Hey friends, a lot has happened since my last post. I’ve taken several more trips to Burhinyi
and also a couple of recreational trips in the area; one to Bujumbura and one
to climb a volcano in Goma. And then of course, Donald Trump was elected president.
That was all a month ago. Since then, I’ve been sitting around the office
writing reports, reading history, and learning Swahili.
Buja
I took a trip to Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi, for two
reasons. The first reason was to visit my college friend, Jacob Yoder, who
works with MCC in Burundi. The second reason was a rumor that there are a lot
of Italian’s and thus a lot of pizzerias in Bujumbura. With dreams of
friendship and pizza, I climbed into the front seat of a small van and headed
for the Rwandan border. People traveling between Buja and Bukavu have the
option of going by way of Rwanda or by Congo. I chose Rwanda because the roads
are better. This means I have to first cross from Congo into Rwanda and then
Rwanda into Burundi.
Crossing the Rwanda Congo boarder is always kind of a trip,
because of the stark difference between the two countries. Rwanda is extremely
well organized, thanks to President Paul Kagame. All the farm plots are square,
all the roads are perfect, and plastic bags are illegal (for the environment).
It’s one of the safest countries in the world. I’ve heard a rumor that you can
be arrested for spitting on the ground. Congo is pretty much the opposite of
this, and the border embodies these differences, particularly the current bridge
situation. The border crossing is at the south end of Lake Kivu, and there is a
bridge that crosses a small river. Actually, there are two bridges. One of the
bridges is really nice. On the Rwandan side, it’s connected to a really nice
asphalt road. On the Congo side, it drops off onto a dirt road. Then there’s
the second bridge. This one is less nice. It's made of wood, and it does not inspire confidence. This is the bridge everybody uses. It’s
baffling to the fresh Muzungu, but after 9 months here I feel like I’m starting
to understand. My guess is that the Rwandan government refuses to let people
use the new bridge until the Congolese government fulfills whatever promise it
failed to keep, probably related to building a road on its side of the bridge.
This has been the situation for over a year now.
And so, once again, I walked across the crappy bridge,
leaving the chaos of Congo for the impeccable organization of Rwanda. There’s
something surreal about the billboards and the green street signs. When I
crossed the border between Rwanda and Burundi, I felt in strange dream like
way, as though I was back home. It was because of something I hadn’t seen in a
while. Something I saw almost every day growing up, but almost never in Congo.
It was a parking lot.
The beautiful 3 hour drive through Rwanda and Burundi went
by pretty quickly. This area is much flatter and hotter than Bukavu. Burundi felt like a country in the middle between Rwanda and Congo.
The roads were not as nice as Rwanda, but better than Bukavu. The country has
some political problems, but the water and electricity are reliable, and the
pizza rumor turned out to 100 percent correct (hallelujah). Buja is also home
to a coffee shop/ bakery, that makes pretty mind blowing baguettes. These
things are all great, but I’m reminded where I am when a group of locals
scramble toward me at breakneck speed attempting to shove fruits through the
car window.
The city was nice, but also a bit empty. Jacob told me
that a lot of people left about a year ago, because of government threats.
Jacob works in food security. He told me that because of overpopulation, many farmers don't own enough land to grow what they need to survive. His organization helps farmers
access farming products that increase their output. We talked a lot about our
work and politics and Africa in general.
We also spent time at the beach where Jacob told me a story about a 10 meter crocodile named Gustave who lives in Lake Tanganyika. We swam a
bit, despite our fear of being eaten by alligators and/or hippos. It was a
great weekend.
Goma
My trip to Goma was equally exciting. I had the pleasure of
visiting Virunga National Park, which is one of the oldest national parks in
Africa. I met Jacob there and we climbed Mt. Nyiragongo, an active volcano with
the largest open lava lake in the world. It was pretty spectacular. Our party
included 8 members, me, Jacob, his friend Faithful, a Belgian, a Spaniard, a
Norweigan, a Dutch girl, and a German, as well as a number of armed guards and
porters. It was a 6 hour hike up the mountain, after which we spent the night
at the peak.
