The Death of Comrade President

by Alain Mabanckou

  I don’t know what comes over me all of a sudden, but I ask my uncle:

  ‘Uncle, was it the northerners or the southerners that murdered Comrade President Marien Ngouabi?’

  Maman Pauline pinches my leg really hard under the table. Uncle René sees her and says:

  ‘Pauline, he’s bound to ask questions like this. Everyone in the country’s wondering the same thing right now …’

  He sits up straight, touches his Congolese Party of Labour badge, raises his wine glass and wets his lips slightly before setting it down again:

  ‘Things aren’t quite that straightforward, Michel … Why do you think the northerners might have killed our president?’

  ‘Maman said so, when we heard the news on the radio.’

  Everyone turns towards Maman Pauline as I continue:

  ‘And she said the northerners, especially the Mbochis, aren’t usually as clever as us, they’re not normal, they’re bad people, and from the moment they’re born their parents tell them they have to be soldiers and go and kill southerners and presidents of the Republic who aren’t northerners. And also, I—’

  Maman Pauline kicks me under the table. Again, Uncle René sees her and says:

  ‘Anyway, what does “normal” mean, Michel? I’m sure Maman Pauline didn’t mean what you think. I know my sister, she’s not a woman to harbour hate. Besides, she’s the only one in our family who speaks a northern language – Mbochi! And let me tell you, it’s not easy …’

  He goes on flattering Maman Pauline, who has folded her arms to show us how cross she is that I’ve betrayed her.

  ‘We’ve seen everything in this country, Michel …’

  So now he starts talking about the old days, when the French colonised us, then how the French decided that our first prime minister would be a polygamous priest, Fulbert Youlou, a Lari, so a southerner. In the 1950s we didn’t have a president of the Republic; the polygamous priest was just prime minister. Uncle René goes on to explain how, tangentially, the northerner Jacques Opangault got thrown out. His title was ‘Vice-president of the Governmental Council’, appointed by the French, who were therefore replacing a northerner with a southerner, which was how many people saw it, especially the northerners. The polygamous priest started to live the high life, like he’d stopped being a representative of God, even his cassocks were made by top designers in Europe. His four wives were all official, but everyone said he had mistresses left, right and centre. Uncle René added that the polygamous priest had imprisoned the northerner Jacques Opangault, then released him a few months later, and that he’d granted himself powers that allowed him to change our Constitution and throw out members of our National Assembly and get himself elected first president of our country in 1959 …

  As I listen I start to think that maybe this is how Uncle René talks every Sunday to the new members of the Congolese Party of Labour at the Party School in the Mouyondzi neighbourhood. While some people go to church, Uncle René goes to this old building, which used to be a soap factory, and teaches newcomers how to be members of the Party and understand the history of our country. The schoolchildren in Pointe-Noire have to go and visit the Party School with their teachers, it’s part of the citizenship course. Inside the walls are covered with black-and-white photos of Lenin, Karl Marx, Engels, Mao Tse-tung, Stalin, Fidel Castro, Leonid Brezhnev, Tito and comrade Nicolae Ceauşescu. But the best photo of all is the one of Comrade President Marien Ngouabi in his para-commando uniform, with people all around him, congratulating him on having jumped out of a military plane without breaking his legs.

  ‘Michel, you’re dreaming, everyone else is listening to me …’

  I sit up straight. It’s true, everyone’s looking at me, and Uncle René carries on, calmly:

  ‘The polygamous priest gradually got more and more bourgeois, he developed a taste for luxury, fine houses, built up his personal fortune while the Congolese people ate caterpillars and earthworms! When there were strikes he imprisoned the trade unionists, like during the three days of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth of August, nineteen sixty-three – our ‘Three Glorious Days’, as they’re called – when he countered demonstrations with imprisonment, but then people went to the detention centre to free the poor prisoners. After that the polygamous priest was finished, they’d had enough of him and his government. He had to flee, and died in exile in Europe …’

  Uncle Jean-Pierre Kinana gives a little cough. Now it’s his turn.

  ‘Brother René, with respect, we should remember it was under the regime of Alphonse Massamba-Débat, who replaced the polygamous priest, that we started to have political assassinations in this country. Remember the Public Prosecutor, Lazare Matsocota – he was a cousin of the polygamous priest!’

