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Memoirs
Congo Connection
by
Dr. Amitabh Mitra
Many years
back I had been staying at a Bed and Breakfast place in Pretoria while
studying in the university there. This boarding house was economically
suitable to students like me and was bereft of nearly all luxuries. It
was run by a Philippino couple to whom I would always remain grateful.
Every day morning all the boarders use to meet over a frugal breakfast
after which we all moved out to our specific destinations.
It was during one such breakfast get together, I noticed an elderly
white gentleman who always sat alone at a table in the corner. I
approached him one day and asked his permission to sit at his table.
‘No problem Young Man, Welcome’, he countered.
I gave vent to my curiosity and asked him about his life.
 ‘You see my dear friend I actually belong to the Belgian Congo. I came
to South Africa in the seventies and have been here since then. I never
married and I actually live in this boarding house’. He said while
applying margarine over his bread.
He continued with his story over tea and sandwiches while I hung on to
all his words.
‘I own about sixty odd properties in Johannesburg ranging from houses to
flats in premier locations which have been rented. I have a manager who
looks after my real estate and keeps in touch with me on the phone’, he
revealed with a mysterious smile, ‘but he too doesn’t know my
whereabouts’.
‘I was born in the Belgian Congo in Leopoldville’. He had the same look
on his face as a person in South Africa who would mention about
Salisbury. ‘My father had a thriving business in timber and furniture
but then the revolution arrived. I and my brother had to flee to South
Africa’.
‘I stay here, only sometimes I go to Paris where I have an apartment but
it is philately that keeps me going. After the breakfast and going
through all the South African newspapers, I am on the phone selling and
buying stamps around the globe’. He concluded with a ringing laughter.
‘Now tell me, he asked, would you tell anybody about me’.
I looked at his smiling eyes and the crow feet at its angles, ‘perhaps
not’ I said.
 I had forgotten about him until recently when I saw the young rebel
leader General Laurent Nkunda in Eastern Congo dancing with his
soldiers. A tall handsome man, he is always found smiling. He holds a
staff at all times the same way Charles Taylor use to do in Liberia. But
Congo and Liberia are different and so is General Nkunda.
The Belgian Congo achieved independence on June 30, 1960 under the name
"Republic of Congo" or "Republic of the Congo" ("République du Congo").
Shortly after independence, the provinces of Katanga (led by Moise
Tshombe) and South Kasai engaged in secessionist struggles against the
new leadership. On January 17, 1961, Katangan forces and Belgian
paratroops, supported by foreign interests intent on copper and diamond
mines in Katanga and South Kasai, kidnapped and executed Patrice
Lumumba. Patrice Lumumba who won the parliamentary elections by a big
margin was elected as the Prime Minister. Much later I would come across
the Patrice Lumumba Friendship University in Moscow.
Following five years of instability and civil unrest, Joseph-Désiré
Mobutu, now Lieutenant General, overthrew President Kasavubu in a 1965
coup. He had the support of the United States because of his staunch
opposition to Communism. A one-party system was established, and Mobutu
declared himself the head of state.
In a campaign to identify himself with African nationalism, starting on
June 1, 1966, Mobutu renamed the nation's cities: Léopoldville became
Kinshasa [the country was now Democratic Republic of The Congo –
Kinshasa], Stanleyville became Kisangani, and Elisabethville became
Lubumbashi. This renaming campaign was completed in the 1970s. In 1971,
Mobutu renamed the country the Republic of Zaire, its fourth name
change in 11 years and its sixth overall. The Congo River was renamed
the Zaire River. In 1972, Mobutu renamed himself Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku
Ngbendu Wa Za Banga.
I came across a book titled ‘The African Giant, the story of a
journey’ by Stuart Cloete and published by Collins of London in
January 1957.
 In his chapter aptly titled ‘The Land of Masks’ about Congo, he
writes,
Renders had been in the Belgian Resistance and had been taken by the
Gestapo. While being examined by them, he saw a girl hanging by her
hand, her back completely stripped of flesh. One is surprised and
shocked at ritual murder and cannibalism among Africans, and one forgets
the horrors of the concentration camps of Europe –of the Gestapo, the
Russian secret police, even the chain gangs of Florida and the lynchings
of the South. Yet the African killings of the fetishists and doctors are
to them, a form of preventive medicine, of worship and religion, which
gives them some justification.
His conversation with the Governor-General goes like this –
‘Ah, monsieur’ the Governor – General said, ‘there are great
anti-colonial factions in the world. UNO, America, India can see no good
in what we do. Even some people in England, but as you have seen, we
have done a lot and continue to do more and more. But the more
industrial schools and hospitals, the more evolution there is, the
quicker will the African demand the right to self- government. We forge
weapons against ourselves. And what those others who criticize us,
forget is that one does not destroy the mysticism of thousands of years
in a generation. The African here as elsewhere, remains at once too
eager and too recalcitrant; eager for the outward semblance of
civilization, and recalcitrant as far as its inner meaning and ethics
are concerned,’
The conversation ended when I said: “Your Excellency, what would happen
if the white man left the Congo? How long would it last? ”
“A few years,” he said, “because we have built well. The buildings will
stand.”
“And then?” I said
“Then, monsieur, the forest will return.”
This is what would happen in Africa if the white man left the country.
War - a hundred wars at once. The destruction of the so called evolved
or civilized blacks by the peasant farmers and a slipping back into the
great African sleep from which we have attempted to arouse the
continent.
Stuart Cloete believed passionately on the white man, who is god chosen
to lead in Africa and the ugly claws of ‘communism’ that was slowly
poisoning the African mind. In his dedication he writes, ‘ I dedicate
The African Giant to the white men who have given their lives to
Africa….’ At no point he had mentioned the plunder of the African soil
by the settlers. Many years later Mad Mike Hoare led a mercenary action
in Katanga from South Africa killing thousands of men women and children
by aimless firing at huts as he drove by. He also believed on the
communist threat as written in his book Congo Mercenary. He lives
in Durban.
In May 1997, Mobutu left the country, and Kabila marched into Kinshasa,
naming himself president and reverted the name of the country to the
Democratic Republic of Congo.
Mobutu’s generals fled to South Africa with diamonds and sacks of
foreign currency. They live behind high walls, electrified gates, manned
by round the clock security and protected by vicious dogs in the suburbs
of Johannesburg. They remind me of Major Dalim who assassinated Sheik
Mujib and continued living under such protection. I met a few of them
and under conditions of anonymity told me of life under General Mobutu.
– Continued
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References
Wikipedia
The African Giant by Stuart Cloete Published by Collins,
London 1957
December 14 , 2008
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