This is a documentary about Virunga national park, made in 2014. I haven't seen it but I've been told it's very good and can be found on netflix.
I also spent a couple of days in Goma, hanging out with my
Seedmates Grachet, Elodie, and Aaron. We talked about their work, and Elodie
made delicious things for us to eat. I’m really fortunate to have such
wonderful friends. I was less fortunate on the way home, when I got pickpocked while getting on a boat. I lost my phone, and with it all the pictures I
took of the volcano, but I was luckily able to salvage a few from friends.
Trump
I arrived back in Bukavu on Election Day. Because I lost my
phone, I had to follow the whole thing on RFI (Radio France International).
French reporters interviewed American voters about their opinions and the
conversations were translated into french. A man says he’s voting for Trump
because he is not afraid to speak his mind. A woman says she’s proud to vote
for another woman for the first time. I woke up at 6am on Wednesday expecting
things to be over, but they were still counting votes. Trump was ahead, having
already won Ohio and Florida. By the time I got to work, was clear that Trump
would be our next president.
These results were a little unexpected, but then so was
Trumps whole campaign. I’m hoping that he will continue to surprise me, this
time by doing a good job as president. One thing that gives me confidence is my
many Congolese friends, who support Trump wholeheartedly. These are people I
hold a great deal of respect for, such as my pastor, my Swahili teacher, and my
Seedmates Aaron and Mariam. Aaron sent me a message the day after the election;
“Trump a gagne. Je suis content” (Trump won. I am content). My pastor is
looking forward to Trump “shaking things up.” My Swahili teacher told me he
thinks Trump will be one of the greatest presidents ever. He said “a president
who puts America first, this is good.” I think all of them are impressed by
Trumps strongman philosophy. Also, most Congolese don’t like Bill Clinton,
because of his support for Rwanda.
This is an article about what a Trump presidency might mean for Congo and Africa as a whole. It's interesting, but Trump has so far been pretty unpredictable in many ways, so it's hard to guess what he will do.
The Epic History of a People
I spent a good portion of this last month reading through David Van Reybrouck's Congo: The Epic History of a People. It's a fantastic book that covers most of Congo's history from the arrival of Europeans to the present. He combines hundreds of personal interviews with in depth research to create a portrait of this vast country. It's a great read for anyone looking to learn a bit more about a strange country in the middle of Africa. I'm guessing most of you don't have time to read it, so I'm going to give a brief and incomplete summary of the history of Congo.
People have been living in this area since pretty much forever, but we don't know about most of that time period, because nothing was written down. The history book itself is more a western idea than Congolese. All the history books about Congo I've read were written by white people (not to say that Congolese people don't write, there are books about Congolese history written by Congolese, I just haven''t read them). All of these authors spent a lot of time interviewing Congolese, so consider this a history of the Congo from the perspective of some white people who talked to some Congolese people.
Our story starts from the time that white people arrived in this area. The earliest account is of Portuguese sailors arriving in 1482. A lot happened in the next 400 years (including a lot of slave trading in the east), but I'm going to skip ahead to 1871 when Henry Morton Stanley (a European pretending to be an American, working for The New York Herald) traveled across Africa by floating down the Congo River (he was actually searching for the source of the Nile). Europeans suddenly understood that the Congo River runs all the way from what is today Eastern Congo (where I live) to the Western cost of Africa. The massive Congo River and it's many tributaries would soon cause this large part of central Africa to be combined into the thing we today call the Congo.
On June 1st, 1885, the power hungry King Leopold II of Belgium changed the lives of many Africans for a century to come, when he claimed personal sovereignty over a space that he called the Congo Free State. Under the guise of humanitarianism, he fooled other European rulers into giving him control over this massive space. He spent the next 23 years pillaging as much rubber, ivory, and other valuable natural resources as he could from the region. His methods were pretty much as brutal as they come. Villages were expected to provide, free of charge, a certain number of baskets of rubber per month. If they came up short, someone might lose their hand, or maybe something worse. It's hard to know for sure, but there are estimates that 10 million people died as a result of these policies. Leopold himself never set foot in the Congo.
