The DRC: Blackness and Brightness

I'm going to devote the next 3 posts to the DRC. Lots of thoughts about Rwanda are brewing, but I'm going to choose to keep these on hold for a short time. The last few weeks have been filled with more thinking/researching than writing (please pardon the delay in posting), but I hope that what I have now consolidated into writing will begin to do the following: (1) Give an accurate (not dramatic or stereotyped) portrayal of the perplexities of the DRC; (2) Discuss the role and controversy of the UN Peacekeeping Operations there; (3) Probe questions that help us better understand the human condition both within and beyond the DRC; (3) Get us thinking about what can be done to improve the human condition both within and beyond the DRC.

I am convinced that exposure to a place that many have deemed the “heart of darkness,” the “black hole,” and “entirely hopeless” can teach us more than anything about ourselves, about others, about conflict, and about hope.

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I was planning to just show up at the northwestern border between Rwanda and DRC, get my visa then and there, and meet my contacts on the other side, but after receiving some appreciated words of wisdom, I took advantage of the services offered by the recently-constructed DRC Embassy in Kigali. It’s a curious building, and well-used. I had to drop in multiple times, and it was always in French-speaking frenzy, full of people. I entered one day and greeted the front desk attendant with a friendly “Mwiriwe” (“Good afternoon” in Kinyarwanda), and she told me curtly, “This is the Congolese Embassy. Why are you speaking Kinyarwanda? Bonjour.”

I’d been told, both by others who have attempted to cross the border and even by an official working in the DRC embassy, that the only way to get a visa at the border (if the officials were functioning on a good night’s sleep, had a good eggy breakfast, and happened to feel like letting me cross that day) would be to subject myself to a series of bribes. So I hear, a typical American ends up paying $260 USD for a single-entry visa at the border ($140 + a $60 “tip” to each of 2 border officials) if mercy is shown and a visa is given at all. If you get a visa in the embassy, you pay $140 USD. Either way, that is one expensive visa. The truth behind the three digits? The DRC needs the investment. They need the money.

With a few kinks, it was finished. I got the visa over the course of about 1 week. I took a bus to the border, got out, then proceeded past 4 different crossing guard stations. I don’t think I took regular breaths in the time it took me to get across. The official parked at each station questioned me, some perky, others skeptical. I was with 2 other people – one was Nina (who thank goodness speaks beautiful French), and her friend from Switzerland, Jade. The third of the four guards was a man who must’ve been in his 50s, sitting squarely on a wooden stool in the shade of a sprawling tree. Nina gave him her German passport. He looked at her, asked her a few brief questions in French, stared for a few seconds at her face, then back at her visa, then back at her face, then handed her passport back to her. It took about 1 minute. Same thing happened with Jade. When it got to me, the guy thumbed through the pages, then stared blankly at my Rwandan visa for what seemed like a half an hour. He was clearly perplexed. He asked me something in French. Nina stepped up to the plate. I had no idea what was going on, but they started bantering back and forth in a conversation that was too engaging for my own comfort. Jade said something, and that made him seem to get more on-edge. Nina then cracked some sort of joke, laughed, and seemed to put him a bit more at ease. He handed my passport to me.

I found out later that he couldn’t believe that I was a long-term resident of Rwanda. He then asked why we were all coming to DRC to help take care of its problems if our respective countries have problems of their own.

You might want to think about how you would’ve answered him.

We approached our last building. They stamped us in. I smelled alcohol. A man with bloodshot eyes was leaning against the side of the building. He pointed to the metal border-crossing gate and said to me in a stupor, “Now, you go that way.”

We were greeted by 2 Mercy Corps workers (I was so glad to have these contacts) and piled into the Mercy Corps SUV. We started driving.

There is one thing that I noticed before anything else in the DRC: the ground. The ground – it was black. Pitch black. Africa tends to be known for its reddish dirt roads – a sort of orangey-brown hue that I’ve now grown accustomed to. So it was strange to be walking and driving along black roads. Then I started noticing something else: not only was the ground black, but the walls were black. The sides of houses were black. Lining the roads were giant heaps of black rock. Fossilized into the black ground and black walls were plastic bottles and glass and pieces of paper.

