Kagame scorns UN report as DRC burns.

Paul Kagame, Rwanda's President

I read with interest several articles about DRC on this weeks issue of The EastAfrican. The UN leaked report implicating Rwanda and Uganda shows how DRC’s wealth has attracted plunder from the world stage to the detriment of the country.

Of course Rwanda was ingurgitated enough to threaten a withdrawal of its 3,500 army aiding in peacekeeping effort in Sudan. UN in a diplomatic twist (after realizing Rwanda’s potential in peace of the region) has pushed the publishing the report, with Rwanda’s reaction, on 1st October.

UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon flew unexpectedly in Rwanda last week for talk, showing the seriousness of the repercussions.

I wasn’t shocked on Rwanda’s reaction on the leaked report. Prolific writers and journalists covering DRC have got the same backlash on their work. Dutch journalist Ludo de Witte’s The Assassination of Lumumba (first published in Dutch, 1999) is a good example. The fuss it caused in Belgium, DRC former colony, made the Belgium parliament to accept its country involvement in Lumumba’s death.

The UN backed report on Illegal Exploration of Natural Resources and other forms of Wealth from the DRC published from 2001-2003 received the same backlash.

The allure of DRC’s vast mineral resources has brought to it’s doorstep the world stage like hounds picking on it carcass amid plundering, war inhumanities and smuggling.

The 1988-2003 conflict drew a score of African countries; Angola, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Namibia, Chad and all the way to the bloody diamond fields of Sierra Leone.

I tried looking at 50 years of independence on the land of rhumba and found interesting the world stage in DRC:

The colonial Belgium under Leopold II set the stage for the scramble and partition of Africa. With shrewd ambition and insatiable greed for wealth, Leopold hired Henry Morton Stanley in 1878 to unleash terror to 400 African chiefs to curve the ‘Congo Free State.’ Joseph Conrad’s account in Heart of Darkness about colonial DRC said ‘the vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience’ made Leopold the richest man in Europe.

But the wind of independence blowing over Africa reached the country on 30th June 1960 bringing more world figure in -ism schism of the cold war.

Patrice Lumumba, the pm, leading a shaky coalition with Belgium unwillingness to concede power brought chaos. Moise Tshombe with Belgium support declared Katanga, the mineral hub, an independent state on 11th July 1960. UN and USA stepped in but when Lumumba wasn’t impressed by their service called in Russia and Czech personnel at the nadir of cold war.

This culminated into assassination of Patrice Lumumba by Belgium and CIA. The revolt in Kisangani (Lumumba’s stronghold) in 1964 was supported by China, Algeria, Cuba and Egypt, forcing the CIA ti aid Mobutu to power in 1965.

As the western ‘friendly tyrant’ Mobutu lead a kleptomaniac regime, but enjoyed $9Billion aid, US contribute $860Million of this. It is from the start on 1988 that DRC was engulfed in humanitarian crisis in four stages according to the report; 1993-1996; July 1996-July 1998; August 1998-January 2000 and the fina; transition of January 2001-June 2003.

In 1988 DRC was rotting over corruption, weak central government and huge debt. Mobutu was ‘dinasaur’ against the second democratic wind of change which tirned the world against him.

But not France which sided with him against ‘Anglo-phone ‘ encroachment in central Africa. In 1994 Franco-African summit Mobutu got a warm, French president Jacques Chirac gave amoment of silence in memory of Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana whom France supported against RPF.

The then current Rwandan president Pasteur Bizimungu was not invited.

The first stage started with Mobutu, in need of regional powerbroker, to meddle in Rwanda and Burundi’s conflict despite DRC hosting over 1.5 million Rwandan refugees like Interahamwe, Mayi Mayi and Banyamulenge.

Rwanda and Uganda resentful at cross border raid in Kivu and Eastern conge respectively chose to support Laurent-Desire Kabila. Angola too supported Katanga rebels to hit back on Mobutu’s support to Jonas Savimbi and Unita.

Interestingly, Kabila was dismissed by Argentinean revolutionary Ernesto ’Che’ Guevara and 120 Cuban fighters in 1965 as lucking any revolutionary seriousness. Algerian Ben Bella, china’s Zhou En-Lai blessed the expedition while Egypt’s Abdel Nasser had his reservation. Ernesto wrote the 1965 expedition in Dar es Salaam embassy in the book The African Dreams: The Diaries of the Revolutionary War in Congo.

On 17th May 1997 Kabila become the president of DRC while Mobutu died four months later in morocco. Uganda’s Yoweri Museni remarked, as quoted by Times journalist Martin Meredith in State of Africa, capturing the all incident thus:

“The big mistake of Mobutu was to involve himself in Rwanda. So its really Mobutu who initiated the programme of his own removal. Had he not involved himself in Rwanda, I think ho could have stayed, just like that….”

The third stage (August 1998-January 2000) flared when Laurent Kabila dismissed Rwanda a country, as his advisers said to be so small to be found in the map.

With aims to control their borders, president’s otiose ambition for being regional kingmakers and unbridled greed for diamond, petroleum, gold , timber, Colton and other minerals, several countries joined the fray at this stage. DRC was a proxy with contracts used to buy loyalty.

Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda financed rebels because Kabila could not control the cross border raids. Zimbabwe and Angola aided Kabila with help from Namibia and Chad. The acme of this stage was in 2000 when Rwanda and Uganda turned against each other in three occasions to control Kisangani, the diamond hub!!

The last stage (January 2001-June 2003) saw the withdrawal of foreign armies after the July 2002 peace treaty by Joseph Kabila. There is no respite as rebels were and are still supported as a proxy war in rivalry in the region.

