The Death of Comrade President

by Alain Mabanckou

  The journalist asks the man who knows everything about our country:

  So, Christopher Smith, you’ve been watching the political situation in Africa at first hand, what’s your analysis of the present situation in Brazzaville?

  Christopher is only too happy to be asked this question and to have it pointed out that he’s often in Africa and has worked there for years. It is also pointed out that he has been in several places where there were civil wars on this continent, and that he’s written a big book with lots of evidence inside, evidence that explains how the people who colonised us are often hiding behind us, selling us arms and getting us to fight each other.

  Instead of talking directly about our problems, which right now are extremely serious, Christopher Smith goes round in circles like a truck warming up its engine before setting off:

  Well, Sophie, as discussed in detail in my book Night Falls over Africa, political assassinations on the dark continent have become a sinister tradition in the years since the first steps towards independence in the early sixties, from the start, in fact, of the movements to liberate Africa from the yoke of the western colonisers …

  And he throws in names, dates, explanations, which our journalists could never provide. But maybe all that is already in his book, whose title he mentions rather a lot. I’m very surprised to hear how well he pronounces the name of our prophet André Grenard Matsoua, and I’m also proud that he calls him a ‘politician’. He says Matsoua was a stubborn man who faced up to the colonisers. He’d attended the seminary, the school of the whites, and worked for the customs office in Brazzaville and joined the French army to fight in Morocco against a dreadful resistance fighter called Abd el-Krim, who the colonisers lost sleep over because he was winning battles against the Spanish, the French and the British! And it’s thanks to men like André Grenard Matsoua that these countries were able to save a bit of face, because they fought for them!

  Christopher Smith carries on:

  Sophie, no one denies that Matsoua added his own stone to the edifice of the French empire. He was captain of the one of the black regiments in the colonial army, the 22nd, known as the Senegalese Tirailleurs, though not only Senegalese served in it, but Congolese too, like Matsou! Sadly he died in prison, where he had been sent to do forced labour by the same colonial administration under which he’d served, he was becoming a significant voice, representing hope – and danger. The obscure circumstances of his death added to his growing reputation as a prophet and influenced the people of Pool, the Lari region he originally came from, to the point where, even today, thirty-five years after his death and seven years after the death of General de Gaulle, who was president in his day and much loved by the Lari, there are still people originating from Pool who go and wait at Brazzaville airport for these two people to return. The Lari are convinced that the prophet Matsoua and General de Gaulle aren’t dead, that’s just a lie put about by the French, and that these two men, who were not ordinary mortals like us, will return, sooner or later, that they’ll be seen stepping off the plane, will wave to the crowd who’ve come to welcome them, and the General will go back to govern France and the prophet Matsoua will do miracles and heal the lame, the blind and infertile women. General de Gaulle is so much in the minds of the Lari that they have a cult of Ngoul, a fetish they worship and who represents the General, with a long nose and a cap with stars on …

  Next the American journalist comes out with the name of the Cameroonian Ruben Um Nyobè, who Papa Roger talked to me about when we still used to listen to the Voice of the Congolese Revolution, which hadn’t mentioned this bit even though this man was as important as Patrice Lumumba. Christopher Smith has lots of details: Ruben Um Nyobè was assassinated on 13 September 1958 by a black soldier, Paul Abdoulaye, originally from Chad, who was even decorated by the French.

  He talks about another Cameroonian called Félix Moumié, who was poisoned by the French secret services in a Swiss restaurant and died three days later on 3 November 1960. This was another man who wanted independence for his country.

  At this point I start to think that it’s really not OK to kill people in Swiss restaurants, because Papa Roger used to support the Swiss football team and wanted the English to be thrashed in the semi-final of the World Cup by the Swiss, who can buy off the referees because it has banks with masses of huge banknotes that have been really well laundered and ironed with a clothes iron so they stay nice and clean and flat.

