The heart of Darkness

“We got the gig for the Congo”, my colleague announced jubilantly. “The one with the Belgium cooperation crowd. I told them language would be no problem with your French.”

I tried my best to look excited and gave a very unconvincing grin, closer to a death rictus than an actual smile.My world was crashing down.

Oh God, No...Not Congo.

I was 22 years old, fresh out of university, a whole life of prospects and prosperity laid out for me and nothing, nothing in my whole upbringing and education had prepared me for Congo.

Not the fact that I grew up in Bujumbura, a city graced by the magnificent vista of the Mitumba mountain range of Congo across Lake Tanganyika. Not the fact that one of my closest friends from childhood to this day is Congolese. Not the fact that Bujumbura’s culture, musical taste, gastronomy and lifestyle is influenced in every way by our gigantic neighbour and the generations of Burundians of Congolese descent. Nothing in the whole world had prepared me for Congo.

Congo, a country known until the late 90s as Zaire, is a monster. A freak. A thing of monstrous potential, size and wealth, a home to a growing 68 million people belonging to a myriad of cultures some still sheltered from the world as it is known to us. It is covered with impenetrable forests, lush savannahs, volcanoes, large cities and landscapes ranging from the post-apocalyptic city-scape to green rural Switzerland. Its wealth has been its doom. The country has been routinely looted by individuals and states alike, and to the stranger, standing outside, looking in through the frame of the world media, it is a vortex of suffering, rape, disease, corruption, a complete and utter hell-hole. The heart of darkness.

Congo has been occupied over the last hundred years by the respective armies of Belgium, Uganda, Rwanda and had seven warring armies involved in its conflict at one point. The second Congo war alone claimed 5.4 million people, a meagre toll compared to the horrors the Belgians visited upon the country through their exploitative rule, pillaging the country for rubber, ivory and diamonds; 8 million according to the most conservative estimates, 10 million some say. Villages that failed to meet the rubberquotas paid the in the form of severed hands. 

Here is the wikipedia account of how the gory business took place:

Villages who failed to meet the rubber collection quotas were required to pay the remaining amount in cut hands, where each hand would prove a kill. Sometimes the hands were collected by the soldiers of the Force Publique, sometimes by the villages themselves. There were even small wars where villages attacked neighboring villages to gather hands, since their rubber quotas were too unrealistic to fill
One junior white officer described a raid to punish a village that had protested. The white officer in command "ordered us to cut off the heads of the men and hang them on the village palisades ... and to hang the women and the children on the palisade in the form of a cross."[7] After seeing a native killed for the first time, a Danish missionary wrote: "The soldier said 'Don't take this to heart so much. They kill us if we don't bring the rubber. The Commissioner has promised us if we have plenty of hands he will shorten our service.'"[8] In Forbath's words.
The baskets of severed hands, set down at the feet of the European post commanders, became the symbol of the Congo Free State. ... The collection of hands became an end in itself. Force Publique soldiers brought them to the stations in place of rubber; they even went out to harvest them instead of rubber... They became a sort of currency. They came to be used to make up for shortfalls in rubber quotas, to replace... the people who were demanded for the forced labour gangs; and the Force Publique soldiers were paid their bonuses on the basis of how many hands they collected.
In theory, each right hand proved a killing. In practice, soldiers sometimes "cheated" by simply cutting off the hand and leaving the victim to live or die. More than a few survivors later said that they had lived through a massacre by acting dead, not moving even when their hands were severed, and waiting till the soldiers left before seeking help. In some instances a soldier could shorten his service term by bringing more hands than the other soldiers, which led to widespread mutilations and dismemberment.

For more on the belgian Congo, try here.

Cold war obsessions(read the CIA) and greed for the riches of Congo allied and topped the one man who was the promise of Congo; Patrice Lumumba. The measure of the man is condensed in the last letter he wrote to his wife Pauline:

My dear wife,

I am writing these words not knowing whether they will reach you, when they will reach you, and whether I shall still be alive when you read them. All through my struggle for the independence of my country, I have never doubted for a single instant the final triumph of the sacred cause to which my companions and I have devoted all our lives. But what we wished for our country, its right to an honourable life, to unstained dignity, to independence without restrictions, was never desired by the Belgian imperialists and the Western allies, who found direct and indirect support, both deliberate and unintentional, amongst certain high officials of the United Nations, that organization in which we placed all our trust when we called on its assistance.

They have corrupted some of our compatriots and bribed others. They have helped to distort the truth and bring our independence into dishonour. How could I speak otherwise? Dead or alive, free or in prison by order of the imperialists, it is not myself who counts. It is the Congo, it is our poor people for whom independence has been transformed into a cage from whose confines the outside world looks on us, sometimes with kindly sympathy, but at other times with joy and pleasure.

But my faith will remain unshakeable. I know and I feel in my heart that sooner or later my people will rid themselves of all their enemies, both internal and external, and that they will rise as one man to say No to the degradation and shame of colonialism, and regain their dignity in the clear light of the sun.

We are not alone. Africa, Asia and the free liberated people from all corners of the world will always be found at the side of the millions of Congolese who will not abandon the struggle until the day when there are no longer any colonialists and their mercenaries in our country. As to my children whom I leave and whom I may never see again, I should like them to be told that it is for them, as it is for every Congolese, to accomplish the sacred task of reconstructing our independence and our sovereignty: for without dignity there is no liberty, without justice there is no dignity, and without independence there are no free men. Neither brutality, nor cruelty nor torture will ever bring me to ask for mercy, for I prefer to die with my head unbowed, my faith unshakable and with profound trust in the destiny of my country, rather than live under subjection and disregarding sacred principles. History will one day have its say, but it will not be the history that is taught in Brussels, Paris, Washington or in the United Nations, but the history which will be taught in the countries freed from imperialism and its puppets. Africa will write its own history, and to the north and south of the Sahara, it will be a glorious and dignified history.