It was all lava rock.

The second thing I noticed: I looked up as I stood outside of our motel, a few miles inside of the border. There was a volcano. And it wasn’t some kind of ancient artifact or picture of historic glory or mountain-like, distant panorama – it was active and impending and huge and right above our heads. There was an orangey glow sitting directly over the gaping opening at the top, and the glow became more fierce and more firey as the sun went down. Lava. Churning lava. A thick fog of gray smoke slowly seeped out of the opening, swelling across the sky, looming above the whole joint.

The DRC is known as the “black hole” for different reasons. The irony of it. The town was literally black.

The volcano we were looking at is called Mount Nyiragongo. The Congo is full of volcanoes, giving it an uneven and rugged terrain. The countless militia groups that roam its territory use this topography to their advantage. They hide at the bases and peaks of volcanoes. They camouflage themselves against black backdrops. They train in the jungles, between jagged cliffs and hedges and expanses that aren’t even identified on maps. They know their land well, and they know nothing else. They are, in a disturbing way, unreached and unstopped.

Mount Nyirangongo has erupted at least 34 times over the course of the last century and a half. Its most recent eruption in 2002, before which 400,000 people were evacuated across the Rwandan border, killed about 47 people and left 120,000 people without homes. A huge chuck of Goma, the border-town where we were staying, is buried under lava rock. This 2002 eruption is known as the most devastating volcanic eruption in modern history. The low silica content of Nyirangongo’s lava makes it extremely liquid and fast-moving, in contrast with most of the world’s volcanoes. Its lava travels at about 60 miles per hour, making it difficult for people to evacuate fast enough.

It was weird to stand underneath it. The ironies were overwhelming to me. The volcano is so unstable, so unpredictable. The speed with which it erupts is catastrophic. And here we were, in the DRC, fully aware of its instability, unpredictability, the catastrophic nature of things – things just erupting.

The second thing I noticed – and it was very, very hard to miss – was the number of white UN vehicles. They were everywhere. They were ants on a piece of food. SUVs; vans; strange antenna-clad things with caged windows, thick tires, and oddly-shaped doors; trucks. They were all white with “UN” written on the sides and tops in big, black, block letters. You see these once in awhile in Rwanda, but nothing like this. There were so many of them that they had almost become an ever-integral part of the character of the town. They were like the clothes on people’s backs.

MONUSCO (United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the DRC, the formal name given to the UN Peacekeeping Ops there) was throwing a party that night – their notorious UN Friday night disco party in the Congo. Our Mercy Corps contacts knew some of the upper-level officials in MONUSCO, so we got in. We left our passports at the entrance, signed in, and drifted towards a large, silvery, mirage-like disco ball twirling from the ceiling of an outdoor overhang. There it was, in all its glimmering glory, spewing light into a vast abyss of blackness around the compound. Blackness as far as the eye could see. There was nothing. It was so black it was almost graying before my eyes because my eyes couldn’t make sense of the blackness. You know when your eyes start adjusting to the dark and they begin to work to make out objects? My eyes were confused because they couldn’t make out any objects. No shapes, no sign of life, no movement, no light, no distant activity. It was the darkest of dark. It was dead.

Soldiers and officials were everywhere, in casual clothes, in army garb. They were from all over the world. Some were my age, some younger, others middle-aged, others with graying hair. Many men, and not many women. White trailers oriented in parallel lines. It was a giant trailer park, painted nothing but white. The light from the disco ball illuminated what was white. Barbed wire enclosed the trailer park and the disco overhang. People were dancing, dancing in the silver light beside a watchtower looking out into black oblivion. Watchtowers are everywhere in the DRC. Everywhere. Many of them are deserted and look as if they haven’t served their purpose in years. At the top of the tower, two heavily-armed UN officials stood, totally motionless, their eyes fixed to the nothingness.

