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| MOMBASA, Kenya — Fireworks popped and confetti rained down in the seaside city of Mombasa when Kenya’s president inaugurated the country’s new railway — designed, funded and built by China. |
| 肯尼亚蒙巴萨——当肯尼亚总统为由中国设计、资助和建造的新铁路揭幕时，海滨城市蒙巴萨燃放烟花，五彩纸屑如雨点般落下。 |
| President Uhuru Kenyatta proclaimed that the new train would connect the port in Mombasa to the neighboring country of Uganda, create jobs and help transform Kenya into an industrialized, middle-income nation. |
| 总统乌胡鲁·肯雅塔宣布，这列新火车将连接蒙巴萨港口与邻国乌干达，创造就业机会，并帮助肯尼亚转变为工业化的中等收入国家。 |
| “This is a very historic moment,” President Kenyatta, waving a giant Kenyan flag, told the gathering of Kenyan and Chinese officials. “We should be proud.” |
| “这是一个非常具有历史意义的时刻，”肯雅塔总统挥舞着一面巨大的肯尼亚国旗，对到场的肯尼亚和中国官员说。“我们应该感到自豪。” |
| That was five years ago. The railway has since turned into a fiasco, the target of lawsuits, criminal investigations over corruption and resentment by environmentalists and displaced workers in the trucking industry. |
| 那是五年前。此后，这条铁路成了一地鸡毛，成为诉讼和腐败刑事调查的目标，以及环保主义者和卡车运输行业失业工人怨恨的对象。 |
| Now, it’s a hot-button issue in the closely-contested Aug. 9 election and part of a broader debate about China’s expanding role in Kenya. The leading candidates have proposed everything from deporting Chinese workers doing local jobs to renegotiating the onerous debt Kenya owes China. But for many, it’s the railway, which cost a whopping $4.7 billion, that has come to embody the corruption and greed among the political elite. |
| 它现在是竞争激烈的8月9日大选的一个热门话题，也是关于中国在肯尼亚扩大影响的更广泛辩论的一部分。主要候选人提出了各种建议，从驱逐占据当地工作岗位的中国工人，到重新谈判肯尼亚欠中国的沉重债务。但对许多人来说，耗资高达47亿美元的铁路已经成为政治精英腐败和贪婪的体现。 |
| China initially financed the railway as part of its trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative, which aimed to expand China’s economic and political clout by funding new ports, roads and railways globally. But China balked at financing the last section of the Kenyan railway — the connection to Uganda— as some African countries struggled to repay their debts. |
| 中国最初为这条铁路提供资金，作为其价值万亿美元的“一带一路”倡议的一部分，该倡议旨在通过为全球新的港口、公路和铁路提供资金来扩大中国的经济和政治影响力。但是，一些非洲国家无法偿还债务，中国不愿为肯尼亚铁路的最后一段——连接乌干达的部分——提供资金。 |
| The train’s tracks run 367 miles from Mombasa through the capital of Nairobi — and end abruptly in an empty field in the Rift Valley, more than 200 miles from Uganda. |
| 长约590公里的铁路从蒙巴萨穿过首都内罗毕，在大裂谷的一片空地上戛然而止，距离乌干达还有约300多公里。 |
| “The S.G.R. is an economic, social and fiscal disrupter,” said Tony Watima, an economist, referring to the Standard Gauge Railway, which Kenyans call the train. “The disruption it has created in the Kenyan economy will be felt for years.” |
| “SGR是经济、社会和财政的破坏者，”经济学家托尼·瓦蒂玛说，SGR——即标准轨铁路——是肯尼亚人对这列火车的称呼。“它对肯尼亚经济造成的破坏将持续多年。” |
| Both leading candidates in the campaign to pick President Kenyatta’s successor — William Ruto and Raila Odinga — have seized on the railway’s troubles, promising to reassess its operations, while also trying to distance themselves from the project. |
| 竞选肯雅塔总统继任者的两位主要候选人——威廉·鲁托和拉伊拉·奥廷加——都抓住了铁路问题，承诺重新评估其运营，同时也试图撇清自己与该项目的关系。 |
| Mr. Ruto is the vice-president and part of the administration that launched the railway. In an interview, he acknowledged that Kenya’s public debt — a total of $73.5 billion as of March in a country with a gross domestic product of just over $100 billion — was creating a “very precarious” situation, and that the railway had so far failed to grow the economy. |
