The Great Agony & Pure Laughter of the Gods (11 page)

A few metres from where villagers exhibited their merchandise, a barricade blocked the passage to a brick house with an iron roof. Two bored soldiers sat outside while three others stood like president’s guards manning the barricade. When Lieutenant Kurega approached, he was welcomed with a king’s salute. The bored soldiers stood like statues for a few minutes while the lieutenant spoke through his radio.

Risto was very curious to know what had made his group willing to travel for more than four hours in these vicious conditions. He followed Lieutenant Kurega into the iron-roofed brick house he had commandeered. A bodyguard stood by the door, and a group of soldiers sat inside. They spoke in Swahili. They spoke about holes and money, holes and diggers. They were giving the chief of the militia a report on coltan and gold. The commander of this cohort was named Kahimya. In spite of his long beard, he looked cleaner than the other soldiers. He held a radio in his hands and was surrounded by a triangle of three bodyguards.

Kahimya took Lieutenant Kurega into a chamber where they spoke quietly. Minutes later, the lieutenant came back and ordered Risto to find young men who could carry heavy loads through the forest; they would need very strong men, he was told. Risto didn’t know where to start and who to bring, especially if he thought about what their fate could be. He lurked around the market for a while before coming back alone. Inside the house, he found sacks of unknown products lying on the floor of the house. The lieutenant was furious when Risto told him that he could not find any strong boys.

‘If you can’t find any boys to carry these bags, then you will have to carry them yourself, and if one falls, or you get tired, I’ll blow up that stupid head of yours!’ Kurega screamed at the top of his voice as he smoked some cannabis. Before five minutes were up, Risto was back with six young men who were older than him, and who looked physically stronger than him.

This time, there had been no arguments and excuses. All he had done was to point his gun at each man and order them to follow him. The villagers knew that simply coughing at the wrong time could mean death at the hands of the militia, and had learned never to hesitate for a second when called. With militia men, killing was even simpler than greeting.

Kahimya was still reporting to Lieutenant Kurega when Risto returned with the young men.

‘At each hole, they are giving half of what they extract each day. But those mining gold, they hide what they get. We have zero tolerance for this. If we hear that they got a certain quantity of gold in a hole, and they don’t want to pay half, we take everything they have.’

Kahimya looked at Lieutenant Kurega, who didn’t seem impressed. He took a breath and carried on, ‘Last week, I ordered the killing of a man who didn’t want to give half. It has given a lesson to others.’

‘To whom did you give the market?’ Kurega asked, his eyes narrowed.

‘Donald McField, that white man.’

‘From Satellite?’

‘Yes … his company. Remember we signed a contract with them last year?’

As chief of the mission, when Lieutenant Kurega spoke to his counterpart, the whole hut kept quiet.

‘Are you sure no one takes it somewhere else?’ Kurega asked, still with narrowed eyes.

‘There is no other place to go. How and where would they pass with it? Our boys are everywhere with roadblocks.’ Kahimya smiled, letting his counterpart know how strong and tough he was down there in the Mbayo mines.

‘They are obliged to sell to Satellite only. That is the only choice we have given them; whoever tries to sneak it through the forest gets caught by our boys. They get good punishment.’ Kahimya’s eyes spoke the same tongue as his mouth.

‘So how much do you have? How many kilos?’ asked Lieutenant Kurega.

‘More than fifty kilos of cassiterite, more than 200 kilos of coltan, and a portion of gold,’ Kahimya replied, scratching his palms.

‘We have taken six young people to transport it to headquarters in the Kahuzi-Biega Park,’ said Risto’s commander.

‘I don’t think they will make it. These things are too heavy for so few men.’

‘We’ll have to make them remember to be strong.’

Lieutenant Kurega’s final words were a warning to Kahimya to look after the business; the daily taxes were very important and were not to be held back; he reminded him that they all reported to the hierarchy above.

As orders were given, the six young men bent their bodies to lift what seemed like small bundles of a grandmother’s delicacies; to their great surprise and that of Risto, each small sack required the strength of a warrior in order to be moved. After Lieutenant Kurega had warned them, with curses, that the bundles were not their grandmothers’ bags of beans and potatoes, and that a falling sack spelled death for its bearer, each one gathered his strength and put the bag on his head, perspiring all the while.