  There are too many dates coming up now; Christopher Smith’s getting in a muddle himself, and each time he contradicts what he’s just said. First he says Patrice Lumumba was assassinated on 7 January 1961, then he corrects it to 17 January 1961. On 13 January 1963 it was Sylvanus Olympio’s turn to be assassinated; he was the first president the Togolese had chosen themselves, like people choose in developed countries. And it was the first time, Christopher Smith tells us, that an African president had been murdered after independence. Sylvanus Olympio was replaced by the former prime minister, Nicolas Grunitzky, but there’s someone impatient lining up to launch another coup d’état: his name is Etienne Eyadéma, he was one of the militiamen who went to look for Sylvanus Olympio in the American embassy, where he had gone into hiding because even presidents are afraid of dying. Eyadéma has now been in power for over ten years …

  And there’s more: on 29 October 1965, Mehdi Ben Barka was condemned to death in his own country, Morocco. He was kidnapped outside a restaurant in France, a bit like the Cameroonian Félix Moumié in Switzerland. Apparently the body of Mehdi Ben Barka has never been found and it’s pretty sure the secret services of France and Morocco conspired to assassinate him.

  Only four years ago, on 20 January 1973, Christopher Smith continues, it was the turn of the father of independence in Guinea Bissau and Cap Vert, Amilcar Cabral, to be killed, this time far away in Guinea Conakry, at the hand of his own party, who had plotted with their colonisers, the Portuguese. According to the man who knows everything, Guinea Conakry were also involved, because the president of that country, Ahmed Sékou Touré, had covered over the traces so no one would know how the assassination had been done. Amilcar Cabral sadly never saw Guinea Bissau and Cap Vert, which he loved with all his heart, gain independence: he died six months before it happened …

  And lastly, dear Sophie, as we recall these macabre episodes, let us not forget that on 26 August 1973, Outel Bono of Chad, who opposed the regime of François Tombalbaye, was killed in central Paris, with two shots from a revolver …

  Christopher Smith now returns to the subject of the death of Comrade President Marien Ngouabi. According to him there are two possible explanations; one is the one that the Military Committee of the Party gave; the other is the one given by Marien Ngouabi Junior, one of the two mixed-race sons Comrade President Marien Ngouabi had with Clotilde Martin …

  But before I put forward these two versions, dear Sophie, allow me to put things in context …

  And off he goes again with his muddled-up dates. He says that on 22 February 1972, so five years ago, there had been a previous attempt on Comrade President Marien Ngouabi’s life by the soldier Ange Diawara, who was a close colleague of my Uncle Kimbouala-Nkaya. Ange Diawara had conspired with some members of the Congolese Party of Labour who were unhappy about the policies of our Revolutionary leader. Up until then Ange Diawara had been a normal man, studying economics like Uncle Kinana at the Lumumba University in the USSR. With the sudden arrival in our country of the Socialist Revolution, Ange Diawara became an important figure in the presidential guard of our former president Massamba-Débat, the one who is currently on the list of the people the Military Committee of the Party doesn’t like and who are definitely heading for execution, like Uncle Kimbouala-Nkaya.

  So, when Comrade President Marien Ngouabi, who in 1964 was not yet president, fell out with President Massamba-Débat, Ange Diawara took Captain Marien Ngouabi’s side, and betrayed his own leader, President Massamba-Débat. He became a very high-up person in th
e military once Captain Marien Ngouabi came to power. People were afraid of Ange Diawara, not just because he was a soldier, but also because he was unbeatable at karate. Ange Diawara was present when Comrade President Marien Ngouabi founded the Congolese Party of Labour and had also taken up a post as Minister for Water and Forestry in the government of Comrade President Marien Ngouabi. But the problem with him was he kept criticising the Revolutionary leader because in his view things weren’t going the way the people wanted, and everything was still expensive, like under the European capitalists: manioc, potatoes, sugar, palm and ground nut oil, oil – even though we have oodles of it – none of it was any cheaper for people to buy. Now it wasn’t Comrade President Marien Ngouabi’s fault that oil was so expensive, it was because the Arab countries, who also have oodles of oil, keep changing the prices to upset Europe, and we are unfortunately obliged to raise our prices, forgetting that that also makes problems for our own people, who have to put out their storm lanterns before they go to sleep, to save oil. And another thing, even after the Socialist Revolution and communism, there was still too much tribalism, while the bellies of the ministers got bigger and bigger from eating up all the State’s money and not giving any to ordinary folk. Because Ange Diawara said things without fear of the president, school pupils and students backed him, and said he was the real revolutionary, not Comrade President Marien Ngouabi. Ange Diawara encouraged school pupils and students everywhere to go on strike against the government. Would Comrade President Marien Ngouabi really keep on a Minister for Water and Forestry under such conditions? No! He sacked him, like a worker who keeps turning up late to the office or on site, and Diawara said: ‘I don’t care about being sacked; I’m going to hold a coup d’état.’ And that’s what he began to cook up.