  ‘Exactly, Jean-Pierre! Why did they kill him? Because when President Massamba-Débat offered him the post of Minister for Justice he turned it down? Or because people thought of him as the natural successor to his uncle, the polygamous priest? I knew Prosecutor Lazare Matsocota, I came across him in Europe when he was studying law while I was doing a placement at the École Polytechnique de Vente in Paris. At that time Matsocota was president of the Association of Congolese Students in France, a brilliant man, he was so eloquent that sometimes when he spoke I would forget what I had to do that day, and just stay listening to him, like a pupil. They killed him, son! Like a rat! Like squashing a cockroach! Except that cockroaches are harmful, whereas I’d never seen so much humanity in one person as I did in Lazare Matsocota. The militia of Massamba-Débat’s regime came to kidnap him at his home in Brazzaville and he wasn’t the only one murdered on the night of the fourteenth of February, nineteen sixty-five: two more of our senior members of staff, former priest and director of the Congolese Information Agency, Anselme Massouémé, and first president of the Supreme Court in the Congo, Joseph Pouabou, were also executed, supposedly because they were plotting against the powers that be. Is that what you’d call politics, Jean-Pierre? No it is not!’

  He looks really angry so the two other uncles pretend to be really angry too. I still don’t get why he’s talking to us about presidents from the past, instead of about Comrade President Marien Ngouabi. Uncle René could have been a magician, and I jump when he answers the question I asked in my head, even though no words actually came out of my mouth:

  ‘So, Michel, this is where Comrade President Marien Ngouabi comes in … He’s a northerner – young, lively, dynamic – fresh out of the Military Academy at Saint-Cyr, a member of the same political party as the southerner, Massamba-Débat, but he wants to shake up the way we do politics in this country. Ngouabi, who was a captain in the army at the time, disagrees with the policies of the Head of State, Massamba-Débat, who has him transferred to Pointe-Noire. But the captain refuses and is immediately put in prison and stripped of his rank. And so, just as the supporters of Patrice Lumumba in the Belgian Congo revolted when their leader was arrested, here the northerners and much of the military revolted to show that if Marien Ngouabi wasn’t released, the country would be plunged into bloody havoc. President Massamba-Débat was forced to release Marien Ngouabi, and he was restored to the rank of captain. Now, when someone excites popular enthusiasm to that degree, people naturally think of him as heaven sent. And Marien Ngouabi was already set to take over running the country. So Massamba-Débat imprisoned him once again, because he talks too much, because he says what he thinks. This time he’s rescued, along with other political prisoners, by para-commandos. Meanwhile, the president has to face the anger of the Lari, his own ethnic group, some of whom think Father Fulbert Youlou was better than him, and we’re all set for another civil war …’

  *

  I’m half listening to him speaking, but half of me is also still wondering: Did he really come here with the two uncles I’ve never met just to tell me about stuff that happened before I was born and has nothing to do with the death of Marien Ngouabi?

  Once again, as if by magic, Uncle René answers m
e:

  ‘Michel. in a few minutes you’ll see that everything I’ve told you up to now is directly linked to what is happening today … So, President Massamba-Débat was in deep trouble with his ethnic group. He had also lost the confidence of the army; his commander of civil defence had even defected. Despite his attempts to save the situation, notably by forming a new government, Massamba-Débat was now no more than a rotting fruit at the mercy of the slightest wind. And that wind’s name was Marien Ngouabi, who grew powerful at the heart of the National Movement for Revolution and the National Council for Revolution. The president had no choice but to resign, but young Ngouabi then recalled him to his duties by forming a new government, most of whose members were soldiers. Marien Ngouabi himself led the National Council for Revolution, his planned coup d’état took place peacefully: on the fourth of September nineteen sixty-eight, president Massamba-Débat is finally removed, the Prime Minister Alfred Raoul takes over the transition up to the first of January nineteen sixty-nine. No one is fooled; everyone knows that Marien Ngouabi’s hour has come, and he will be our next president of the Republic. He will create the party I joined seven months ago, the Congolese Party of Labour. It was Marien Ngouabi who changed our national anthem, our flag, and who laid out the path of scientific socialism we follow today …’

  Maman Pauline reappears in the doorway with a plate piled high with pieces of pineapple. She sets it down in the middle of the table.