The Belgian government finally took over the Congo Free State in 1908, keeping the country colonized until 1960. This time period was not quite as bad as the Leopold era, but Congolese people were still exploited and treated as second class human beings. This was a good time for the country in terms of economic development and infrastructure, but a lot of the economic achievements ended up benefiting the colonial owners more than the Congolese people who did the labor. This era also includes the two world wars. The Congolese army (knows as Le Force Publique) fought and won a number of important battles for the Allies throughout Africa, particularly during the Second World War. Unfortunately, the Congolese troops who did most of the fighting did not get much credit, coming home from the war to find that they were still second class citizens.
In 1955, independence was barely a dream. A Belgian who wrote an article suggesting that they should work toward Congolese independence by 1985 was seen as crazy, because Congo could never be free that soon. But the ball started rolling, and the Congolese people demanded freedom, which was granted. June 30th, 1960, the Congo officially became an independent country. Joseph Kasavubu was the first democratically elected President and Patrice Lumumba the first democratically elected Prime Minister.
It's understandable why the Congolese people wanted independence, but in hindsight, it' unfortunate that it happened so quickly. Most of the leadership positions were taken over by fairly young Congolese who didn't really have much training for the massive task set before them. Congolese leaders like Lumumba and Kasavubu were obviously talented, but lacked administrative experience (Kasavubu has a bit of experience as a governer of a small area in Kinshasa, but Lumumba had worked at a post office before becoming prime minister). They also face a very difficult task, leading and governing a massive area with 495 different tribes and languages. There was not a lot of motivation for peoples from other areas to stay loyal to Kinshasa. Why would people in Katanga want to pay taxes to and be controlled by people hundreds of miles away? Lumumba and Kasavubu were also faced by the enormous challenge of navigating the cold war political situation and the desires of outside powers (particularly western) to maintain control.
It's understandable why the Congolese people wanted independence, but in hindsight, it' unfortunate that it happened so quickly. Most of the leadership positions were taken over by fairly young Congolese who didn't really have much training for the massive task set before them. Congolese leaders like Lumumba and Kasavubu were obviously talented, but lacked administrative experience (Kasavubu has a bit of experience as a governer of a small area in Kinshasa, but Lumumba had worked at a post office before becoming prime minister). They also face a very difficult task, leading and governing a massive area with 495 different tribes and languages. There was not a lot of motivation for peoples from other areas to stay loyal to Kinshasa. Why would people in Katanga want to pay taxes to and be controlled by people hundreds of miles away? Lumumba and Kasavubu were also faced by the enormous challenge of navigating the cold war political situation and the desires of outside powers (particularly western) to maintain control.
The time period of 1960-1965 is sometimes referred to as la pagaille (the mess). The Eastern half of the country quickly seceded following independence. The army was at this point still led by a Belgian, General Emile Janssens, but Lumumba (the former postal worker with no military experience) was the Minister of Defense. Congolese soldiers soon began to revolt because they were not being given higher positions within the military. Lumumba responded this by getting rid of General Janssens and replacing him with a Congolese guy named Victor Lundula. The mistake here is that he replaced General Janssens a little too quickly. There were Congolese being trained for the position in Belgian schools, but they would not be ready for a few more years. Lundula, like many of the leaders, was not prepared for the task before him. The army that had preserved order for many years soon fell apart. This all took place a few weeks after independence. Lumumba also introduced a new Chief of Staff, his former assistant, a journalist who had spent a number of years serving in Le Force Publique, Joseph Mobutu.
