Cameron Duodu
Letter from the North
I wonder whether Congolese politicians realise the impatience and irritation with which the rest of us in Africa look on as they squabble over the terms of the peace agreement that could give their country a chance to recover from the ravages of Mobutu Sese Seko’s kleptocratic rule?
Don’t the Congolese politicians have any sense of history at all?
Mobutu used to boast, with Gaullist aplomb: “Apres moi le deluge! [After me, the chaos!]”
Yet the ambition of the Congolese politicians to obtain power for themselves has blinded them to the irony of their proving Mobutu right.
Nothing that they have done since his death two years ago reveals that they have the slightest interest in bringing peace to their country.
Yet without peace, they cannot give the Congolese people a chance to rebuild their lives and repair their devastated country.
Angered by the meandering posturing of these heads-of-state-in-waiting (one could pick 20 of them out of a hat, just like that) I sought permission to interview Mobutu.
The Big Boss agreed, but Mobutu said he would only come down if I brought President Laurent Kabila, and rebel leaders Abdoulaye Ndombasi, Jean-Pierre Ondekane, Ernest Wamba-dia-Wamba, Emile Ilunga, Bizima Karaha, Lunda Bululu and Jean-Pierre Bemba before him.
The Big Boss agreed to lend me temporary powers that would enable me to bring all of them together.
I now fully understand the frustration of former president Nelson Mandela and others who have sought to get the Congolese leaders to agree on a peace settlement.
Here is the unedited transcript:
Mobutu: You, Kabila, what sort of Congolese are you? You are selling the Congo’s mineral resources to the Zimbabweans.
Kabila: You’ve been dead for two years and when you come back, the first thing you worry about is money? Listen to who is talking! Didn’t you sell our mineral rights to the Americans and the Belgians? Did you keep the money in Africa?
Bululu: So you admit you are giving contracts to the Zimbabweans?
Kabila: Do you think their aeroplanes drink water?
Wamba: That is why you didn’t want an elected Parliament, isn’t it? You knew they would ask you to bring all contracts before Parliament for ratification.
Ndombasi: Shut up! Didn’t you send people to Unita’s Jonas Savimbi to find out how you could sell diamonds without paying duty on them?
Ilunga: Gentlemen, gentlemen! Remember in whose presence you are! You may think he’s dead, but there’s always blood in the head of a tsetse fly.
Karaha: We are all Congolese.
Kabila:Listen to that Tutsi calling himself a Congolese!
Mobutu: So this is what you have sunk down to? After all the lessons in Congolese nationalism and authenticit that I taught you?
Ilunga: Ha ha ha ha! You only taught each of us to build a Gbadolite for himself, monsieur le president! Kabila has already put in papers to grab your apartments in the most fashionable areas of Paris and Brussels. All in the name of the Congolese people, of course.
Bululu: Some of us learned your lessons better than others, monsieur le president.
Mobutu: Hmm! I know where you guys are coming from. I know. If only I could have had a little more time, I would have settled all your problems. Remember what I did for Nguza Karl i-Bond?
Kabila: Who wants to be sentenced to death only to be released with fanfare and made a rich man?
Mobutu: That is reconciliation, man, reconciliation. You, Kabila, you have these problems because you are so headstrong.
Karaha: Your excellency, Kabila doesn’t like people to make comments about the size of his head. If you want a serious conversation with him, please don’t.
Mobutu: We Congolese are always too serious about ourselves, that’s the trouble. We have good music, we have the most beautiful women, but we always leave them and fight about politics.
Bululu: Or we fight about politics so that we can have the power to bend the musicians and the ladies to our will, not so, the Cock-who-doesn’t-allow-the-hens-to-sleep-
at-night? Who imprisoned Rochero, eh? Who turned Franco into a silly crooner who sang the Belgian national anthem on board a ship at a reception for the King of Belgium, eh?
Mobutu: You Congolese never forget anything. Nor do you learn anything.
Kabila: You are damned right. You think you can come here and lecture us about what is good for Congo when you took 30 years ruining it?
Mobutu: So you too want 30 years to do the same, do you?
Wamba: As a person who tries to bring a historical perspective to discussions, I have to point out that this discussion would have been more to the point if you had sought permission to bring Patrice Lumumba with you. Then he could have posed questions to you too.
Ilunga: What about Tshombe? Moise Tshombe You don’t think he could have had something to teach us about the Congo? Was it not he who showed us that the country could be carved up into little parts supported by outside powers?
Ndombasi: If we are going to stake out claims for past leaders, then I don’t think Cyril Adoula should be left out!
Karaha: Nor Kasavubu!
Wamba: Nor Kamitatu!
Kabila: Nor Soumialot!
Ndombasi: Nor Gizenga!
(At the mention of each name, there are opposing shouts of “Yeah!”, “No!”, “Traitor!”, “Patriot!”, “Sell-out!”, “Victorious leader!”, “Quisling!”, “Hero!”. “Sissy!”, until finally pandemonium breaks out.)
Big Boss: Time, gentlemen, please. No last orders!
Exeunt severally. Curtain.
And thereby hangs a tale.