In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz (34 page)

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Authors: Michela Wrong

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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 Congoâto distinguish it from French Congo across the riverâand 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 SpÃ©ciale PrÃ©sidentielle. 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 ArmÃ©es 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 âdÃ©fazÃ©' (âout of it').

Lingala
The lingua franca of Congo, it is also the adjective used in Africa to refer to the country's music.

MIBA
MiniÃ¨re du Bakwanga. State-controlled diamond mining operation based in the town of Mbuji Mayi.

MPR
Mouvement Populaire de la RÃ©volution. 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 âthe owls', a reference to their predilection for nocturnal visits.

UNITA
UniÃ£o Nacional para a IndependÃªncia 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 CrisisâHistory 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
(Ãditions Gideppe) in 1998 by HonorÃ© 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 armÃ©e
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
DÃ©rives d'une Gestion PrÃ©datrice
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
MobutuâDignitÃ© 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 DÃ©part
by Francis Monheim, a Belgian journalist who covered the independence years. Leaning heavily in the opposite direction is
Le Dinosaureâle 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.
Mobutuâl'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 GÃ©nÃ©rale 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'Ãtat Libre du CongoâVolumes 1 and 2,
published in 1996 by Ãditions 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

ActualitÃ©s 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

arms

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 GenÃ¨se

Soviet activity in

âspecial 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

ChÃ¢teau 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

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