Cassie Knight on Aid Work

Let’s start with your own book, Brazzaville Charms. Please tell us about it.

I wrote it after living and working in the Republic of Congo, which is the smaller of the two Congos. It was a country I loved from the moment I arrived. Despite having a horrible government, it has a wonderful tiny capital city that is beautiful and French in its centre, with lively African districts where the majority of the population lives. The Congolese are great fun and there were many intriguing social issues and a history of some terrible civil wars. One ethnic group was led by Pastor Ntumi, who claimed he was the reincarnation a Jesus-like figure. His followers believed he had magical powers. It was a religious movement and also an armed rebellion and a political movement. The majority ethnic group were being sidelined from government and services and were fighting for their right to be equal citizens. But in terms of the actual leadership of the movement, it was a priestly figure who promised redemption and revelation as well as a change in social life.

The actual civil war Pastor Ntumi led started in 1998 and it was a terrible crisis because fighting took over half the capital, where the main ethnic group lived. They fled to the bush, which was essentially rainforest with a few patches of cultivation. Pastor Ntumi held that civilian population captive in the forest while his band of followers called the Ninjas fought against the army. For around six to nine months up to 400,000 people were trapped in the forest and there was terrible malnutrition. After the fighting finished people started returning to the city and it was one of the worst emergency situations that NGOs have ever seen. But because it happened at the same time as the Kosovo crisis the world just wasn’t listening, even though it was much more severe in terms of numbers and the humanitarian crisis that followed.

Could you describe the aid response?

The main response was to set up nutrition centres. Usually it is those under five years old who are the most severely affected by malnutrition. But this was the whole population. Adults were coming in looking absolutely wasted by malnutrition. A doctor showed me his ID card from just after the war. It was like looking into the future. His photo showed a shrivelled, ancient face and his neck was so thin. In real life he had recovered and was once again a strong, muscular, good-looking doctor. But he had come out of the forest as malnourished as everyone else.

The acute phase lasted for three months and then the CRS supported the health services as a lot of the clinics had been burnt in the fighting. We trained staff and gave families seeds and tools so they could start farming again. It was so moving because these areas were so desperate for assistance. No goods were reaching them because the roads were destroyed. The young men who had fought were waiting for life to get better and you knew that if it didn’t the fighting would start again.

There was officially a peace deal but the rebels were still there and fighting blew up again in 2002 with another civil war. It’s still in a precarious neither-war-neither-peace situation.

Your book also contains stories of sorcery – could you tell us about that?

I became really intrigued by the widespread belief in sorcery and magic. I met a famous sorcerer who was locally believed to be the most powerful sorcerer in the country. He was said to have played a role in the civil war. His city had escaped the war and he claimed credit for that because he put a magical barrier around the city and fought another sorcerer. People brought him tributes afterwards and even the president had called on him to keep him on side.

Why did you select the Sphere handbook on Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster Response?

This is a very different type of book. It’s very practical for people working in emergency response. It was launched after the Rwandan crisis and it’s based on human rights – specifically that everyone has the right to live in dignity. This is enshrined in international law but the handbook tries to define what dignity is. When everyone is rushing to provide assistance as quickly as possible there is now a minimum standard for providing food relief, sanitation, shelter and so forth.

Particularly in the larger crises, such as the Rwandan genocide, there were lots of new NGOs and groups who just set up and did their best. But there was no real definition of what the assistance is or should be. Now there is and you can be called to account. Or you can just all agree on what the basis is without having to research it first. It’s a minimum standard and in a lot of emergencies it’s difficult even to reach it, but at least the standard is there. So it’s a very useful book and I have spent a lot of time training people on it. It is really helpful for everyone to know in advance what they are aiming to do. It has been translated into hundreds of languages and it’s used by thousands of different organisations and it’s recognised by donors as well as NGOs.