It’s been quiet about the boys in Congo for a while now. The promises made by the authorities have not been held, and everything is on standstill. It’s been vacation time at the Foreign Ministry and they’ve obviously had a lot to do with the happenings in Oslo and Utoya.
A local paper has interviewed Ambassador Vea, and he said that he doesn’t think anything will happen until the election at the end of October. He also said that he has a year left as Ambassador for Angola/Congo and that his ambition is to solve this case before he leaves. We really hope so. We believe that there has to be a much tougher rhetoric to solve this case! We hope and believe that it will happen. The Foreign Ministry has promised us in a meeting that the case has high priority.
It’s almost unbelievable that the boys have coped as well as they have for so long. Not many people would under the conditions they live under. They haven’t given up, even though there has to be many tough and hard days. We do believe that time works to their advantage. When the thugs see that time passes and no money comes their way, they will probably understand that they will never see any money. That the boys don’t have or can’t get them, and that Norwegian authorities won’t pay. They will hopefully get tired of this. We hope that with continuous pressure from Britain and Norway a solution will come.
There are two things that worry us. One is that the election in Kisangani can become violent, and nobody knows what can happen. The second worry is the finances. The boys get 100 USD each from the Foreign Ministry, but the expenses for food and other life necessities is over 2000 USD. From the state of Congo they get nothing, no food, no medication, pure water, nothing. If they didn’t have family and nice people who pay to their accounts they couldn’t possibly survive. It’s a possibility that the Foreign Ministry would’ve paid up front for them to survive, under the condition that they had to pay it back, or put pressure on Congo’s government to actually provide for life necessities. We have to believe that. It’s an incredible situation they’re in. Congo is using them as hostages to pressure Norway for money under the reference that they are spies, something even the Congolese knows aren’t true. This is happening at the same time as Congo receives significant amounts of money from Norway and even more from Britain. There is no logic to this.
For the families this is a nightmare that drags out indefinitely.
Knut Moland, August 17th 2011
