Keeping abreast of Congo

While I’ve been whiling my time away in the US, life is Congo chugges along through thick and thin. Bemba is still in exile in Portugal but promises to return to DRC in time for the next legislative session in mid-September.

In more positive news, six new animal species were discovered in eastern Congo on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. The expedition was carrier out earlier this year by the Wildlife Conservation Society (the Bronx Zoo), Chicago’s Field Museum, the National Centre of Research and Science in Lwiro and the World Wildlife Fund. The discoveries included a bat, a rodent, a shrew, and two frogs. Potentially new plant species collected are currently being classified.

Congo’s ongoing instability, particularly in the east, has created an incredible amount of human suffering and economically stunted the country in countless ways. Despite this, the war has also inadvertently protected vast swaths of rainforest that might otherwise have been logged, farmed and destroyed under a more stable government.

Here’s to looking at the brighter side of things.

Congo’s ongoing war

Congo’s war officially ended in 2002 with the signing of the Peace Accords in Sun City, South Africa. There have certainly been changes since that time: inflation has stabilised, there is a reasonable amount of economic development for a country that still has no infrastructure, and now there is even an ATM.

But anyone who cares to cast an eye in Congo’s direction even occasionally sees fairly quickly that this is not a country at peace. The international community focused attention heavily on last year’s presidential elections -the first in over 40 years- as the key to bringing the country back together. But six month after the results were announced, the country is still experiencing low-level warfare and the continuing electoral process, now trickling down to the municipal level, is beginning to stall due to lack of funding.

MONUC has not yet decided the fate of Bemba’s foot soldiers who surrendered to the UN at the end of March’s brief siege in Kinshasa. Bemba himself is just over halfway through his 60-day medical stay in Portugal, his fate still unknown.

Meanwhile, ongoing clashes between government soldiers and rebels near Goma caught a student in the crossfire. A demonstration to commemorate the student’s death was held yesterday in Kinshasa.

If Congo claims any peace at all, it is at best a shaky one.

There is no doubt that I live in an occupied country. As I watch the increasing push for allied forces to withdraw from Iraq, the equation with Congo comes easily. Without MONUC’s presence here, the next round of elections will not take place. Without MONUC’s presence in the east, low-level militia fighting could easily take over the urban centers once again. Kinshasa’s finer restaurants will most certainly suffer when MONUC finally withdraws, but that is another tale of woe for another time.

The first phase of the electoral process last year was simply the beginning of the much longer phase it will take to rebuilt a country that was hardly held together from the moment it was born. Convincing people to have faith in a government that has done nothing but fail them -and at the same time give that government adequate time to built lasting change- is asking a stupendous leap of faith.

There is no one moment when war is over and peace rides in on a shiny white horse. Reconstruction can certainly not wait for a complete cessation in fighting that may not come for years. But keeping the faith: that is the real battle.

A bit short of asylum

Mr. Bemba finally left our presence last Wednesday when he headed to Portugal for medical treatment. Bemba received permission from Parliament to travel last Monday on the condition that he returns in 60 days.

In the meantime his political party, the MLC, has refused to participate in the lower house of Parliament due to harassment they claim to be receiving from Kabila’s party.

The public prosecutor has asked the Senate to remove Mr. Bemba’s immunity as a senator so he can be prosecuted for inciting last month’s violence.

Kinshasa is relatively calm these days but the question of Mr. Bemba’s post-Portugal fate remains unanswered (although this bloke has some disjointed theories that seem a bit clouded by his own experience).

While it was expected that Congo’s political situation would lighten following the elections, the violence both in Kinshasa and Matadi (and similar reports from other areas of the country) coupled with sustained reports of opposition harassment indicate we’re not in the clear quite yet.

In response, the UN Security Council has extended MONUC’s Peacekeping mandate a month further to the 15th of May, stating that “continues to pose a threat to international peace and security in the region”. It’s expected that a new resolution will be introduced in the coming month to extend the mandate farther.

But there are a few small signs of hope. The Congolese government is being held responsible for a journalist killed (one of several throughout the electoral process) in late 2005 when the court convicted two soldiers and demanded that the State pay reparations in the order of $3 million to the family and the Congolese National Press Union.

A judicial affair

While our old friend Jean Pierre Bemba has been braaing away his time at the South African Embassy here in Kinshasa, he still has not received permission from the Congolese government to travel to Portugal. It’s not clear who is responsible for granting the request, nor has a warrant been issued for his arrest to date.

An unnamed minister comments “Bemba is a judicial problem… This has nothing to do with us.” while the state prosecutor says that although Bemba is being investigated, “(t)his case doesn’t concern the judiciary. We have nothing to do with his departure.”

Apparently Bemba is not the only one looking for a new home: two swimmers competing in Melbourne on behalf of Congo have decided to make a break for a better life.

