered for an “independent and impartial body” to be appointed by the secretary general of the African Union, in consultation with the secretary general of the United Nations, to address the issue of whether either side violated the rules of international law on the use of force, or jus ad bellum. The commission understands that this independent body has never been constituted, despite the pressing importance of this issue. One of the respondents,’ he looked pointedly over his glasses at Winston, ‘has asserted that this commission enjoys no jurisdiction over this issue. We find this argument unpersuasive.’

  And then he proceeded to weave his intricate grey web. He compared and contrasted sub-clauses of the Tunis Agreement, carving out vast territories of jurisdictional possibility from gaps in the language; he cross-referenced it to rulings in the cases of Argentina v. United Kingdom (1982), Cameroon v. Nigeria (2001) and Democratic Republic of Congo v. Uganda (2002); he reflected on the contrasting and complementary roles of claims tribunals, border commissions and the overall philosophies guiding the Permanent Court of Arbitration and the International Court of Justice. Softly, insistently, he pulled at these wisps of gossamer, rolling them into a thread of argumentation, then followed that thin string down the narrow, dank corridors of international law, weaving his way through the labyrinth until he reached a dripping Minotaur’s cell, where his prey lay waiting.