I knew these streets, these roundabouts, these buildings. But I had never seen them so tidy. Here was the high-rise building now converted into the Memling Hotel. But where were the streetsellers who usually gathered outside it, with their selections of cigarettes, boiled eggs and cola nuts? Where were the house-high piles of rubbish, the polio victims in their tricycles, the begging albinos blistering in the sun? Could this really be the same city?
Feeling lost in this unfamiliar world of order, symmetry and seemingly unquenchable hope, I pored over each photograph, looking for some hint of the chaos to come. And then, halfway through my perusal, I was pulled up short. There, on page 144, was a photograph of a policeman directing traffic on one of the boulevards. His uniform looked neat, his gauntlets were a spotless white. But looking closely at his face, I could swear he was wearing gold-rimmed, slanting sunglasses—pimp’s sunglasses, sinister trademark of the secret policeman and presidential guard, the torturer possessed of arbitrary, undefined powers. Now there, in that tiny, telling detail, was the country I had come to know and love.
Glossary
The nation carved out of central Africa by Belgium’s King Leopold was originally known as the Congo Free State. When Belgium took over the administration it was dubbed Belgian Congo—to distinguish it from French Congo across the river—and was known as Congo after independence. In 1971 the country, its river and its currency were all rebaptised Zaire by President Mobutu. When Laurent Kabila took over in 1997 he reverted to the names of the previous era. The rechristening has led to some confusion, with Congo and the Congolese often mistaken for their neighbours across the water. Congo-Brazzaville is another country entirely, and not the subject of this book.
Names under Belgians
Names under Mobutu
Names under Kabila
Congo
Zaire
Congo
Leopoldville
Kinshasa
Kinshasa
Stanleyville
Kisangani
Kisangani
Elizabethville
Lubumbashi
Lubumbashi
Bakwanga
Mbuji Mayi
Mbuji Mayi
Katanga
Shaba
Katanga
Coquilhatville
Mbandaka
Mbandaka
Stanley Pool
Pool Malebo
Pool Malebo
President Kabila’s Congo is a place where being a little too free with one’s opinions can cause problems with the authorities. In the very few cases where individuals living in the country have voiced views that could conceivably trigger repercussions, I have changed their names.
AFDL Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire. The coalition of four rebel movements set up in east Zaire in 1996, which swore to bring down Mobutu. Laurent Kabila, originally the movement’s spokesman, became its leader.
CNS Sovereign National Conference. First convened in August 1991, this was a vast talking shop embracing political parties and representatives of Zairean civil society with a mandate to pave the way from single party rule to multiparty democracy.
DSP Division Spéciale Présidentielle. Mobutu’s private army, this elite military unit was recruited almost entirely from the president’s equatorial region. In stark contrast with the FAZ, its fighters were better paid and properly equipped.
FAZ Forces Armées Zairoises. The regular Zairean army. Rarely paid and barely trained, the FAZ’s lack of discipline and cowardice were so notorious, Congolese citizens would pun that it was ‘défazé’ (‘out of it’).
Lingala The lingua franca of Congo, it is also the adjective used in Africa to refer to the country’s music.
MIBA Minière du Bakwanga. State-controlled diamond mining operation based in the town of Mbuji Mayi.
MPR Mouvement Populaire de la Révolution. The party set up by Mobutu. Until the declaration of multiparty democracy, every Congolese was supposed to be a member.
RPF Rwandese Patriotic Front. The Tutsi-led rebel group that won control of Rwanda in the wake of the 1994 genocide masterminded by Hutu extremists.
SNIP Service Nationale d’Intelligence et de Protection, one of the many incarnations of the country’s intelligence services. Under the stewardship of the Terminator, the sinister individuals who worked for it were known as ‘the owls’, a reference to their predilection for nocturnal visits.
UNITA União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola. Angolan rebel movement led by Jonas Savimbi, dedicted to the overthrow of the former Marxist government in Luanda. Its leaders were on good terms with Mobutu, whose country acted as a conduit for US arms deliveries and a useful rear base for UNITA fighters trying to avoid disarming as required under a UN peace deal.
Bibliography
Further Reading
For a gripping, impeccably researched account of King Leopold’s exploitation of the Congo, King Leopold’s Ghost written by Adam Hochschild and published by Houghton Mifflin Company in 1998 is unbeatable. Hochschild focuses on the individuals who brought Leopold’s barbarity to public awareness, often at considerable personal cost, including British journalist Edmund Morel, diplomat Roger Casement and black Americans George Washington Williams and William Sheppard.