  ‘Still talking politics? I’m going back outside then …’

  Uncle René grabs her arm and holds her back.

  ‘No, Pauline, you should sit down. I have some very bad news, very very bad news for all the family …’

  The list

  Maman Pauline, Papa Roger and I are all really worried now. What does my uncle mean by ‘very very bad news for all the family?’

  My mother asks Uncle René:

  ‘Have you got serious problems with the political crowd? I told you not to join the Party! You see what happens!’

  ‘Pauline, we have some problems …’

  ‘What do you mean, “we”? Are we involved in their politics?’

  ‘Pauline, listen to what Kinana and Moubéri have to say …’

  Uncle Moubéri begins:

  ‘Well, sister, we had to run like rats when we heard the shots yesterday at fourteen thirty hours. I remember I was in my office preparing a report on the retirement of two white-collar workers when suddenly I heard, Ratatat! Ratatat! Ratatat! Ratatat! It was automatic-rifle fire coming from the direction of High Command, five hundred metres or so from our building, the National Social Savings Bank. Everyone knew the president had been living at High Command for the past eight years, so you can imagine the panic: pupils at the Patrice Lumumba High School close by running out of their classrooms, taxis getting out of the area at breakneck speed, the shopkeepers all shutting up; basically the entire population was dashing that way and this, this way and that, but no one understood what had really happened. After nearly a quarter of an hour, which felt like an eternity, silence fell. Yes, Pauline, total silence! The radio had stopped transmitting, with no explanation – what could they tell us, when they themselves had received no orders? People had gathered on every floor of our building and were looking out of the windows over towards High Command. We heard rumours – some people said Zaire had just launched an attack against our army and we must prepare to counter-attack with arms that the government would supply. At that moment I went quickly back to my office to call brother Kinana at the Ministry for Rural Economy, to tell him something serious had happened and we needed to leave town as fast as possible …’

  Uncle Kinana took up the story:

  ‘In fact, sister Pauline, brother-in-law Roger, by the time Moubéri called me I already knew, because the Minister for Rural Economy had immediately quit the ministry, but instead of taking the official car he slipped past his drivers and bodyguards by dressing in ordinary clothes, with a straw hat as a disguise, then vanished into a bullet-proof car, which was waiting for him opposite the Ministry. He was in such a hurry that he left his briefcase behind in his office. He must have been very anxious; he didn’t leave any precise instructions for us, his trusted advisors. My colleague, Prosper Okokima-Mokata, a northerner responsible for protocol, came bursting into my office and said – I quote verbatim: ‘“What the hell are you still doing here, Jean-Pierre? It’s all over for Marien Ngouabi, he’s had it! And it won’t stop there; things are going to get worse from now on. You’re a loyal man, I’ve always thought well of you, but if I was a loyal southerner like you I wouldn’t hang around in Brazzaville a minute longer.” I asked him what I should do, and just then I saw he was holding the briefcase the minister had left behind in his office. He opened it and said to me: “In here there are documents that lead me to think someone in your family is going to have problems, and wisdom teaches us that if you lose your ears it’s time for your neck to start worrying!” There was a moment’s silence, then he did me a favour for which I’ll be grateful all my life. He said: “Go south, right now, Jean-Pierre. I can get you on a plane that leaves tomorrow for Pointe-Noire. After that it won’t be possible; it will be the last one to take off from Brazzaville, the ceasefire will mean the total closure of all our borders and the imposition of a no-fly zone. I can give you the two tickets I was going to use for some trips I had coming up, and I guess that won’t be a problem for you, since you’re not married and don’t have children …” Just at that moment my phone rang: it was big brother Moubéri on the line …’

  Uncle Martin Moubéri took over next:

  ‘So, after I’d made the call to little brother Jean-Pierre, I immediately called home to tell my wife and daughter to get out of the house, leave everything and go and hide out with the Singoumounas, a Lari family I’ve helped a lot by taking on the father and then the son at the National Social Savings Bank. From there this family put them in a truck that drove right across the Pool region and even as I speak they’ll have reached our own region of Bouenza, where they will be safe with sister Dorothée Louhounou. After giving these instructions to my family I called brother René to let him know we’d be arriving the next day in Pointe-Noire, and he came to meet us at the airport …’

  Maman Pauline puts her elbows on the table and holds her head in her hands, as though she finds the whole story exhausting:

  ‘René, what does all this have to do with us?’