The soldiers left the house, walking together to the end of the village before entering the bush. A fifteen-minute walk led them to the edge of a big stream, which dispersed into many small streams. They followed the main one. Soon they came to a wide-open space. Risto realised that it was a mine, with dozens of tunnels.

A small crowd of young people was busy, some with hammers and chisels breaking rocks, while others were pounding and crushing rocks in an iron mortar. Still more were busy with different sorts of rock-breaking and searching activities. There was another group of younger children, aged maybe ten to fourteen, with plastic basins and sieves, a few of them holding hammers with which they scraped heavy rocks.

Lieutenant Kurega, like the inspector of a ministry, walked under the guidance of Kahimya, who whispered to him in a foreign language. Workers quickened their pace; those with the heavy hammers pounded as if their arms were made of steel. Even the smallest children sped up their sieving movements with a vigour that would have broken any world record. No worker dared gaze at Kahimya for more than half a second. As he passed them, they worked with concentration, almost without breathing, as if they had become robotic machines.

Risto was terrified when he peered into one of the tunnels; it was limitless. Darkness would not allow him to see where it went, until a few men with metallic basins and torches on their foreheads emerged sweating. They looked like the dirt they worked in. This was a coltan mine with its unstable rocks, always ready to fall on an unfortunate body. Soldiers lurked around, watching every single move the workers made.

The group headed back through the forest, travelling snaky paths through everlasting green foliage, crossing streams and water sources of many sorts. The soldiers saw abnormality in any thing that moved. With vigilant eyes, they kept scanning each movement of trees, of tall bushes, of birds and playing monkeys. It showed how much, even though they had become the owners of this park, they were still afraid of it, afraid of the unexpected visitor it might carry in its hidden corridors. They questioned the reason for each monkey sound, why some monkeys screamed so loudly, why the birds made simultaneous movements, and why a bird sang in a specific way at a particular time.

After a while, there was a halt; Lieutenant Kurega gestured for each person to get down and crawl. There had been a loud noise followed by an immense movement of bushes, which had stopped when Kurega and his crew halted. A certain kind of bird signal could be heard again and again. Lieutenant Kurega looked through his binoculars, irritated as the trees in front of him blocked his vision. He gave instructions, dividing his team into three groups. Three soldiers remained behind watching the young men who carried the luggage. Lieutenant Kurega and two other soldiers took the second front line, while the two Kadogo, Risto and Dumbo, were sent forward.

Risto and Dumbo went on crawling on their stomachs and knees. They pulled themselves along with their elbows, sweating, but ready to destroy whoever might be trapping them. Each boy felt comforted by the presence of the other, but when Risto remembered that Dumbo did not have a gun, just a machete, he realised how risky it was to rely on Dumbo to protect him if attack came from that side.

Suddenly, a crackling was heard behind, coming from the group that had remained behind guarding the luggage. The noise scared a group of baboons ahead of Risto and Dumbo. They made a huge racket and left trees moving and swinging. Kurega hooted like an owl, a signal that things were fine and under control. Then he instructed Risto to move forward. With the departure of the baboons, there were no more strange noises or suspicious movements. Risto stood up; he walked towards where they had been expecting to find enemies, and instead found a stand of tender young bamboo where the baboons had been eating. He imitated an owl song, and the lieutenant and his three soldiers appeared.

Again there was a noise coming from behind. One soldier was shouting ferociously. He came forward pulling one of the carrier-boys while waving his gun. ‘This rat has swallowed one bead of gold!’ the soldier screamed.

‘Where is it? Where did you put that gold?’ another soldier screamed, a knife in his hand.

‘No, no … I don’t have any gold! I didn’t take any gold,’ the boy pleaded with falling tears.

‘He should shit here, we will see it!’ shouted the man, his knife getting closer and closer to the boy’s throat.

‘Where is that gold?’ Lieutenant Kurega asked as he pulled back the soldier with the knife and made a sign to the one with the gun to lower it.