Published on the Thursday September 30th Issue of The Daily Nation and Syndicated online at: NewsFlavor 

Achebe's Anthills of the Savannah, 23 years and still potent in Africa

The author Chinua Achebe

Title: Anthills of the Savannah

Author: Chinua Achebe
Publisher: Heinemann, London 1987
Genre: Literature (Fiction)
Reviewer: Manuel Odeny


The book is an extension of Chinua Achebe’s A man of the People entailing the fall of civilian governance to a military one through the eyes of minster Nanga and main character Odili Samalu.

Published merely a week after the 15th January 1966 Nigerian coup ousting Abubakar Balewa and his stooge Ladoke Ankitola, Achebe prophetically wrote:

“Overnight everyone began to shake their head at the excess of the last regime, at its graft, oppression and corrupt government.” As it is common in most coups A man of the People went further. “Newspapers, the radio, hitherto silent intellectuals and civil servants- everybody said what a terrible lot and it became public opinion the next morning.”

Barely a month after Nigerian coup the streets of Accra were abuzz with jubilation as Kwame Nkurumah was toppled by the army on 24th February.

It’s from here that Anthills of the Savannah shows the degeneration of Kangan, a fictious West African state, after a popular military coup, into a failed state.

The Kangan story revolves on state house maneuvers away from ordinary wanainchi in a budding dictatorship as seen through the eyes of three main characters from an elite college. Sam from Sandhurst becomes the president and appoints Chris as his commissioner of Information.

The third is a maverick editor of the government run daily National Gazette, Ikem Osodi.
Other characters aiding in plot are Beatrice a graduate working as a senior civil servant, Chris’ girlfriend and Elewa (Ikem’s fiancée) a semi-illiterate saleslady from a ghetto in Bassa the capital.

Still relevant 


More than two decades after its publication, do the Anthills of the Savannah have any relevance in African scene? After rereading the title I found it still fresh in African politics today.

In the novel, as in Nigeria and Ghana’s case, the army brought up in Sandhurst tradition stood aside in the failure of the civilian rule till their interest were at stake.

Like most coups in Africa, the Kangan army entered governance amid celebration and hope of grand promises of liberating the citizens from corruption, unemployment, nepotism and other ills.

Once installed Sam’s promise of following the constitution and later phasing way to civilian rule is edged away as he become a budding dictator emulating an octogenarian dictator Ngongo from East Africa.

Relevant and recently publicized is the Madagascar case when a disc jockey and former mayor of Antananarivo Andry Rajoelina backed by the army outset the sitting president Marc Ravalomanana. World pressure for power sharing amid the warring factions as hit an impasse.

Let’s consider the book's relevance during publication and in just two decades after independence in Africa there were forty successful coups with countless others abortive.

Consider in 1965 from June, in a period of six months: Algerian Ben Bella was disposed by colonel Houri Bourmedienne, Zaire’s General Mobutu Sese Seko outset presdent Kasa-Vubu while chief of staff Jean Bedel-Bokassa removed his cousin David Dacko as president of Central Africa Republic. Colonel Christopher Soglo and Sangoule Lamizana seized power in Benin and Bukina Faso respectively.

Back to the novel, when Sam’s attempt to change the constitution on a referendum for a president for life is thwarted by Abazon region, he resorts to divide and rule to control dissidents and power absolutely.
Erstwhile comrades are turned against.

Editor Osodi is picked from his house Gestapo style before being murdered while Chris dies at the hand of a randy and drunk policeman while fleeing a national hunt to Abazon.

This is relevant closer home when Ethiopia’s major Mengistu massacred with machine guns his army colleagues in committee running his Marxist-Lenin revolution while Idi Amin after his 1971 coup felt insecure enough to mass kill Obote’s Langi and Acholi tribe that “it was impossible to dispose off the bodies in graves” as written by his former minister Henry Kyemba in State of Blood (Corgi,1977)

A peep through the tight wall of Sam’s court jesters Ikem Osodi offers an insight to dictatorship:

“Worshiping a dictator is such a pain in the ass. It wouldn’t be so bad if it was merely a matter dancing upside down on your head. With practice anyone could learn to do that. The real problem is having no way of knowing from one day to another, from on minute to the next what is up and what is down”

Sam’s quest for power boomerangs back when his security personnel kidnap him in a palace coup.

Sadly power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely making the problem of Africa to lie on leaders obsessed with power.

The defect is profoundly felt in Nigeria where ethic loyalties are exploited by leaders making political debates to be acrimonious. Within a year after the first coup there were three counter coup with culminated to the North and Eastern Igbo nationals in the Biafra war that lasted for 2and a half years.

“The trouble with Nigeria (read Africa) is simply and squarely failure of leadership.” I quote Achebe in The Trouble with Nigeria (Heinemann, 1983) “The Nigerian (African) problem is the unwillingness or the inability of its leaders to raise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example which are the hallmarks of true leadership.”

Does the book offer any hope for Africa.

Within the title the Savannah was ones lush with the vegetation. This is the hope and the euphoria for social economic progress that engulfed Africa during independence.

The fire of poor leadership, neo-colonization, economic down turn, schism of cold war –isms amongst others ravaged the savannah. The jugged anthills jutting out of the barren savannah are a reminder of the dreams lost and hopes yearned.

As the book ends Amaechina, Ikem’s infant daughter is a beckon of hope and a jutting anthill in hopelessness surrounding Africa. During her naming ceremony the whole society is represented. In government there is a bureaucrat and an army officer. Scholarly there is a university student and semi-illiterate mother. Religiously, a Christian and a Muslim share a jig while the old have a relenting and a hardliner conservative.

Amaechina is the new generation of younger Africans growing in the global village with more opportunities to progress away from the dark past.