People talked, mingled, sipped their drinks, danced. People who had spent the day in darkness found themselves under the light of a disco ball. It whirled and twirled, the only light for miles and miles, a floating ball of brightness, surrounded by the darkness of the outside world. A misfit, a detached apparition. Out of place. People who had spent the day constrained in vehicles behind caged-in, bullet-proof windows, keeping watch for others’ lives – for their own lives – were moving about unconstrained, freely. People who had perhaps not smiled all day were smiling. People watching the blackness were turned away from the whiteness of what was behind them. Things were organized, safe, planned, jovial. A hub surrounded by chaos.

I remember talking to people. Words came out of my mouth, and words came out of theirs. I was not quite with it, not quite put-together. I was so on my guard during my time in the DRC – and I had to be – that I barely processed or thought about anything. All of my energy was put into being aware of my immediate surroundings. It was only after the trip that I began to actually think about what passed before my eyes. Nina and I kept telling each other, “I need to process this. I can’t think about this now.”

Photo Captions:

(1) The first exploratory walk we did around Goma.

(2) A common type of UN vehicle to see.

(3) The view from our motel porch at night. That orange glow is from the volcano's lava.

(4) Mount Nyiragongo is open for climbing - I didn't take this (found it in this gallery), but I think it does a great job of depicting the terrain in the DRC.

(5) The MONUSCO compound where the disco party took place.

A Snapshot History

Sometimes, I have to go to the Congo for work. As a Rwandan, I go discreetly, stay for a couple of hours, and then I get out of there. I would never stay overnight. They recognize that I’m Rwandan by my appearance, and I fear that they will do something to me. The militias hate Rwandans. They hate everyone. The militias hate outsiders and they hate their own people. They will kill you if you are not one of them and you cross into their sight. They kill you because they don’t know what else to do. They sometimes kill even if you are one of them. They don’t care if you’re black or white, man or woman, girl or boy. They just hate you. Killing is all they know. Killing and hatred. It is their way of life.

--A 23-year-old Uganda-born Rwandan, name withheld, in a conversation with me about the DRC.

This post ran away with itself, so I decided to keep it separate from my own observations in the DRC. I believe this background info is a necessary primer for what’s to come.

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We cannot look at the DRC as some sort of other world. We’re all people, and we all share the same globe. The people and predicament became staggeringly real to me when I was there. Corruption is pervasive, and it goes way back.

King Leopold II of Belgium (great guy, keep reading) – that’s a good place to start. There’s an eerily common theme here: I told you in an early post that Rwanda’s genocide was fomented considerably by Western influence. The Congo is no different. Ol’ Leo discovered this huge swathe of African territory in the 1870s and took it upon himself to explore and exploit it for over 2 decades. Explorers were sent to chart its territories; mercenaries were sent to establish Belgian control over its land and its people. The King’s focus was to take advantage of the abundance of natural resources in the region, particularly when it came to ivory and rubber. He disregarded international rules and regulations and made a monster of a personal fortune from the ruthless mismanagement of his regime – what he named the “Congo Free State.” His regime was characterized by nothing less than brutality. When the demand for rubber skyrocketed in the late 19^th century, he resorted to systemic enslavement and forced labor of Congolese natives, establishing unrealistic quotas for the collection of sap from rubber plants. He closed off foreign access to Congolese territory and created his own bubble of a kingdom, rife with gross human rights violations. Mass killings, savage beatings, and repeated mutilation occurred when the unrealistic quotas were not met. Millions of people died, directly or indirectly, from the violence that he inflicted throughout the country. This went on for too many years before the international community became appalled and forced Leopold to relinquish control.

There is someone in this story who never set foot on Congolese soil for the entirety of these 2+ decades of brash colonial rule – not once. Who? King Awesome himself.