  Comrade President Marien Ngouabi was in Pointe-Noire on an official visit when Ange Diawara launched his coup d’état in Brazzaville. Our Revolutionary leader was as smart as a kingfisher: he immediately cancelled his official visit and took a plane to go and call time on this mayhem. As a result, our president, who was meant to be assassinated on 22 February 1972, escaped death by the skin of his teeth. The army captured and killed lots of Diawara’s friends, people he was in the resistance with in the Pool region. During this period the finest musician in our country, Franklin Boukaka, was also caught and liquidated. He was a kind man and didn’t sing to get people to dance and get all sweaty in bars, he sang about good things like peace between north and south, between Laris and Tékés, Bembés and Mbochis, and all the ethnic groups we have in our country which have nothing better to do than squabble among themselves as if there wasn’t work to be getting on with in our towns and in our fields. Meanwhile they had killed the nice musician, Franklin Boukaka, so now Ange Diawara was fleeing to Zaire where he’d found this place to hide. He could even have stayed there, become a Zairian among Zairians and have a Zairian wife and children, etc., but they trapped him like a child lured in by iced sweets like the ones Ma Moubobi sells; they promised to have talks with him, said he could come back to talk things over, and he fell for their lies. They arrested him as soon as he got back to Brazzaville, with his beard, which had grown incredibly long, as if the spirits of our ancestors had been watering it with invisible hands. He was whizzed over to headquarters, and there – Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! – he and some of his friends were all shot. But as people didn’t believe they could kill a powerful, mystical and invincible guy like Ange Diawara, who was a karate expert, they had to give proof. Which is why the government displayed their bodies at the Revolutionary Stadium, and no one was in any doubt, because everyone could see now that there was no magic, it really was the corpses of Ange Diawara and his friends laid out there like salt cod for sale at Ma Moubobi’s, except they hadn’t put salt on their bodies. So that was the end of poor Ange Diawara …

  I like all the details Christopher gives when he tells us about what Comrade President Marien Ngouabi did that day, when the Voice of the Congolese Revolution doesn’t know about it yet. First of all, in the morning, our Revolutionary leader went to the university to give a lesson in physics and chemistry because he liked passing on his learning for free to young people. In the afternoon he went back to his presidential office to welcome some very important people, including Cardinal Emile Biayenda, who, like ex-president Massamba-Débat, is on the list of people the new leaders plan to liquidate. Cardinal Emile Biayenda is the archbishop of Brazzaville. He’s only fifty years old, so compared to the other cardinals he’s still young. On the radio they say Pope Paul VI chose him as a cardinal, and it’s the first time we’ve had a cardinal in our country. He’d gone to the headquarters to meet Comrade President Marien Ngouabi because he had a favour to ask him: for a while now he’d been worried that the Patrice Lumumba Lycée was getting bigger and bigger, and spilling over on to the land occupied by the nuns known as the Sisters of Javouhey. The Revolutionary leader was the only person who could put a stop to the situation – otherwise the Sisters of Javouhey would have nowhere to go to pray or look after widows and children and orphans who’d been abandoned in the street by their parents, though they were still alive.