| 副总统鲁托也是开通这条铁路的政府官员之一。在一次采访中，他承认肯尼亚的公共债务总额截至今年3月达到735亿美元，而该国国内生产总值不过1000亿美元出头，这些公共债务正在造成“非常不稳定”的局面，而铁路迄今为止未能帮助经济发展。 |
| “We are hurting from paying the Chinese debt,” he said. |
| “为了偿还中国债务，我们受到了伤害，”他说。 |
| His opponent, Mr. Odinga, is a former prime minister who had long been critical of the project and accused Mr. Kenyatta’s family of benefiting from it. But now that President Kenyatta is backing him, Mr. Odinga has softened his criticism, while promising to overhaul the railroad’s operation. He told a crowd of supporters in Mombasa recently, “Once I am in office, we will fix it.” |
| 他的对手奥廷加是一位长期以来一直批评该项目的前总理，他指责肯雅塔的家人从中受益。但现在，奥廷加得到肯雅塔总统的支持，已经软化了他的批评，同时承诺彻底改革铁路的运营。他最近在蒙巴萨对一群支持者说：“一旦我上任，我们就会解决这个问题。” |
| The railway represents the height of the borrowing and looting spree that has plagued Mr. Kenyatta’s government since it took office in 2013, economists, analysts and government officials said in interviews. His administration, they said, has saddled the country with large-scale infrastructure projects that are not financially viable, largely benefit the wealthy and divert investments from education and health care. In the past nine years, Kenya’s public debt has surged almost fivefold. |
| 经济学家、分析师和政府官员在接受采访时说，这条铁路深刻体现出肯雅塔政府2013年上台以来困扰该政府的借贷和掠夺潮有多么狂热。他们说，他的政府让该国背负着大规模的基础设施项目，这些项目在财务上难以维持，主要使富人受益，并转移了对教育和医疗保健的投资。过去九年里，肯尼亚的公共债务飙升了近五倍。 |
| “The standard gauge railway is the jewel in the crown of corruption in Kenya,” John Githongo, a former anti-corruption czar, said. “That’s a sad legacy of the current regime.” |
| “标准轨铁路是肯尼亚腐败王冠上的明珠，”前反腐败专员约翰·吉通戈说。“这是现政权留下的可悲遗产。” |
| Mr. Kenyatta’s office did not respond to emailed questions for this article. The government’s minister for treasury and planning, Ukur Yatani, who oversees the country’s port, rail and pipeline infrastructure, did not reply to requests for an interview. |
| 肯雅塔的办公室没有就本文的问题回复电子邮件。负责监督该国港口、铁路和管道基础设施的政府财政和规划部长乌库尔·亚塔尼没有回复采访请求。 |
| The railway’s financier, Exim Bank of China, has demanded reimbursements, even as creditors like France and Japan gave Kenya some respite from servicing their loans because of the pandemic. To repay the loan, the government introduced a raft of taxes and austerity measures that have angered the public, which is coping with rising food and fuel prices stemming from a drought and the war in Ukraine. |
| 铁路的融资方中国进出口银行已要求还款，尽管法国和日本等债权国因疫情为肯尼亚偿还贷款提供了一些喘息机会。政府为偿还贷款出台的一系列税收和紧缩措施激怒了公众，人们正在应对因干旱和乌克兰战争导致的食品和燃料价格上涨。 |
| There was a “lack of economic planning and foresight” in commissioning the railway, said Abdullswamad Shariff Nassir, a lawmaker who chairs the public investments committee in Parliament. |
| 议会公共投资委员会主席、立法者阿卜杜勒斯瓦马德·沙里夫·纳西尔表示，在开通这条铁路时“缺乏经济规划和远见”。 |
| The ‘Lunatic Express’ |
| “疯狂特快” |
| For years, Kenya deliberated whether to build a new railway or renovate its century-old line built by the British colonialists and famously known as the “Lunatic Express.” |
| 多年来，肯尼亚一直在考虑是修建一条新铁路，还是翻新那条由英国殖民者建造的、以“疯狂特快”(Lunatic Express)而闻名的百年铁路。 |
| Independent reports, including from the World Bank, recommended upgrading the existing rail network as a cheaper option. But ultimately, the Kenyatta administration settled on building a new one: a standard-gauge railway on which freight trains could run at 50 miles per hour and passenger trains at 74 miles per hour. |