When the Congo was turned over to the Belgian government, it was a picture of despair. More Europeans began to infiltrate the region, building a scarred and complicated relationship with the locals. Natives were only allowed so much control and autonomy in the political and economic spheres. They were deliberately kept under-educated. The country received independence from Belgium in 1960. It was severely under-prepared to run itself. The Congolese army forces, already poorly-disciplined, mutinied. Tensions mounted between Westerners and natives, and between the native factions that split off to support one side or the other. Small militia groups formed to pursue their own political and economic ends, many affiliating themselves with certain political leaders who were often killed by opposing groups. These groups grew quickly, and so too did the resentment and anger among them in the midst of these killings. Congolese dictator after dictator vied for power and jewels and recognition. Corruption was rampant. Each dictator, with his own signature and style, set out to pursue his own ends, to keep his “throne” (and that’s an appropriate word) and his own party in power at whatever cost necessary. Promises were made and then broken.

Rwanda’s Hutu rebel groups spilled into the DRC after the genocide in 1994. These rebels continue to roam throughout the DRC, wreaking havoc against civilians, Tutsi-dominated militia groups, and Congolese militia groups who will do anything to rid their country of Rwandan presence. Rwandan rebel militias meet with significant resistance from Congolese armed groups, who are convinced that Rwandans (and other foreigners) want to exploit their land, their natural resources, and their people. Congolese militia group fights Congolese militia group; Congolese militia group fights foreign militia group. The poorly-disciplined Congolese army has been sent into the bush on repeated occasions to make order of the disorder, but these soldiers are themselves often swept up in the violence, committing atrocities against civilians and militiamen alike.

The DRC also experiences spillover violence from The LRA (Lord’s Resistance Army), a religious and military group numbering in the thousands, originating in Uganda, and engaged in terrible, totally irrational war against the Ugandan government. The LRA ’s specialty is ruthless violence against pretty much anyone it comes into contact with, including innocent civilians, women, and children. Child soldiers, murder, abduction, mutilation, and sexual enslavement of women and children are cornerstones of the LRA.

In 1998, a chaos of ongoing clashes culminated in The Second Congo War, also known as Africa’s World War. 8 African nations and about 25 armed groups were directly involved in the conflict. By 2008, the war had killed 5.4 million people, making it the deadliest conflict in history since World War II. Since 2003, about 45,000 people have died per month as a result of conflict or preventable diseases and starvation caused by the conflict. Conflict minerals continue to be a driving force of violence. So do ethnic tensions.

I feel like the last paragraphs are chaotic just talking about the chaos. So, you ask after all of this, who exactly is fighting who? And why? Good questions. It’s gotten to the point now where it’s not clear-cut and it’s not formulaic. In many cases, the groups stomping around in the DRC don’t even know why they are killing. All they know is killing, and all they know is hatred, and so these are the things they act on. And civilians have become an easy, vulnerable target of irrational hatred.

How do we get rid of hatred on a massive scale like this? Can we even "get rid" of it? Is there hope? Really, is there? Are there signs of resilience, signs of progress? (I can answer this one now and tell you the good news – yes.) Is peace even making itself known? Is the end in sight? What makes humans capable of this kind of violence? How do we introduce education into a country that is lagging so far behind in skill and stability? What is the role of the rest of the world? I keep digging. Comments and emails are welcome and appreciated.

Some stats/notes of interest:

• Population of the DRC: 68 million
• As many as 250 ethnic groups have been distinguished and named
• 700 local languages and dialects are spoken
• About 70% of the Congolese population is Christian, predominantly Roman Catholic
• In 2007, 21% of the population had no schooling; 46% had primary schooling; 30% had secondary schooling, and 3% had university schooling
• Per capita GDP (2009): $171
• Natural resources: Copper, cobalt, diamonds, gold, other minerals; petroleum; wood; hydroelectric potential
• Agriculture: Cash crops--coffee, rubber, palm oil, cotton, cocoa, sugar, tea. Food crops--manioc, corn, legumes, plantains, peanuts
• Land use: Agriculture 3%; pasture 7%; forest/woodland 77%; other 13%

Into the Congo

Recently, I spent 3 days in the Democratic Republic of Congo. That was long enough for my first trip there. I can’t say I'll go back, and I can’t say I won’t. Having witnessed things that I had little hope or peace of mind to process during my time there, I came back to Rwanda with a hand that could not stop writing and eyes that could not stop reading about that place. I’ve taken some time away from this blog to reflect on those 3 days. I’m not done processing, and I won’t ever be done processing.

