by Peter Ralph
“Here’s the thing. I can’t lie in court. I’ll say I was dazed when I did the interview with the president, and it was only later I recalled the events in their entirety. Oh, and George, have you remembered who bought New Dawn off you?”
“No, I haven’t. You need to be careful about what you say because once the genie’s out the bottle, you can’t put it back in.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
“If only it were true. You’re a fool. You’ve upset a lot of powerful people, here and there,” Faraday said ominously and hung up.
CHAPTER 30
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SURLY-LOOKING SOLDIERS DRESSED IN SHORT-SLEEVED camouflage green shirts milled around the steps of the military court. Ugly stares followed Joseph from the time he got out of the limo until he entered the court building. Brett Kronk was by his side, telling him to move quickly. One of the prosecutor’s assistants led Joseph to a small room where Mr. Lidy was sitting at a table. “Good morning, Joseph. How are you?”
“I’m fine, thank you, Mr. Lidy.”
“You know the procedure. The opening addresses will be completed by lunchtime. I’ll call you as my first witness immediately after. In the meantime, don’t leave this room. There’s nothing the soldiers can do, but they will try to intimidate you.”
“I’m not easily intimidated,” Joseph said.
At 1:00 p.m., Joseph entered the courtroom to a gallery packed with a haze of camouflage green. The judges, three officers dressed in military tunics, sat behind a bench draped in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s flag. Mr. Lidy and his team were sitting at a small table. The defense lawyers were at an identically sized table on the other side of the aisle. The defendants were seated on the left of the bench. Joseph was sworn in, and for the next two hours, Mr. Lidy skillfully took him through his testimony. Colonel Gizenga glared at Joseph, shaking his head when he did not agree with something. Boucher and Botha were next to the colonel, defiance written all over their faces. “Your witness,” Mr. Lidy said, well satisfied with his work.
Paul Banze stood up, stretched, and smiled at Joseph before saying, “Are you a liar, Mr. Muamba?”
Lidy was immediately on his feet, shouting, “Objection.”
“I’ll allow it,” the senior judge said.
“I’ll ask you again, are you a liar?”
“No.”
“But you admitted to telling lies less than an hour ago. Didn’t you admit to lying on national television?”
“Yes, but − ”
“Just yes or no will suffice, Mr. Muamba. You testified there were no rebels at the mine or village. How did you come to that conclusion?”
“They were miners and villagers. Not rebels.”
“How could you tell? Wasn’t it your first visit since being taken to America fifteen years ago? How could you distinguish a villager from a rebel?”
“I did not see anyone attack the soldiers. All I saw was workers fleeing from soldiers who were throwing hand grenades and firing at random.”
“Are you asking this court to believe it was simple villagers who killed those two soldiers?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps the villagers were defending themselves.”
“Really?” Banze smirked. “One of those poor soldiers had his throat slashed from behind. Are you suggesting his death was in self-defense?”
“He could’ve been raping or killing someone’s wife, daughter, or son,” Joseph replied.
An audible gasp came from the gallery, and an already tense courtroom teetered on exploding.
“Could’ve?” Banze shouted. “You didn’t see anything. It could’ve been the rebels who killed him. How do you know it wasn’t?”
“There were no rebels,” Joseph calmly replied.
The cross-examination continued in the same vein for the rest of the day, and most of the next. Lidy was passionate and was up and down objecting, but the judges rejected most of his objections. Paul Banze finished by saying, “Mr. Muamba, you have no credibility as a witness. You have proved yourself to be an unmitigated liar. You − ”
“Objection,” Lidy shouted. “Where’s the question?”
“I’m leading up to it, Your Honors,” Banze responded.
“I’ll allow it,” the senior judge said.
“I’ll ask you again, are you a liar, Mr. Muamba?”
It’s a stacked court. The evidence is going to have to be overwhelming to win. “No, I am not.”
As Banze returned to his seat, he smirked. “So you say.”
It was early evening when Joseph left the court. There were huge crowds on the street, and heavily armed, nervous-looking soldiers manned the steps. As they separated to let him pass, the crowd saw him and started to chant, “Muamba, Muamba, Muamba,” and the noise became deafening.
“Come on,” Brett Kronk, said grabbing Joseph by the arm and pushing him into the back of the limo. “Those fuckers look like they could open fire at any time. Let’s get out of here.”
“We’re safe, Brett.” Leon laughed. “It’d take a nuclear bomb to penetrate this thing.”
“What? What do you mean?” Joseph asked.
“This vehicle’s as safe as Obama’s,” Leon replied. “Bullets from AK-47s will bounce off the glass, and the doors are impenetrable.”
“But they’re not heavy,” Joseph said.
“The miracle of Kevlar, titanium, and metallurgy,” Leon replied.
As the limo slowly maneuvered through the crowd, there were slaps on the panels and roof, and the chanting reached fever pitch.
“You’re the most-liked person in the Congo,” Kronk said, “and it makes you Bodho’s number one target.”
The drums beat through the night telling the story of a great savior who had returned to take his people to the Promised Land. Joseph didn’t know it, but each day the crowds would grow larger, and the chanting would grow louder.