| 包括来自世界银行的独立报告都建议以更便宜的方式将现有铁路网络升级。但最终，肯雅塔政府决定建造一条新铁路：一条标准轨铁路，货运列车时速可达80公里，客运列车时速可达120公里。 |
| Kenya turned to China, which was then prompting its state-owned firms to find investment opportunities in Africa and other parts of the world. |
| 肯尼亚转向中国，当时该国正在鼓励其国有企业在非洲和世界其他地区寻找投资机会。 |
| Groundbreaking started in 2013. But trouble dogged the project from the start. |
| 项目于2013年动工，但从一开始就受到麻烦的困扰。 |
| Even though it was financed by taxpayers, there was no competitive bidding for the project — a move Mr. Kenyatta defended. |
| 尽管是由纳税人出资，这个项目并没有竞标——肯雅塔为这一决定做出了辩解。 |
| Environmentalists questioned why the government routed the railway through Nairobi National Park, one of few wildlife parks anywhere adjacent to a capital city. |
| 环保主义者质疑为什么政府规划铁路穿过内罗毕国家公园，那是邻近首都的少数野生动物园之一。 |
| The project’s only known feasibility study was done by the Chinese contractor — not the government — which presented a conflict of interest, said Okiya Omtatah, a prominent lawyer who challenged the project in court. |
| 在法庭上对该项目提出质疑的著名律师欧基亚·奥姆塔塔说，该项目唯一已知的可行性研究是由中国承包商而不是政府完成的，这存在利益冲突。 |
| He said he was invited to a Nairobi hotel to meet with several Kenyan senators and Chinese managers who asked him to withdraw the case in return for a $300,000 payout. When he declined, one of the senators offered up to $1 million, he said. He was told that if he refused, they could pay off a judge to decide the case in their favor. |
| 他说他被邀请到内罗毕的一家酒店会见几位肯尼亚参议员和中国经理，他们提出用30万美元换得他的撤诉。他说，在他拒绝后，其中一名参议员把报价提到了100万美元。他被告知，如果他拒绝，他们可以买通法官，得到有利于他们的裁决。 |
| “You keep your money and I will keep my country,” Mr. Omtatah recalled telling them as he left the room. |
| 奥姆塔塔回忆他在离开房间时告诉他们：“你留着你的钱，我要保护我的国家。” |
| A communications officer with C.R.B.C., the Chinese contractor, did not respond to emailed questions. Mr. Omtatah would not identify the senators he said he met with. |
| 中国承包商中交路建的一名公关传讯官没有回复以电子邮件发送的问题。奥姆塔塔不愿透露与他会面的参议员的名字。 |
| The court of appeal finally ruled in Mr. Omtatah’s favor, in 2020, declaring the railway’s contract illegal for flouting Kenya’s procurement laws. The government is appealing the decision to the Supreme Court. |
| 上诉法庭最终在2020年作出有利于奥姆塔塔的裁决，宣布该铁路合同非法，违反了肯尼亚的采购法。政府正在就这一裁决向最高法院提出上诉。 |
| Mr. Ruto has promised, if elected president to publish the contract — a move that activists hope would allow the public to scrutinize it. A transport ministry official this year said that making the contract public would undermine national security because it would reveal its nondisclosure clauses. |
| 鲁托承诺，如果他赢得大选就会公布合同——活动人士希望此举能让公众对其进行审查。今年，一位交通部官员表示，将合同公之于众会破坏国家安全，因为这会泄露其保密条款。 |
| Over the years, activists and opposition figures have accused senior politicians of inflating costs and profiting from the railway. |
| 多年来，活动人士和反对派人士指责资深政客夸大成本并从铁路中获利。 |
| Land acquisitions became a flashpoint too, with more than a dozen officials, including the former managing director of Kenya Railways and the former chairman of the agency that manages Kenya’s public land, charged in court in 2018, accused of facilitating more than $2 million in payments to individuals and companies that falsely claimed to own land along the railway. While some cases have been dropped, trials of other defendants are continuing. Parliament disclosed that millions more were disbursed in overpayments or payments made without clear documentation. |