Do not weep for me, my dear wife. I know that my country, which is suffering so much, will know how to defend its independence and its liberty.

Long live the Congo! Long live Africa!

Patrice

The letter is drawn from "Nkrumah's Challenge of the Congo" Ch. 11 "The Murder of Lumumba" p.128-129.

Patrice, for all you were, RIP.

The country, no doubt aided by Lumuba's murderers, then went on to produce the quintessential African dictator. A man who allied a Machiavellian intelligence, unrestrained greed, charismatic showmanship and ruthless paranoia. Mobutu Sésé Seko Nkuku Ngbendu wa Za Banga (14 October 1930– 7 September 1997).

 Good riddance.

Such were the terrifying statistics churning in my head and making me queasy as I made way to the airport, wondering if this wasn’t the worst choice of my life.

Terrific I tell myself, as we walk onto the Entebbe airport tarmac, why are we walking so far onto the tarmac. What kind of plane is it that it doesn’t even get proper parking? And why did they say I didn’t need to check my luggage in. Why am I pulling my bag along under the....GASP. GASP of horror. It is a wheelbarrow, three wheels and all other attributes save for a cabin and two wings. There is a man feet up dozing under the wing. As we edge closer he wakes up, cranes his neck around, rubs his face, straightens up and grins: “Hi, welcome. Butembo?”That is the destination. My heart sinks as I see the tell tale signs that he is the pilot, gallons and stuff. He’s friendly, so much so that he tells me to get in and help him load the luggage. Now I know why our bags are battered, bruised and abused after each trip. I took out on the luggage all my frustration of going from esteemed customer to second porter from the left.

It’s a small wheelbarrow and there are four more passengers on the plane apart from my colleague and I. Three Congolese men and a flight attendant, Patrice, Congolese. A very friendly man, who is from Butembo and promises to fill me in on the etiquette. We take off in the wheel barrow which amazingly enough once in the air is a smooth little thing. The luggage at the back is strapped and Patrice has the last seat, two seats diagonally from me. He beckons me over and proffers a primus. I nod happily and he opens it with his teeth. He tells me about Congo in a salesman’s way, like he is excited about the place and he manages to thaw a bit the icy grips of my fear. He’s good, fast and friendly with the other passengers, passing the drinks and walking stooped to chat them up once in a while.

He reminds me of the greater majority of Congolese that I knew from Bujumbura. Teachers, tailors, cooks, furniture upholsterers, all unrivalled masters at their craft. Good hard working people with huge families, that spoke perfectly fluent, heavily accented French, Swahili and Lingala . They had huge families, dressed like kings and queens with all the flamboyancy that only the Congolese, the Italians and the phillipinos can pull off. The Sapeurs, are a magnificent subculture of their community is something I grew up hearing about and marvelling about.

It’s bravado, outrageousness and the unbridled feeding of the need to look fabulous when all else around you is bleak. Check it out here.

The flight is via Bunia and Beni and it is in Bunia, our first entry point, that our passports have to be stamped. After a very uneventful landing, we proceed to the long derelict building where the immigration officials reigns as master and current handlers of my fate.
I have heard HORROR stories about entering Congo and being asked for a “carte de Bapteme”-the baptism card, the inability to produce it invariably involving a short prison stay and the loss of every valuable item on your person. When I presented my passport, the big immigration officer lifted his eyes and asked in the most serious of tones: “Monsieur, ne seriez- vous pas un espion rwandais?”-Sir, could you be a Rwandese spy?...My blood clotted. Rwanda was perceived in the whole of the Congo as an invading force and threat, still is to date and my face is one of those those readily identifiable Burundian or Rwandese mugs.

Clot, clot, clot. He looked at me and started chuckling. Turned out he stayed in Bujumbura a few years before when things were sour Congo side and he loved it, asked me about Buja and when I passed the test as a true son of the city, he asked for the fee(20USD) and stamped my passport. I had been making plans to sign over my inheritance if he would only let me go. It has a name what I am, a coward but as the French saying goes “J’assume”, I take full responsibility.

Bunia was home then to a huge UN base, complete with mammoth choppers, white and Blue coloured tarpaulins, prefab buildings and land rovers. A few years later, horrid stories of defilement and food for sex would emerge from there. Sick and somewhat inevitable in a place where the balance of power was so upset that dignity means nothing more than a concept and a remote one at that, certainly not one to compete with food or safety.

Next was Beni, where two of the passengers got off after wishing us bon voyage. We flew over a large expanse of dark grey storm clouds (what the hell do I know about stormy clouds...although they looked really scary) and what must be thousands of square kilometres of dark green forest with the occasional red laterite road.

We landed in Butembo after a heavy rain on a laterite strip on a hill overlooking Butembo. I stepped out and saw the home of 600 thousands over a few hills.

A mist was settling in some parts of the town, the ground was muddy and the grass sodden. There was a smell of wood smoke , eucalyptus in the crisp cool air. I closed my jacket and thought to myself...this is it, I am here, in Butembo, WOW. I was here without the knowledge of anyone in the family as they would have lost it if they suspected and I figured a fait-accompli was better than consultations prior to the trip. I was scared and excited to be in Congo.

(to be continued)