On the ground here in Kinshasa, the streets are quiet in the evenings as all UN personnel are still on an 8pm curfew. There’s still some question about what will happen from this point forward. With some of Bemba’s former soldiers now integrated into the national army with unknown loyalties and others still hiding in la cité, it’s difficult to say whether his forces are too fractured to continue to cause unrest or still pose significant threat. Maybe we need some technical support from Sahara Sarah who’s latest adventures in Burundi include a CD ROM on coping with insecurity.

Meanwhile word is that the government is running on a 10% budget deficit which certainly won’t help the dip the Congolese franc suffered as a result of last month’s fighting. That combined with complaints that Kabila’s government has been harassing different members of the opposition does not present a pretty picture for the path to democracy.

Still in purgatory

Life in Kinshasa has returned to what passes for normal around here, which was clear from last night’s visit to la cité, where loud music rules the streets and the advert Action Skol! promises one free Skol beer for every two purchased.

Last week’s bullet holes have begun to fade into the damage from August, although the talk around town is still on the fighting and what’s left to come. Everyone has their tale of where they got stuck and when they ran out of phone credit, cell phone battery, beer. A friend joked: Driving around, it looks like the city was totally destroyed. But then, it looked like this before! And everyone has their own theory on what will happen next, whether things will stay quiet or spark up again.

Bemba is still at the South African Embassy residence, where he is awaiting the paperwork to proceed to Portugal, where he owns a villa, for medical care (he apparently underwent an operation there last year). In a recent interview with the Chicago Tribune, he was asked whether he had ordered his men to disarm, to which he replied: I haven’t, not really.

While Bemba has agreed to Portugal’s requirements for his visit, including 90 day tourist visas for himself and his family - not an offer of exile, he has still not received permission from the Congolese government to proceed. Apparently although the rebel leader turned vice president turned opposition leader/senator’s arrest has been ordered for treason, the official warrant has not been issued by the court.

Among security circles, there is valid concern that even if Bemba is given permission to travel, the helicopter ride from the embassy to the airport –either in Kinshasa or Brazzaville- is enough exposure to pose a threat of assassination.

On a lighter note, TimeOut recently published this interview with Chéri Samba, a Congolese self-proclaimed painter-journalist who current has an exhibit on at the Tate Modern.

Fallout

While news agencies now reporting over 600 deaths during the recent violence, the EU and its member states’ leaders come out strongly against the attack on several embassies: Article 22 of the convention states that all diplomatic premises shall be inviolable, and that the state is under a special duty to take all appropriate steps to protect the premises of the mission against any intrusion or damage…

Meanwhile Bemba, still camped out in the South African Embassy (in Kinshasa, contrary to rumours!), is most likely headed to Portugal for medical treatment. Hopes are high that this will diffuse the political situation, although there has been much speculation over Bemba’s forces that supposedly escaped across the river to Brazzaville. With 200 of Bemba’s men in Equateur agreeing to integration into the national army, it’s difficult to say how many active troops he had prior to the fighting.

We’re all still trading war stories and trying to figure out which rumours are true. How exactly did Bemba’s brother get out of prison last Wednesday night after being picked up by the police for threatening the Prime Minister?

Problème de communication?

Yesterday was President Kabila’s first interview with the press since his inauguration in January, about 100 days ago. Since first coming to power in 2001, Kabila has been known as a man of few words. In a country of the overly-verbose, most people find this puzzling. What is a leader if not someone to make long-winded speeches to his subjects?

Whether you attribute Kabila’s silence to his lack of comfort in French and Lingala (his preferred languages are English and Swahili), a solitary nature or a lack of intelligence, I give you a few select quotes from which to draw your own conclusions.

On the possibility of opening a dialogue with Bemba:
Ce n’est pas avec des négociations qu’on va assurer la sécurité des Congolais… Il faut faire respecter la loi.
(Negotiations are not what will ensure the security of the Congolese people… The law must be respected.)

What do you have to say to those who say you do not communicate enough?
Vous étiez trop habitués aux discours dans ce pays, habituez-vous aux actions sur le terrain et moins aux discours.
(In this country, you are too used to discourse. Get used to actions speaking louder than words.)

What do you have to say about the opposition and freedom of expression?
C’est constitutionnel… Quant aux média de l’opposition, je n’en ai pas entendu parler, il faut demander au ministre de l’Information.
(It is constitutional… As for the opposition media, I haven’t heard much about it. Ask the Ministry of Information.)

Rumours are flying right now and the government is not dispelling them.
La rumeur, est-ce un problème de communication ? Je ne pense pas.
(Rumours are a communication problem? I don’t think so.)

MONUC and others says that the violence was avoidable. Do you feel that you have lost some credibility in the democratic process?
Quelle est la contradiction sur le plan politique ? Le problème était militaire… La paix n’a pas de prix.
(What is the contradiction in the political plan? Le problem is military… Peace does not have a price.)

Do you think there is a possibility of amnesty for Mr. Bemba?
L’erreur, pendant la Transition, était de croire qu’on pouvait arriver à la réconciliation sans la justice.
(The error during the transition is to believe that there can be reconciliation without justice.)

