Thursday, August 18, 2011

Update Gabon to Congo to DRC: Part Eleven - The last, final, end, ultimate episode in the Visa Saga




There is so much to still tell about Kinshasa – the wide impressive 8-lane Boulevard that runs 14 kilometres through the city – so imposing with high skyscrapers on either side, the large bill boards advertising CENI – the Independent Electoral Committee that is supposed to make sure that the upcoming election on 28 November will run smoothly and fairly and with transparency. The feel of affluence and almost obscene amounts of money, whilst fifty metres away, behind the facade of the tall modern shiny skyscrapers, the roads are dusty and dirty and potholed and the daily debris is piled in heaps which are set alight at night and give the effect of a post-apocalyptic scene with the smoke filling the dark empty streets, the electricity cut, the only light coming from the burning fires.

Part of the posh showy side are the countless buildings and vehicles that represent the NGO's, the UN, the Red Cross, the Medecin Sans Frontieres, UNESCO, UNICEF, the World Bank -- and of course, the many foreign embassies. On the Boulevard you could almost think yourself back in a very modern and very wealthy European city, but step off the main Boulevard, and you are immediately back in Africa. Here you will smile at the sights and sounds and the colours and the smells. So synonymous with Kin, the click-click-click of the shoe shine boys advertising their service by clicking the small wooden footrest he carries in one hand, his bag with polishes and rags in the other; the bell-like tinkle of two little bottles clanging together carried by the man that sells all-sorts-- a large tin bowl of aspirins, razors, tissues, bundles of wooden sticks that Africans use for toothbrushes, snuff, you-name-it; or the ting-ting-ting of the man's knife against the tin bowl piled high with fresh French loaves – which he too carrires on his head in a large tin bowl. When you stop him, he will take the bowl down, take one loaf of bread, cut it lengthwise, butter it, squirt on some mayonnaise, peri peri and slices of any one of several sausages that are nestling in the middle of the bowl: an instant and delicious lunch.

Kinshasa is also synonymous with the best fabric shopping yet! Enormous shops with literally thousands of Africa fabrics – far too many to buy only one or to make a final choice in a day; and in the grand market itself, row upon row upon row of stalls with even more choice, and then, in the centre of the market, an area where the sound of manual Singer machines is mesmerising as dozens of tailors sit amidst masses of bits and pieces of all these fabrics, sewing the most elaborate outfits for every Kinois, rich or poor, young or old, male or female.

All the warnings about pickpockets and muggings are real. Almost every time we went out in the streets, there was at least one attempt to rob us. Some of the youngsters are just that – youngsters with no job, no money and nothing to do, so they try to rob people of their money and belongings. But every now and then there is the slightly more professional youngsters who usually, it seems, work in groups of three. One of them 'sells' big plastic bags to shoppers. He would come up to the victim with the apparent aim to sell bags, hold the bags up at shoulder height so that they completely cover the victim from view of anyone else in the vicinity. Another then comes from the other side and 'stumbles' against the victim while a third comes from the front and in this muddle, hands go into pockets, unzip bags, cut shoulder straps, and before you can say “Hey you”, you have lost all your worldly goods. Another problem in Kin are the 'police' or the 'immigration officers' – sometimes in uniform, often not, --people who stop any and everyone – in particular the 'mondele', i.e. white people, and demand money, papers, or anything they can get out of you.

Anyway – you want to know about the Angolan Visas!

To bring this endless saga to an end, when we were finally told “no you cannot have visas at all, we have suspended all visas”, as a very very last resort I asked Terence to help, and he, as a very very last resort asked a good friend and colleague who is as high up as you can go in the DRC to intervene on our behalf, and he, in turn, asked his miracle man in Kin to do his magic. He did and, after another few weeks of waiting, sleepless nights and stomach churning and dread having to pass on the news (on my part), seven of us coming to Kin to stay in one of our friend's properties while the other four chose to stay behind in Matadi, and

after being told we have the visas, they are on the ambassador's desk but he was waiting for one final authorisation, we were finally told – three full moons since we started applying for Angolan visas, that the ambassador had been overruled, as the powers-that-be in Luanda had decided after all that, that with all the rebel activity in the northern half of the country, and then, topped off by the kidnapping of a woman only last week, made it impossible for them to guarantee our safety and security as we travelled through Angola.