The White Nile and The Blue Nile by Alan Moorehead, published by Penguin in 1962 and reissued many times since, sets Henry Morton Stanley’s exploration of the Congo in the context of the West’s gradual discovery of the African continent. Stanley is just one of the many driven explorers, curious aristocrats and obsessed missionaries who feature in an atmospheric, often highly moving account.
The River Congo by Peter Forbath, published by Houghton Mifflin Company in 1977, is the geographical and historical story of the great river. More narrowly focused in its subject matter than the Moorehead books, there are places where they overlap.
Stanley himself was a consummate journalist and knew how to tell a story with all the verve, style and dash required to reach the widest audience. Through the Dark Continent, Volumes One and Two, published in 1878, is a wonderful tale of an expedition into the unknown. The Congo and the Founding of its Free State, published in 1885, is a more eccentric and opinionated work, including a fascinating list of tips on how to survive the tropics. The Autobiography of Sir Henry Morton Stanley, published in 1909 and edited by his wife Dorothy Stanley, also gives a strong taste of the man.
Sean Kelly gives a readable and detailed exposition of the interventionist role the United States has played in Zaire in his America’s Tyrant, published by the American University Press in 1993.
The Congo Cables by Madeleine Kalb, published by Macmillan in 1982, is a blow-by-blow account of the dramatic events before and after independence, from Lumumba’s murder to Mobutu’s takeover, as seen through the eyes of the Western ambassadors, UN officials and superpower leaders responding to one of the biggest crises of the Cold War. Currently out of print, it probably gives more detail than the ordinary reader requires.
The Rwanda Crisis—History of a Genocide by Gerard Prunier, published by Kampala’s Fountain Press in 1995 and reissued since, remains the definitive account of Rwanda’s 1994 genocide. Clear, authoritative and utterly compelling.
Background Material
In writing about the end of the regime I drew on material published in Les Derniers Jours de Mobutu (Éditions Gideppe) in 1998 by Honoré Ngbanda Ko Atumba, a fascinating account of Mobutu’s final years by the former secret service chief and close aide; La chute de Mobutu et l’effondrement de son armée by exiled General Ilunga Shamanga (published privately) and Dans la Cour de Mobutu by son-in-law Pierre Janssen, published by Michel Lafon in 1997. Les Dérives d’une Gestion Prédatrice by Professor Mabi Mulumba, the former premier, published in Kinshasa in 1998, was also helpful.
For those interested in the president himself, Mobutu attracted more than his fair share of hagiographers. In Mobutu—Dignité pour l’Afrique, published by
Albin Michel in 1989, the president got the chance to tell his story to sympathetic journalist Jean-Louis Remilleux. Out of print now (published in the 1960s), but positively oozing admiration, are Mobutu, L’Homme Seul and Mobutu: Le Point de Départ by Francis Monheim, a Belgian journalist who covered the independence years. Leaning heavily in the opposite direction is Le Dinosaure—le Zaire de Mobutu by Colette Braeckman (Fayard,1992), a Belgian journalist who has reported on events in central Africa for many years.
The problem with many of the books written about Zaire by Zaireans is that they are either turgid PhD theses unsuitable for general readers or are marred by personal score-settling. Mobutu—l’Incarnation du Mal Zairois by former prime minister and turncoat Nguz Karl i Bond, published by Rex Collings in 1982, is of historical interest. Mobutu et l’Argent du Zaire, written by former secret service man Emmanuel Dungia and published by l’Harmattan in 1993, is full of juicy tit-bits. Professor Isidore Ndaywel e Nziem is to be congratulated on his broad-ranging Histoire Générale du Congo (Duculot, 1998), a priceless reference work for anyone studying the country.
On the academic front, Crawford Young remains the authority in the English language, although you’ll be hard put to find his lucid works on the shelves of contemporary bookshops. In French (and Flemish if you can read it), Jules Marchal is still battling to keep Belgium’s past in the public eye. L’État Libre du Congo—Volumes 1 and 2, published in 1996 by Éditions Paula Bellings and E. D. Morel Contre Leopold II (L’Harmattan, 1996) are matter-of-fact and scrupulously researched accounts of the colonial era.