For those of you still wondering where Bemba is, I heard three possibilities while exchanging rumours with friends at dinner :
• He’s still at the South African Embassy
• He’s in Brazzaville
• He’s at the South African Embassy in Brazzaville.

All sounded plausible until someone pointed out that there is no South African Embassy in Brazzaville.

(Milles excuses for my paraphrasing of questions and poor translation skills on the responses but you get the idea.)

What passes for normal

I’m not sure what constitutes normal in this part of the world but it seems that most people around here are trying to get back to it.

Somewhere between 100 and 150 were killed during the clashes. The International Committee of the Red Cross has organized a relief mission which arrived on Saturday and has taken a major role in cleaning up the bodies and supplementing the medical supplies of the Hôpital General for treating the wounded.

While many of Bemba’s men are surrendering to MONUC, there’s some discussion as to whether they are turning in all of their arms. One of the major failings of the DDR programmes here (and I would guess in other places) is that large stocks of weapons are hidden when militia members turn themselves in, leaving open the opportunity to re-mobilise again fairly quickly. Others report seeing large caches of arms being brought into MONUC compounds – garbage cans filled to the hilt with AK-47s and RPGs. But no ammunition; which was apparently the limiting factor in Bemba’s forces efforts.

The have been rumours of Angolan troops in the country on and off for several months and there have now been definite sightings in Kinshasa. Apparently during the fighting the Angolan army was ready for deployed to Congo.

Bemba is still said to be at the South African embassy although there is no definitive news as to his future plans or pending asylum applications. He continues to insist that his life was treatened several times.

We’re back in the office today, as are most people. Back to the grind as everyone awaits the shaky next step in the supposedly enlightened path to democracy.

The shot heard round Kinshasa

I’m sure y’all are wondering how did this all start? After all, Kabila’s troops had been in a standoff outside of Bemba’s compound for the last week, with MONUC standing by and watching.

The story I got is that Kabila and Bemba were actually in negotiations with William Swing, head of the UN mission here, when the fighting broke out. If you’ve been following along, Bemba was ordered to disarm his personal security force by midnight Thursday last week and integrate into the national army, FARDC. The security force would then be replaced by 12 policemen. Swing was trying to negotiate for a few extra men for Bemba and that he could pick his guards from among his men. The negotiations were apparently going well.

But then an FARDC truck drove by the standoff and one of Bemba’s men fired on it.

Surprise, surprise, all hell broke loose.

Two days later, downtown is pretty quiet and most people are headed to one of the downtown supermarkets to stock up and trade war stories. Government troops are still looking for those among Bemba’s men who have not yet turned themselves in.

The airport is now open and SNBrussels and Kenya Airways are flying today — although apparently when some mundeles (expats) tried to make a break for the airport, their cars were fired upon by FARDC. Flights schedules are due to return to normal tomorrow.

Here’s a quick peek at some of the damage in my neighbourhood.

The Biac building, containing several organisations including UNICEF and the Spanish and Greek embassies, was the target of several exploded and unexploded ordnance (mostly artillery, I’m told) and sustained fairly serious damage. The ordnance that made the large hole in the second and third floors apparently hit an air conditioner which prevented it from exploding farther into the building where it would have caused significantly more damage. There is one fatality reported from the first floor bank and another critically wounded.

And for me, I’m going to go see about a fresh beer and sign off from a much quieter Kinshasa.

Home again

After spending two days with charming friends/colleagues (many thanks, K&A, for letting us eat you out of house and home!), we venured out this morning to head home. By 7am when the rumoured curfew supposedly ended, people were in the streets and traffic had started to return. You can see in the picture of the boulevard below that people are now moving around and even the traffic cops have taken up post again, compared with Peter’s photos from yesterday.

There was however, much looting. A friend who was stuck in an office on the boulevard reporting hearing glass breaking in the middle of the night and there were empty cell phone boxes strewn in the streets as I made my way. I can, however, assure you Kinshasa residents that neither Peloustore not Express were among the pillaged as I drove by. I’ve also heard that several floors are missing out of the middle of the UNICEF building. Despite this, most people are making their way towards home and Congogirl is looking for a new hotel.

When I got home, I discovered that we’d had a visit from Bemba’s forces in my absence. They left a few presents behind…


Any of Bemba’s remining militia is now hiding in an attempt to avoid Kabila’s Presidential guards and the national army who is now going door-to-door looking for them in Gombe (downtown) and well as several quartiers of la cité (Balumbu, Lingwala and Bandal). As for Bemba himself, Colette reports that he is now seeking asylum from South Africa (link stolen from Fred). The South Africans may now be faced with an interesting choice: release Bemba from their embassy to face charges of high treason or offer him asylum and damage their diplomatic relationship with DRC.

The Nigerian Ambassador is now apparently in stable condition (note that the article’s author refers incorrectly to the government of Laurent Kabila, who was assasinated in 2001, which is when our current leader Joey took over).

We’re hearing that there will be another curfew tonight starting at 8pm, though I can assure you that I don’t plan on going anywhere farther than a friend’s flat a few flights below me - curfew or not.