He offered though to still give us the visas – after all they are there and ready to be pasted into our passports, but with the proviso that we only use them to fly into Luanda, that we ship the truck from Pointe Noire down to Luanda, pick it up there and drive from there down to Namibia. But – cost and logistics made this option impossible and our long-awaited visas remain on the Angolan ambassador to the DRC's desk. We don't even get to see them.

It has been a long haul. Different people in the group have reacted differently to this trying ordeal. Some have fallen right through the bottom layer of the Mazlow Pyramid, others have been amazingly stoic, positive, cognisant – and appreciative of the sterling efforts made by some very important people on their behalf. What has surprised me is how easily people can start assuming that it is their right to have others go out of their way for them, turn over mountains on their behalf in an effort to make things go their way and then be angry when the end result is not as they had wished for. Once again adversity has been responsible for our little group to act in a way that no one will be very proud in years to come.

So here we are, frantically looking for flights to Johannesburg, to Cape Town, to Windhoek – anywhere from where at least some of the much-awaited sections of our expedition can still be salvaged. At least we have options. And the trip will continue. We still have a long long way to go!

In passing --

In the taxi from Matadi to Kin with Mark and myself, on yet another mission to get our visas, there are two men. Mark sits in the front seat with the driver and I am in the back with the two fellow-passengers – one is a jurist, Valentin, and the other an architect and the discussion the entire way is about the election which should take place on 28 November -- "and if it doesn't or is rigged then on 6 December the whole Congo will be in the streets to rebel against corruption and government."

I ask what will be different. "The people have had enough. They have people in place," he says. One of them is the cardinal. The other is Étienne Tshisekedi from the UDPS.They will not become corrupt like every other president before them," he maintains.

He names statistics of how the country has gone backwards over the last 50 years – - the tips of his fingers providing the emphasis he needs, playing scales through the air as he rattles off the facts and figures: grandparents had roads, schools, hospitals, employment, mines, crops, bridges, and today the grandchildren have none of those.

"There used to be a fabulous road system through the country as well as a train network. Today we cannot drive through the DRC to get to Zambia, because there are no roads," he confirms what I have been writing on the blog for weeks. It is an amazing discussion and I realise that I am living a very precious moment. This man is passionate, without being fanatic. He knows everything the president has said or done in detail. The architect argues that he cannot know all that for fact... but the jurist says he does because he needs to know every single thing about his enemy – that is the only way you can conquer him.

I ask whether there isn’t anything in the constitution that they could use against the president – for instance that he should declare all his assets when he takes office. Valentin pulls out his personal copy of the constitution from his polished black leather briefcase! We look and there it is – the president, when elected, has to declare every single asset he owns. Valentin remembers something else he has not mentioned: that the government has not had a session for 8 months! Again we look up what it says in the constitution: it says that the government must sit twice a year for a minimum of three months – in March and again in August. So I repeat my thought: " – you can get him using the constitution!" -- and I remember the billboards in Kin. "What about CENI – Commission electoral national independent? I saw the posters everywhere – those huge blue posters with white doves taking flight saying the country needs transparency and honesty and integrity," I ask naively. "Bah!" he spits out the word. "That commission is appointed by the president, the very person who does not know the meaning of transparency, honesty and integrity. They might still continue to attempt to ensure a free and fair election! But they have been given no funds so how will they function?No, it is a clever – but very obvious red herring to make everyone think he is what he is not."

