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July 22nd, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
One man’s daughter has died while he was behind bars; others are suffering
mentally, while Mr Simpson tries his hardest to keep their spirits up. When
asked what he wanted bringing from the UK, Mr Simpson asked for gifts for
the men. “It’s just incredible. I can’t believe we’ve been in here so
long. They have no evidence against us, and all keep on telling us they know
we’re innocent,” he said.
“So why don’t they just let us out?”
It is a question he has had plenty of time to ponder behind the thick, razor
wire-topped walls of Ngarabara prison –originally built by the French
colonisers in 1953, three miles from the centre of the capital Bangui.
“I had no option but to report the murders,” he said. “Some of
the victims were relations of my local staff, who were hysterical. You can’t
just brush off something like that.” Yet his moral compass has landed
him behind bars.
The prison is the country’s main detention centre – although only around 70 of
the inmates have ever been tried or convicted of a crime. The rest are in
limbo.
It makes for a menacing environment. Soldiers lolling under the trees outside
idly check the identification of visitors, but once inside the prison no one
is in uniform. An unspoken hierarchy comes into play, with some inmates
acting as guards in return for privileges.
A heavy padlock clangs open to let us in, while prisoners press against the
gates glaring at the newcomers. Any food is immediately ripped at by hungry
inmates; I hold on tightly to my bag and try to avoid eye contact. Inside
the grassed courtyard, where David spends his time jogging, everyone is free
to roam around; murderers mixing with political prisoners.
“They all know who I am, of course, but I generally try and keep myself
to myself. When we first arrived the other inmates attacked our staff to
steal their flip flops, and there was a huge fight.
“One of our staff picked up this guy and threw him to the floor, and for
that he was put in ‘Porte Rouge’, the punishment cell, for an hour or so.
“It’s hideous in there; you can’t stand up and there is no toilet, with
seven men crammed in and only a tiny window in the corner.”
Mr Simpson and the colleagues he is detained with have their own “wing”
of the prison – a room above the other sections, guarded by the baseball bat
and a door they padlock themselves at night, and furnished with mosquito
nets and thin mattresses on the floor.
In the corner they store cool boxes containing food – “gozo”,
a cassava mash, with meat sauce – provided by their employers: preferable to
the filthy prison food that is prepared on charcoal stoves beneath their
room.
Mr Simpson has a stack of books, while his African colleagues lie on their
mats flicking through the pictures in Africa Today magazine; most
cannot read the words.
He describes the conditions as “not that bad” – but hearing beatings
by guards and gun shots in the night as desperate men try to climb the walls
cannot be conducive to sleep. Those caught attempting to flee are brutally
punished: in a chilling moment, he was among the inmates summoned to the
courtyard to watch as the men were stripped naked, then beaten mercilessly
with strips of leather. “The guards can be pretty nasty if they want,”
he said.
One wing of the prison is nicknamed Iraq; another, “The White House”,
contains all the political prisoners.
“They are the ones with more money, so the other prisoners try and work
for them – make coffee, wash their clothes, run errands. Anything to earn
some change.”
One man is behind bars for failing to dim his headlights as the president’s
convoy passed; another, a cow herder from Chad, was imprisoned for five
years because some soldiers heard a rumour there were rebels there. His
family think he is dead.
Mr Simpson, who speaks the local dialect Sangho, translates for a Nigerian
inmate – a retired policeman arrested while tending his garden in Bangui.
And he shares his food with an elderly man who was deemed to be a witch. “He
could be my grandfather,” he said. “It just shows how desperate
this country is, and how it really needs help.”
Another wing, Lollowacka, is home to the petty thieves – most of whom spend
their days smoking weed, seated beneath a huge poster of Bob Marley. “You
can pretty much get anything in here,” he said, as wheelbarrows of food
were trundled in through the corridors. “For the right money. There is
a self-appointed General in Lollowacka and he charges all the prisoners
there 200 CFA (30p) a week in protection money.
“And of course everyone constantly asks me for money. It’s just so
exhausting. I’m a pretty relaxed guy but sometimes I just feel like yelling
‘Do you think I’d be in here if I was that wealthy?'”
Of course he knows that, as a Westerner, he is unimaginably rich compared to
most. The landlocked Central African Republic is consistently ranked as one
of the poorest places on earth. GDP per capita is $447, while life
expectancy for men is just 47 years. The country is rich with diamonds,
gold, timber and minerals but government corruption means for most
businesses it is just too much trouble to invest here.
Ever since independence from France in 1960, the country has been wracked by a
succession of coups – most famously by self-styled “Emperor”
and rumoured cannibal Jean-Bedel Bokassa, a man so vain that his lurid
coronation used up the entire annual aid budget from France.
Perhaps unsurprisingly the current president, Francois Bozize, also came to
power in a coup, launched in 2005 while the incumbent was abroad. Elections
are held sporadically, but generally mean little.
“This country is ruled by whoever drives towards the presidential palace
with the most men and the most guns, and manages to wrestle their way on to
the throne,” said Erik Mararv, 27, the Swedish owner of the hunting
company, who was born in the CAR, imprisoned alongside Mr Simpson and
released on “sick leave” a month ago.
“If the people here were violent, there would be constant war. But
thankfully they are a very peaceful nation, and just shrug their shoulders
and get on with it.”
The chaotic political situation is certainly not helping Mr Simpson. On Monday
(JULY 16) the justice minister, Firmin Feindiro, was sacked – reportedly for
plotting a coup against President Bozize. He is said to have been thrown
into another, even grimmer, prison,
Two judges have investigated the allegations against Mr Simpson and his
colleagues – each investigation funded by the hunting company, which had to
pay for transport, printing and even mobile telephone credit. A third
investigation is under way but the presiding judge is said to be unwell, and
needs to interview all 13 men before he can release them – so the waiting
continues.
“The case file is probably 85 per cent complete,” said Alain Tolmo,
chief prosecutor for the CAR. “It is progressing.” Leaning back in
a luridly-patterned sofa inside the justice ministry, he said the case would
be concluded “soon”. No one was clear what that meant.
Back in north Yorkshire, his family – parents Peter and Vicky, brother Paul
and sister Helen – are stoic, trying to remain positive. David’s father
refers to him as “The Beast of Bangui”, and asked whether he had
got any entertaining tattoos while in prison.
“We honestly thought that with this third investigation he would be
released,” said Peter Simpson, speaking by phone from the family home
in Gillamoor, on the edge of the North York Moors.
“It’s been horrendous to be honest. We just can’t understand why it’s
taking so long.”
The Foreign Office has offered consular assistance and their representative in
Cameroon – they have no office in Bangui – visits as often as he can. But
the diplomats maintain that they can’t interfere in another country’s
judicial process – even in a country as chaotic as the CAR.
“It’s hard to explain to my parents really,” said David. “My
Dad has hardly ever left Yorkshire so it’s not easy to imagine what it’s
like.”
For all his current despair, upon his release David wants to go home for a few
months but then intends to return to the CAR, and the job he loves. He
admits his parents will not be delighted at his plans.
“It’s the most beautiful country, and I genuinely believe that we are
doing good here by preserving the habitat,” he said.
“What makes me so frustrated is all this waste of time, when everyone
knows we are innocent. The company is wasting time that it should be
preparing for next season. My parents are wasting time worrying.
“And I’m just sitting around wasting my life.”
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