Everything was very unstable for the next few years, as politicians and foreign powers struggled to gain control. In 1961, Mobutu launched a coup d'etat (encouraged by the US and Belgian governments) taking control of the military and arresting Patrice Lumumba, who was soon killed. Van Reybrouck claims that the US and Belgian governments never intended for Lumumba to be killed, but some Congolese I know would disagree. Lumumba's ousting was primarily due to his socialist tendencies and his friendly communications with the Russian government, but Mobutu and western officials probably would have also claimed that it was about preserving order in the Congo. Mobutu spent the next few years ousting his political rivals, eventually taking complete control of the country in 1965 (still being supported by the West). He would hold onto power for the next 32 years.
The early Mobutu years were promising. He was an undeniably brilliant politician, known for working 12 hour days. He built the military back up and managed to unite a country on the brink of chaos. In 1971, he changed the name of the country to Zaire, in an attempt to re-africanize the culture. Christian names and neck ties were suddenly made illegal. The economy did well in the early years. In 1971, Kinshasa hosted a boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman (for which Mobutu paid $10 million).
Although Mobutu was very intelligent politically, he was known to be less intelligent when it came to matters of economics. This did not end up well for the average Congolese person. In 1973, Mobutu began a process called Zairianization, in which he took all the businesses owned by foreigners (there were many) and gave them to Congolese people, mostly his friends. Most of the new business owners had no idea how to run their new businesses, so many were run into the ground or sold, and a lot of people lost there jobs. There were some Congolese who rose to the task and profited greatly from this deal, but for most of the population this was the beginning of many years of economic decline.
By the 1980's, Zaire's financial situation was not looking so good. It was now overwhelmingly clear that Mobutu was embezzling massive amounts of money, while government services were non-existent. Everything ran on bribes. A word that people often use is Kleptocracy. Even the soldiers didn't get paid. There's a famous Mobutu quote: "You have guns. You don't need a salary." The west, in the midst of the Cold War, continued to pour money into the pockets of Mobutu, their central African ally, but not much of that made it to the Congolese people. By the late 1980's inflation had skyrocketed (because the government kept printing money to support itself). The cold war ended in 1991, but Mobutu would still hold onto power for 6 more years.
In 1994, the political landscape of central Africa changed when Paul Kagame led the Rwandan Patriotic Front to take control of Rwanda. The world watched with horror as the retreating former Rwandan government killed over 800,000 Rwandans while fleeing the country. These genocidiaires then settled in the Eastern Congo along with 1.5 million Rwandan refugees. Hiding in the UN camps among the many refugees, they began to regroup with the intention of retaking Rwanda. Mobutu, a friend of the assassinated former Rwandan president, welcomed and protected them. Paul Kagame was not happy with this arrangement.
Kagame knew that starting a war would not sit well with his foreign donors, so instead of going in himself, he created a rebel movement with a Congolese figurehead. In 1996, the Alliance des Forces Democratiques pour la Liberation (AFDL) invaded the Eastern Congo. They were led by Laurant-Desire Kabila, an old socialist rebel leader, who had fled the country years earlier. Many of the high ranking officers were Rwandans who formerly fought for Kagame. In addition to Rwanda, Uganda also provided support. The Rwandan army went after genocidaires, which actually just meant massacring as many Hutu refugees as possible. An estimated 2 to 3 hundred thousand Hutu refugees were murdered. Kagame used the force as a front to go after the Rwandan gencidaires, but ended up getting Mobutu as well. The complete incompetence of Zaire's military became apparent as the AFDL marched almost unchallenged across the country toward the capital. In May of 1997, the AFDL took Kinshasa and Kabila was inaugurated as president. Mobutu died four months later in Morocco. These events would later become known as the First Congo War.