  Uncle René glances at the door and lowers his voice:

  ‘Pauline, this assassination has created serious problems for our family. Today several soldiers and civilians from the south of the country have been arrested. They’ll be brought before a court martial set up by the Military Committee of the Party, which is the new organ of the State. The ex-president of the Republic himself, Alphonse Massamba-Débat, is among those who will be judged by this court. They’ll announce tomorrow who’s on the Military Committee of the Party but the names of the eleven members are already doing the rounds in Brazzaville. So gradually they’re setting up a military dictatorship, which will eliminate anyone who might talk because they know something about the assassination – though many people say you need look no further as the conspirators and assassins are among the eleven members of the Military Committee of the Party …’

  Maman Pauline, Papa Roger and I still don’t see what my uncle’s driving at. My mother doesn’t work for the State, she’s not a soldier. My father doesn’t work for the State, he works for Madame Ginette, and Madame Ginette is a white who steers clear of problems, she’s not involved in politics.

  Uncle René continues:

  ‘I have a photocopy of the document that was in the briefcase left behind by the Minister for Rural Economy when he fled. It says that the Military Committee of the Party “will faithfully continue the work of the Immortal Marien Ngouabi, leader of the Congolese Revolution, namely to build a socialist society in the Congo, according to the principles of Marxist-Leninism”. Eye-wash! We all know how i
t will end: the members of the Military Committee of the Party will massacre each other, one lot will put the other lot in prison or murder them without trace, and the cleverest will seize power and hold on to it for life …’

  He speaks directly to Uncle Kinana now:

  ‘Jean-Pierre, you work in the ministry, explain to them why the Military Committee of the Party is illegal …’

  ‘OK, brother René! I can certainly confirm that it was thanks to my friend and colleague Prosper Okokima-Motata, the northerner in charge of our minister’s protocol, that I gained access to these documents, which, I should add, were covertly passed around our office during the day yesterday. It seems reasonable to suppose that our minister, who is, after all, the cousin of one of the members of the Military Committee of the Party, was caught off guard and didn’t realise how fast things would happen. To put it plainly, dear brother-in-law Roger, sister Pauline and nephew Michel, the Military Committee of the Party is an illegal organisation, which goes against our Constitution. It couldn’t claim to guarantee a political transition, since Article 40 of the Supreme Law states that in the event of a vacancy of power, which is what we have since yesterday, the president of the National Assembly must step into the breach. Democratic elections must be held to elect a new president within three months of the vacancy arising. But what we have here, as big brother René has explained, is a military junta that has just performed a coup d’état—’

  Papa Roger doesn’t wait for his turn to speak, he interrupts Uncle Kinana:

  ‘But who are the eleven members of the Military Committee of the Party? The Voice of the Congolese Revolution still hasn’t said anything; at least, they hadn’t when I switched off the radio when you arrived …’

  Uncle Kinana speaks calmly:

  ‘The Military Committee of the Party comprises eleven members; an odd, and you might think excessive, number. Colonel Joachim Yhombi-Opango is there, and Commanders Denis Sassou-Nguesso, Louis Sylvain-Goma, Damase Ngollo, Jean-Michel Ebaka, Martin Mbia, Pascal Bima, Captains Francois-Xavier Katali, Nicolas Okongo, Florent Ntsiba and Lieutenant Pierre Anga. On close examination it is apparent that seven members of this military junta are from the north, with only two representatives from the south, Louis Sylvain-Goma and Pascal Bima, even though it is the most populated part of our country. Two other members are from the Flatlands region and the centre of the country, namely Damase Ngollo and Florent Ntsiba. We need to be honest about this: what we have here is a totally tribal configuration, since the most important members are in reality the president of the Military Committee of the Party, the northerner Yhombi-Opango, who will naturally be appointed president of the Republic in the next few days, and, behind him, another northerner, the first vice-president of the MCP, Commander Denis Sassou-Nguesso, who is in charge of Defence and whose job it will be to impose a military regime …’