  Christopher Smith adds that Cardinal Emile Biayenda and Comrade President Marien Ngouabi didn’t talk about the letter that former president Alphonse Massamba-Débat sent two weeks before their meeting to ask our leader of the Congolese Revolution to step down, chop-chop, and give power back to the people, the country was in trouble. No, the cardinal was not there to ask for the restoration of the ex-president, though that’s what everyone says, especially in the Congolese Party of Labour. No, the cardinal and leader of the Revolution didn’t talk about that and Christopher Smith says there were witnesses that day at the headquarters: the wife of Massamba-Débat, Comrade President Marien Ngouabi’s wife, his brother-in-law Mizélé, and also the captain in charge of the president’s secret service, a man called Denis Ibara …

  When Christopher Smith tells us how, according to the Congolese Party of Labour, the assassination of comrade president was carried out, it’s like one of those American gangster films they show at the Rex or the Duo cinema that I can’t watch because they’re usually for over eighteens, but fortunately they let us in if we give our pocket money to the guys on the door. Once we’ve seen the films in question we wonder why under eighteens aren’t allowed because they don’t show everything; in fact, they cover the women up too much when they are undressing and make them turn their backs to us, and the kisses are just like they’re there to tell you people did it, because you never see their tongues come out and go into the other person’s mouth. Well, I won’t go on about that, because if I do people will say what they always say: Michel always exaggerates, and sometimes he says rude things without meaning to …

  Christopher Smith explains that on 18 March at 14:10, four men in a Peugeot 404 pull up outside the headquarters of the army, which is where the residence of Comrade President Marien Ngouabi is. Because the four men are wearing military uniform everyone thinks it’s normal, no reason to worry, they’ve come as usual for a chat with some other soldiers, they’ll have a bit of a laugh, back-slap a little, talk about their wives, their mistresses, etc. So the sentries at the entrance let them go in without checking. To get to the residence of Comrade President Marien Ngouabi, you have to report to some more sentries, including agents of the president’s security force, who are Cuban. That’s where they check their identities closely, and all the sentries agree that it’s Captain Kikadidi with three other soldiers. The Peugeot 404 now drives on towards the residence of Comrade President Marien Ngouabi, who is having lunch with his family. Captain Kikadidi and the three soldiers get out of the car and walk over to the residence. Again, it’s complicated getting in, because there are two more soldiers blocking their way, one called Okamba and the other Ontsou, and like our Revolutionary leader they are northerners. But Captain Kikadidi says to Okamba and Ontsou that he’s Captain Motando and he’s been summoned by our comrade president in person. Okamba is
suspicious because he knows what Captain Motando looks like, and he is sure that the soldier before him isn’t really Captain Motando at all, as he claims. So he leaves this visitor with his colleague Ontsou and he goes over to the first guardroom to give the order for the Peugeot 404 to be removed from the compound. Meanwhile, Captain Kikadidi (claiming to be Captain Motando) is in conversation with agent Ontsou, who is actually in on the secret. He authorises Captain Kikadidi (alias Captain Motando) to go into the waiting room while someone goes to announce to Comrade President Marien Ngouabi that Captain Motando has arrived as requested.

  When they tell him about his visitors, Comrade President Marien Ngouabi is surprised and says that the guy he’s just seen from his dining room isn’t Captain Motando, it’s Captain Kikadidi, and technically Kikadidi isn’t a captain any more, he’s an ex-captain. Comrade President Marien Ngouabi decides to go and sort the business out himself and to go and yell at agent Ontsou, who’s talking to the three unknown soldiers who came with Captain Kikadidi (alias Captain Motando). As soon as the three soldiers see the president coming towards them they get up, pretend to stand to attention, out of respect, but our Revolutionary leader notices one of them has a gun sticking out of his uniform. President Marien Ngouabi orders him to hand over his gun, but the soldier refuses. So the leader of the Revolution tries to grab it off him, and they get into a fight! As Comrade President Marien Ngouabi isn’t just anybody, he quickly manages to get hold of the man’s gun, using the technique they taught him at Saint-Cyr, and – Bang! Bang! – he shoots the two strangers! The one he disarmed runs off, but our president is a fine sportsman, who could beat the black Americans at running. He gives chase, fast as a spear, and during the chase you hear shots ring out, over and over, and then over again. It’s not our comrade president shooting now, it’s someone else. And this someone else is Ontsou, his security agent, who is in on the secret. Ontsou has already shot his two colleagues, who were trying to help our Revolutionary leader. Meanwhile, Captain Kikadidi (alias Captain Motando) has disappeared …