‘Chief, I didn’t have any gold. What I eat usually comes back into my mouth, then I chew it and swallow it again … just like ruminating. That’s what happened.’ The young man was crying.

The lieutenant ordered calm and commanded his group to keep moving. He knew he was the only one with gold; he was keeping it all in his bag, and even though the practice of swallowing gold and diamonds was common among people of this area, he knew the boy had no gold with him.

But on this side of the world, death was the easiest way to punish and control the villagers. The militia wanted to be feared and revered. Killing was the best way to achieve this. Without the intervention of the lieutenant, the boy would have been killed and his body left for scavengers and other wild carnivores.

Late that night, the group of soldiers and boys arrived at the militia headquarters in the Kahuzi-Biega National Park. The young boys who carried the luggage were lucky to be released, but the idea was simple: they would be needed to carry the luggage again.

The owner of the plastic shoes wanted them back, but Risto refused. He hadn’t worn shoes for a month; he couldn’t give them back now. On the journey, they had protected him from wild thorns. He would give them back after he got himself his own pair. The other boy began shouting at Risto, but Risto threatened to blast out his brains if he carried on disturbing him. He had a gun, while the owner of the shoes had only a machete. They were people of the jungle, and they applied the law of the jungle. Fight for survival was the motto.

Risto had built his small hut with his cousin Benny and another two Kadogo. It was typical of the militia camps, which had shaky shacks of bamboo and mud. None of the boys could stand up straight in the little hut. Dry grass and straw covered the floor, which was at the same time their beds and seats. They left a small hole in the front wall so they could check who passed by. Risto still had only the blood-spotted shirt and shorts that he had been wearing when he was captured. But he also had a pagne that Néné had secretly given him to use as a blanket.

Two days after the trip to the mines, the General announced that they would attack the villages near the Kahuzi-Biega National Park. He called everyone to the open space in front of the huts and addressed them: ‘For those with firearms, take care of your bullets. One bullet, one enemy, otherwise use knives for any other work.’ He paused, then added, ‘Do not come back if the gun does not come with you.’

It would be a tough and dangerous mission, as it would be far from the forest and near the camps of the Mai-Mai, as well as those of the main rebel movement that controlled the town of Bukavu. But the soldiers were not afraid; they had had better training than the Mai-Mai, and they had fought many times against the main rebel movement that occupied the South Kivu and other regions in the eastern Congo. A lot of Mai-Mai were village boys who had taken guns either because they were forced to, or because they were willing to protect their territory. They did not have much training, but relied on ancestral beliefs and magic.

The main rebel movement, which occupied the town and the surrounding area, was a well-trained army made up of soldiers from neighbouring countries and a few Congolese.

The nearby villages were deserted, and the families that still lived in the area were very poor. They no longer had cattle. No cow, no goat, no sheep, no chickens, no rabbits, and even guinea pigs had become rare, while their fields were empty.

The evening was cold. The moon shone and a gentle breeze blew as they walked to their destination. Risto was in the first line of soldiers. It was his first time on a mission. It was the first time he would turn on his people, traumatise families and break their hearts. He was a real young lion now. The General was fond of him. He had seen Risto volunteering to shoot the poacher, and he had done it so well, using the one bullet, one person method and hitting his target accurately. He had seen Risto getting what many soldiers failed to get right, striking the forehead of a person standing some distance away. Even better, the killing of the poacher had not seemed to bother Risto; he was fine, as calm as if nothing had happened. Those were the kinds of soldiers the General wanted. This was why Risto had been given a firearm and selected to go on the mission.

Benny had been selected too; he would be among the carrier-boys, as he had no gun yet.

There was no sign of life in the first village. The huts were empty; there was a creepy smell in the air; total eeriness reigned. They passed the second village. A small hut fumed a whitish smoke; they moved on. They met a young man with a machete out walking. They questioned him about what he was doing outside at night. He explained that he was searching for a banana tree for his sick father, who craved fried banana. Trembling, he revealed that people didn’t sleep in the village anymore; they slept in the fields far from the main paths, or they left in the evening for other villages. He went on to show them the way to the other villages, and was released as they approached one of the villages he had spoken about.