It is fascinating talking to people in the DRC – no one in the country seems to believe that the president is the son of the previous president ("and are we a kingdom that the son should inherit the title from the father? No! We are a democratic republic!" they say.) And the previous president, Laurent Kabila, was shot by his bodyguard – and it is assumed, not surprisingly, that the moment a new president came into power – which was immediate – the very first thing he would do is to launch an investigation into the murder of the killed president – whom he claims to also be his father. But such an investigation was never launched and to this day there has not been any investigation into the assassination of the President Laurent Kabila.

I know that when Laurent Kabila took over from the infamous Mobutu Sesse Seko, he was hailed as this saviour of the Congolese people. Yet, we also know that it was not very long when he too surrendered to corrupt and Fat Cat ways. (I love the French expression for Fat Cats: Les Grosses Legumes = The Fat Vegetables and I can just picture that huge fat cassava tubers lying in the amongst the greens and the chillies and the carrots and the aubergines in the market – big, heavy, lumpy, ugly – and of no nutritional value whatsoever..) “Why then are there so many monuments to Kabila and even a tomb in Kin which is the only 'tourist attraction?” I ask. “That is because the people, even though they know that Laurent Kabila became corrupt and dishonest as his presidency progressed, still feel grateful for him saving them from Mobutu. They will always be grateful to his memory for that reason alone.”

It really is hard to understand this country though. It is in the heart of Africa – in the centre of this vast continent. Because of its size, it has almost every climate there is, more navigable rivers than anywhere else in the world, every plant type, every mineral the world needs plus enough gold and diamonds to satisfy the greediest soul, enough copper to supply the world, every soil type – all of it rich and fertile, as well as what apparently is the best clay in the world, the export of which could have been their major source of foreign income. Whereas other countries are incapacitated for months by their rainy season and then suffers the rest of the year with droughts in the dry season, the DRC has a rainy season in the north while it has a dry season in the south and then vice versa, with the result that even its major river, the mighty Congo River, does not have low and high periods, but flows strong and full along its 4500 kilometres all year round. But it is not only the heart of Africa, and it could not only be the provider of food and wealth of the entire Africa. With its vast oxygen-generating rainforests, the second largest in the world after the Amazon and one of the natural wonders of the world, this country could possibly be seen as the lungs of the Africa as well.

At the time of independence in 1960, Zaire, as it was then became known, was in fact the most developed and advanced country next to South Africa, regardless of the fact that up till then the country had been shamelessly exploited and ransacked by the Arab slavers and then the Belgian colonialists. But since independence, every other foreign power has come in and even more shamelessly looted and raped the country, stripping it of its mineral assets, and more importantly of its moral assets. And the saddest thing of all is the fact that this time round it was done with the knowledge and understanding of their own people at government level who still, to this day, share the spoils and line their own pockets with the money they are paid to seal their lips -- while their country is being denuded and destroyed and turned into one of the most backward and undeveloped in Africa. What is left today is a country overwhelmed by chaos at every level and swamped in unproductiveness and stagnation.

At the moment the "Three K's"* seem to be plotting (since the president stated that he would be looking amongst the opposition for men who share his vision), Tshisekedi does seem to be the only hope for the country, a rather desperate ruling party seems to be throwing much of the millions of dollars and as many favours at any and everyone and ....... let me not say too much more. I could go on and on -- especially after the long and fascinating discussions I have had this past week with a couple very senior government people. But that I will leave for when next we meet around a long, leisurely meal and a good bottle of red wine...

For now I can only repeat: watch what happens on the 28th of November when the DRC goes to election and, should the European countries who are in Kabila's pocket step forward and say that it is too early for an election and it should be postponed by three years, or, should the election be rigged and not run completely freely and fairly, then watch what happens on the 6th of December... Watch and remember.




*Clan Kabila,Vital Kamerhere (a Rwandan Hutu) and past President of the parliament, and Léon Kengo (Wa Dondo), president of the senate






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