A shimmer of justice

It’s hard to expect justice in a place that’s been troubled with an unjust civil war for over 2 decades. Today, though, I was hopeful. Before Christmas, one of the finance staff stole a significant amount of money from our checking account. This broke my heart. If this happened in the US or UK, I would be annoyed – there is no part of me that thinks theft is acceptable no matter how great the desperation. But, from an NGO in Sudan, by a Sudanese, it’s more disheartening – stakeholders here are beneficiaries who rely on Tearfund for basic healthcare and food, in some cases. In this type of business, it actually occurs fairly frequently, but I still can’t accept knowing that some English grandmother’s £100 donation towards aid in Sudan has now gone to some staff person who’s absconded.

Today, I accompanied our lawyer to the police station to file the case and provide a statement. Surprisingly, this process only took 3 hours, far less than I had anticipated. The police station is an old building with various rooms but has a large porch with a counter where you report your case. We approached the police man at the counter and he and the lawyer had a discussion in Arabic. He proceeded to pull out a huge log book – where he wrote all the information, right to left (as you do in Arabic), all the relevant parties and even assigned me a case number - #146. After waiting sometime, I met with the investigator to provide my statement. It was a bit like the game – telephone. I gave my statement in periodic sentences in English, the lawyer translated in Arabic, and the investigator wrote the statement in Arabic. Who knows if the statement reflects anything I said

After being dropped off at the office, the lawyer went with two armed police officers to the staff person’s home. He wasn’t there of course, and whether he’s even still in the country, we don’t know. While we didn’t find justice yet, my confidence in the “baby step” development of Southern Sudan was restored. The police had a process. While it might have been slightly archaic – no computers, no database, no audio recorders, etc, they had a process - and determination to do their jobs to the best of their ability.