| 土地收购也成为一个引爆点，包括肯尼亚铁路公司前常务董事和肯尼亚公共土地管理机构前主席在内的十几名官员于2018年被告上法庭，指控他们促成了向个人和公司的逾200万美元付款，这些个人和公司谎称自己拥有铁路沿线的土地。其中一些案件已撤诉，但仍有被告在接受审判。议会披露，还有数百万美元属于多付或是在没有明确手续的情况下支付的。 |
| Road versus rail |
| 公路与铁路 |
| A year after the train started operating, a parliamentary report showed it cost more than double the amount to transport goods on the train than on the road. |
| 火车开始运营一年后，一份议会报告显示，火车运输货物的成本是公路的两倍多。 |
| To make the railway profitable, authorities compelled importers to send cargo by railway instead of by road — a decision that sparked protests and court cases. |
| 为了让铁路盈利，当局强迫进口商通过铁路而不是公路运送货物——这一决定引发了抗议和诉讼。 |
| Officials in Mombasa said the railway cost their county tens of millions of dollars in annual revenues. One report estimated conservatively that over 8,100 people employed in the trucking, fuel and freight businesses in the county would lose their jobs. |
| 蒙巴萨的官员说，这条铁路使他们县的年收入损失了数千万美元。一份报告保守估计，该县超过8100名从事卡车运输、燃料和货运业务的人将失去工作。 |
| Lawrence Boy, a truck driver in Miritini, a suburb of Mombasa, accused the government of “demonizing” truck drivers and leaving many young people jobless and turning to crime. |
| 蒙巴萨郊区米里蒂尼的卡车司机劳伦斯·博伊指责政府“妖魔化”卡车司机，导致许多年轻人失业，走上犯罪道路。 |
| “We are citizens of this country,” he said, “and we deserve equal rights.” |
| “我们是这个国家的公民，”他说，“我们应该享有平等的权利。” |
| A ‘serious mess’ |
| “一团糟” |
| At the Nairobi station, passengers board train cars painted with the slogan, “Connecting Nations. Prospering People.” But a poll taken in 2019-2020 by Afrobarometer found that 87 percent of Kenyans believed their government had borrowed too much money from China. |
| 在内罗毕火车站，乘客们登上印有“连接国家，繁荣人民”口号的车厢。但Afrobarometer在2019-2020年进行的一项民意调查发现，87%的肯尼亚人认为他们的政府从中国借了太多的钱。 |
| Lawmakers have recommended the government renegotiate the railway’s loan with China. But even if they can, said Mr. Watima, the economist, the railway will remain a “serious mess.” |
| 议员们建议与中国重新谈判铁路贷款。但经济学家瓦蒂玛说，即使能做到，这条铁路仍将是“一团糟”。 |
| China, also, is reassessing its early lending spree on African infrastructure projects as it faces growing backlash for doling out loans to poor countries with shaky finances. |
| 中国也在重新评估其早期向非洲基础设施项目大举放贷的做法，因为向财务状况不稳的穷国发放贷款正面临越来越多的反弹。 |
| Even though China will remain the biggest financier of African infrastructure, Eric Olander, co-founder of the China Global South Project, said it’s unlikely that risky, mega projects like the Kenyan railway will receive funding in the future. |
| 尽管中国仍将是非洲基础设施的最大融资方，但中国南方世界项目(China Global South Project)的联合创始人埃里克·奥兰德表示，像肯尼亚铁路这样高风险的大型项目未来不太可能获得资金。 |
| “The sand in the hourglass has run out,” he said. |
| “沙漏里的沙子已经漏完了，”他说。 |
| For now, the railway leaves Mombasa, cuts across Kenya’s iconic national parks, barrels past Nairobi, before its tracks stop at a quiet hamlet near the town of Duka Moja, surrounded by dense bush and maize plants. |
| 目前，这条铁路从蒙巴萨出发，穿过肯尼亚标志性的国家公园，再经过内罗毕，最后停在杜卡·莫贾镇附近一个安静的小村庄，周围是茂密的灌木和玉米植物。 |
| “They said this train was progress, but whose progress is it?” said Daniel Tipape, a motorcycle taxi driver, passing the dirt road near the rail’s finish line. |
| “他们说这列火车是进步，但这是谁的进步呢？”开摩的的丹尼尔·蒂佩在驶过铁路终点附近的泥土路时说。 |
| “Sometimes we just build things for the sake of it,” he said. |
| “有时候我们只是为了建造而建造，”他说。 |
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