Searchable Terms
Abacha, Sani
Actualités Africaines magazine
AFDL see Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire
African Development Bank
Albert II, King of the Belgians
Ali, Muhammad
Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (AFDL)
advances on Kinshasa
Angola’s involvement
birth of (1996)
enters Camp Tsha Tshi
enters Kinshasa
legal and moral crusade
in Lubumbashi
and M’s fortune
and Nzimbi
Rwanda’s involvement
takes Kisangani
takes over the Democratic Republic of Congo
Uganda’s involvement
Angola
rebels invade Shaba (1970s)
UNITA-held territory
Angolan army
Antwerp
Article
Askins, Steve
Atlantic Ocean
Authenticity
Bandundu
Bank of Zaire
Banyamulenge
Baramoto Kpama Kata
Bas-Congo
Baudouin I, King of the Belgians
Belgian Congo (1908-60)
the 1960 mutiny
apartheid policy
atrocities committed by Leopold’s agents
established
and Kimbangu
see also Congo (1960-71); Congo (1997- ); Congo Free State; Zaire
Belgium
and the AFDL’s legal and moral crusade
classifies Congolese ethnic groups
Congolese exiles
and Congo’s infrastructure
and Congo’s mineral deposits
distances itself from Congo
intervention in Zaire
and Kabila
mercenaries
and M’s payroll
M’s properties in
presidential bank accounts
secret services
uranium deal
and the Zairean army
Belgolaise bank
Bemba, Jean Pierre
Berlin conference (1884-5)
Big Vegetables (Grosses Legumes)
Binza
Blumenthal, Erwin
Bobozo, Sergeant Joseph
Brazzaville
civil war
and Kinshasa
Bretton Woods agreement
Britain
Brussels
Congolese students in
Matonge
M’s properties
Rhode St Genèse
Soviet activity in
‘special accounts’
Uccle
Universal Exhibition (1958)
US embassy
Bukavu
Burton, Richard
Burundi
death of president
Bush, George
Camp Tsha Tshi
Cap Ferrat, France
Casa Agricola Solear estate, Algarve
Casement, Roger
Central African Republic
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
Chad
Château Fond’Roy, Brussels
Chernobyl
Chevallier, Jerome
China/Chinese
Churchill, Sir Winston
CIA see Central Intelligence Agency
Clinton, Bill
CNS see Sovereign National Conference
Collins, Carole
Congo (1960-71)
economy
first African member of the IAEA
flag and anthem
independence achieved (1960)
see also Belgian Congo; Congo (1997-); Congo Free State; Zaire
Congo (1997-)
economy
the handicapped in
minerals
named
rebel movement
see also Belgian Congo; Congo (1960-71); Congo Free State; Zaire
Congo Free State (1885-1908)
see also Belgian Congo; Congo (1960-71); Congo (1997-); Zaire
Congo river (Zaire river)
Congo-Brazzaville
Congolese army
in Kasai
M chief of staff
see also Zairean army
Conrad, Joseph: Heart of Darkness
Coquilhatville see Mbandaka
Crocker, Chester
Cuban mercenaries
de Beers
Denard, Colonel Bob
Devlin, Larry
Diaka, Mungul
Division Spéciale Présidentielle (DSP; Special Presidential Division)
fires on M’s plane
in the Hotel Intercontinental
the Lubumbashi massacre
Mahele killed
and Uncle Fangbi
Eetvelde, Edmond van
Einstein, Albert
Eisenhower, Dwight D.
Elizabethville
see also Lubumbashi
Endundu, José
Equateur province
Eritrea/Eritreans
evolué
Executive Outcomes
Fangbi, Uncle
FAZ see Forces Armées Zairoises
First Shaba War
Force Publique
Forces Armées Zairoises (FAZ)
Foreman, George
France
and the AFDL’s legal and moral crusade
distances itself from Congo
intervention in Zaire
and Lukulia’s escape
mercenaries
Mobutu’s press conferences
M’s properties
and Rwanda
and the Zairean army
French Congo
Gabon
Gaddafi, Colonel Muammar
Garde Civile
Gaulle, Charles de
Gbadolite
Gbemani, Albéric (M’s father)
Gécamines
Germany
Gillon, Mgr Luc
Girault, Charles
Giscard D’Estaing, Valéry
Goma
Gombe, Kinshasa
Gorbachev, Mikhail
Goreux, Louis
Great Lakes region
Guevara, Che
Habyarimana, Juvenal
Haig, Alexander
Hammarskjöld, Dag
Hassan II, King of Morocco
Hochschild, Adam: King Leopold’s Ghost
Horta, Victor
Hotel Intercontinental, Kinshasa
L’Atmosphère nightclub
Hotel Ivoire, Abidjan
Hotel Memling, Kinshasa
Hotel Van Eetvelde, Avenue Palmerston, Brussels
Hutus
IAEA see International Atomic Energy Agency
Ilunga Shamanga, General
Inga hydroelectric dam
Inga-Shaba power line
interahamwe
International African Association
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Vienna
International Monetary Fund (IMF)
Interpol
Israel
Italy
M’s properties in