The Second Congo War broke out on August 2nd 1998, merely one year later, when Kabila turned on his Rwandan and Ugandan backers. 6 days earlier, on July 26, Kabila had announced that all of the Rwandan soldiers, who served in the military that brought him to power, were to return to Rwandan. The Rwandans were pissed, so they started another rebellion in the East, this time called RCD. They did pretty well as first, but Kabila reached out for help from other countries. He managed to create 7 country coalition, receiving help first from Zimbabwe and Angola; then later from Namibia, Sudan, Chad, and Libya. The Second Congo War had an estimated 3-5 million casualties. The First Congo War lasted for 7 months, but this one lasted for five years.
Van Reybrouck, in his book, breaks the Second Congo War into three phases. The first phase was between August 1998 and July 1999. This consisted of Rwandan and Uganda taking over parts of Eastern and Southern Congo, attempting to overthrow Kabila. This phase ended in July 1999 when the Lusaka Peace Agreement was signed creating a standstill. The second phase was from July 1999 to June 2002. In this phase, Rwanda and Uganda no longer tried to advance, but still controled half of the Congolese territory, plundering the countries many natural resources. It ended with the Pretoria agreement in June 2003, when the war was officially finished. The third phase is the ongoing conflict between the many armed groups in the Eastern DRC. The third phase continues to this day.
In January of 2001, Laurent-Desire Kabila was assassinated by one of his bodyguards. There are many suspicions about who was behind the assassination, maybe Rwanda, or America: maybe Lebanese businessmen or just a disgruntled child soldier body guard who felt betrayed. The world may never know for sure. His son, Joseph Kabila, was quickly appointed to replace him. He was young (29) but proved himself to be very intelligent, using international pressure to bring an end to the war while simultaneously consolidating power. Through a long series of talks, between Kabila, Rwanda, Uganda, and the many armed groups in the Congo, a peace agreement was reached. The largest UN peacekeeping force in history (first 8,700, then 16,700, then 20,000 troops) was dispatched, and a transition period of 3 years was set. It was called the 4+1 deal, because Kabila would be president while there would be 4 vice presidents all taken from different parties.
The 3 year transition period led to an election in 2006, the first time democratic elections were held in Congo since 1960, the year of Congo's independence. Kabila beat Vice President Jean Pierre Bemba, wining a first term as president. He won a second term in 2011, beating long time opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi, although there are some allegations that this election was not fair. His second term will come to an end 3 days from now on December 19th. The constitution says that a president can only have two terms, but nobody has been elected to take Kabila's place. Van Reybrouck's book can no longer help me. We have now come to the place where history is still being written.
A couple of months ago, there were some talks between Kabila and a few members of the opposition. They agreed that a presidential election will take place in 2018. Two of the most important opposition members, Etienne Tshisekedi and Moise Katumbi, were not a part of these talks. They are attempting to get the election pushed up to 2017, but as far as I've heard that hasn't happened. People speculate about what will happen in the next few days, but nobody really knows. The main opposition leader in the East, Vital Kamerhe, was a central part of the 2018 agreement, so there probably won't be too much trouble in my area. But like I said, nobody really knows. After many years of war, the Congolese people are definitely tired of violence. But really, who knows.
Goma Again
I got to take another trip to Goma last weekend, along with a bunch of other MCCer's. We went to a displaced persons camp in Minova where Aaron works, to share a meal with the children in celebration of Aaron's birthday. I almost got arrested for not having my passport, but thankfully, my boss Serge is good at talking to authorities. Later that night, we ate rabbit at a restaurant in Goma.
At the peak of Mt. Nyiragongo, the largest lava lake in the world.
This is from the top of Mt. Nyiragongo. Goma and Lake Kivu are off in the distance, but hard to see.
I had the chance to go to a soccer game in Goma. There were a lot of high kicks and bicycle kicks. Great game!
Me scooping out rice for the batoto's (children)
After eating with the children, we celebrated Aarons birthday by feeding him birthday cake
I'm about to go on Christmas vacation. I'm going to spend 10 days in Nairobi (Kenya), and also a few days in Kigali (Rwanda). I'm also going to spend a few days backpacking in Rwanda. It should be a pretty good couple of weeks. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone.