The DRC has remained on the State Department’s Travel Advisory List for the past 33 years. Actually, forget travel warnings. That place has been a pit of chaos since the Cold War, or really since colonization in the 1870s by King Leopold II of Belgium, who called it a “slice of magnificent African cake.” It is the home of the UN’s largest peacekeeping operation in the world. It has acquired a reputation that makes people around the world shake their heads in disapproval, lower their heads in disappointment, turn their heads away for fear of realizing hopelessness. Child soldiers. Rape. Pillaging. An obliterated infrastructure. Severe gender inequality. Perpetual combat zones. Agonizing human rights violations. Natural resource oasis. Corruption central. Brash and illegal political-military groups. More diamonds than Fiddy Cent can wear around his neck. Widespread exploitation of vast mineral reserves. Sex trafficking. All Congo buzzwords. To put it mildly, the negative tends to outweigh the positive when it comes to the DRC’s reputation.

Of course, some people advised me not to go. Others smiled cautiously at me with the knowledge that firsthand insights are the only way that we can turn a country or issue inside-out, and they supported me. No matter who expressed what opinion, I knew that I had to go. If I am studying peacekeeping, there is no way that I would pass up the opportunity to travel 4 hours north and cross the border into the biggest peacekeeping puzzle in the world.

I had contacts there with a couple of women in their mid-twenties working for Mercy Corps (it probably would’ve been foolish to go without contacts). This means that I spent most of my time trekking around on foot or in the Mercy Corps vehicle. These women, in turn, had developed close relationships with some upper-level officials serving in the UN Peacekeeping Forces in Congo. This created an unexpected wave of insight and exposure, as I spent the night hours on and off the UN compound with UN troops (I barely slept in the 3 days I was there). The UN throws a disco party every Friday night on the compound, located at the base of a 2-man watchtower that looks out into black oblivion. So yes, I partied with the UN Peacekeeping Forces in the Congo (as preposterous as that sounds), and I can’t deny that informal conversation with military personnel was immeasurably valuable. I couldn’t have asked for more.

Anyway, none of this is about me going to the Congo. This is about us gaining a better understanding of something that should not be ignored. It’s easy to save a puzzle that is endlessly frustrating and seemingly impossible for another day. It’s easy to put it in the very back of the drawer under everything else to collect dust. But we cannot do this anymore. The puzzle pieces came from somewhere – they were carved from something that was once whole. If they were cut apart, they can be put together again.

I am not trying to be sentimental, cynical, or idealistic. I am not trying to confirm nor debunk all the stereotypes and preconceptions of the DRC that are floating around out there. I spent a good amount of time before the trip clearing my head of everything people and books and journals and manuscripts told me about the Congo. I went with an open mind. What follows in the next post are objective observations of what passed before my eyes in 3 days in the DRC. I’ll also include a snapshot history, so that your very valid question about why on Earth brutal conflict has persisted for so long there might begin to be answered. The purpose of the next post is less about revealing my own viewpoints and reactions, and more about shedding light of some of humanity’s biggest questions. I hope that you will think and you will process. It will be a difficult post to read, but bear with it, because I am going somewhere with it. You’ll see this soon enough.

Photo Captions:

1. An alley, surrounded on all sides by barbed wire.

2. One of the first sights I saw upon entering Congo.

3. Sitting on the porch of my hotel room, the only place I could go to be alone and process things. Nina took this.

4. Lava rock, trash, and UN vehicles. 3 of the most common things in the DRC.