The next witness was a woman who had seen her twenty-two-year-old pregnant daughter gang-raped by at least half a dozen soldiers. When her daughter’s husband had tried to save her, they had summarily executed him with a bullet to the back of his head. Her daughter had lost the baby and her mind. She now wandered around the village, singing, giggling, and crying. When villagers she had known all her life said hello, she didn’t recognize them. Lidy was gentle with the girl’s mother. Twice she broke down in tears as she recounted the terrible day. “Did you see any rebels?” Lidy asked.
“There were no rebels.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“You are brave to be here testifying. Can you tell the court why you agreed to testify?”
“I wanted justice for my daughter and her husband.”
“Are you scared?”
Banze leaped to his feet. “Objection. Why would she be? Counsel’s question impugns the integrity of this court. It is an insult.”
“Sustained,” the senior judge said. “Counsel will confine his questions to what the witness saw.”
Joseph looked over at the defendants. They were sniggering.
“After what you saw, are you scared of the soldiers?”
“No! They have killed and destroyed everything I loved. They can no longer hurt me.”
“Your witness,” Lidy said.
Banze was a skilled cross-examiner and spent the first few minutes sympathizing with the witness and putting her at ease. Then he moved on to the number of soldiers involved in what he called the “purported rape,” asking, “Are you sure it was six soldiers?”
“I don’t know. It could’ve been more.”
“Could it have been less?”
The witness paused. “Perhaps.”
“You have no idea how many soldiers were involved. Are you sure you saw your daughter raped? Aren’t you just making it up because you hate the army?”
“No!” the woman sobbed.
“No, you didn’t see her raped?”
“No, you’re confusing me, and I’m te
lling the truth,” the woman said, sniffling.
“Look at the defendants,” Banze said, “and point out to the court those whom you can identify as raping your daughter.”
The witness pointed out four soldiers, whom Banze asked to remain standing.
“Now point out the soldier who killed your daughter’s husband.”
The witness pointed to the second soldier standing.
“So it is not six as you claimed, but four.”
“There were more. It happened quickly. I cannot identify them all.” The woman continued to sob.
“What would you say if I told you the defendant you’ve picked out as a rapist and murderer never left the New Dawn gold mine? He was never in the village.”
“I-I don’t know.”
“You don’t know! Could you have been mistaken?”
The witness paused and carefully looked at the defendant. “No,” she said, “he was the first. When my daughter’s husband intervened, that soldier killed him.”
“If what you say is true, surely your son-in-law charged at the defendant?”
“Yes.”
“Well, in that case, how could he have been shot in the back of the head?”
“I-I − ”
“You don’t know,” Banze sarcastically interrupted, as he sat down. “No further questions for this witness, Your Honors.”
The next witness was a mine worker. He told how soldiers forced him and ten other miners into the back of a truck owned by the New Dawn Gold Mining Company. The soldiers then drove the truck to a large ditch on the outskirts of the mine. The workers were lined up on the edge of the ditch and shot. The witness described his fear and how, as the shooting began, he fainted and fell into the ditch. When he came around, he was suffocating and covered in blood from the bodies on top of him. He couldn’t recall the faces of any of the soldiers but distinctly remembered Colonel Gizenga giving the order to load the workers into the truck.
“Was Colonel Gizenga one of the soldiers shooting?” Banze asked.
“No, but − ”
“Just a yes or no will suffice. Did you hear Colonel Gizenga order his soldiers to kill you and the others?”
“No, but he − ”
“Thank you,” Banze said. “I’m glad you survived, but are you certain the other men in the truck weren’t rebels?”
“They were miners.”
“I’m sure you understand it’s possible to be both a miner and a rebel. Are you 100 percent certain the other men in the back of the truck were not rebels?”
The witness cocked his elbow, closed his eyes, and rested his chin in his hand, before saying, “Yes, I am.”
“For someone who’s certain, you sure took your time answering. If, as you say, there were no rebels, who killed those two soldiers?”
I wish I could stand up and shout that I killed the thugs because they were going to rape a seven-year-old boy, Joseph thought. Lidy’s smart and doing his best, but he’s getting no help from the judges.
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t worry.” Banze sneered. “It’s a familiar response.”
A thin, frail-looking woman who said she was thirty-four but looked fifty was the next witness. She spoke in a whisper, and the senior judge asked her to speak up. She told how the soldiers shelled, fired on, and then pelted the village with hand grenades. She and her family had run to the safety of the jungle, but halfway there, her sixteen-year-old son became worried about his bike and had gone back to get it.
She never saw him again. When the gunfire stopped, she had ventured back to what remained of the village, hoping her son would be safe. The few remaining villagers told her they’d seen soldiers march him out of the village. Some of them were still there, selling the goods they had plundered back to the villagers. One of the soldiers had her son’s bike and was trying to sell it. When she asked him where he had got it, he said he had bought it from her son. She told the court she knew he was lying.
Banze continued with the same line of cross-examination, saying the woman hadn’t seen anything. She didn’t even know whether her son was dead. He could be alive and living in another village. There was nothing to prove the soldier did not buy the bike. Lidy was like a bulldog making numerous objections, all of which were disallowed, in a vain attempt to save her from Banze’s cruel savaging. By the time the cross-examination was over, she was shaking uncontrollably.
On the fifth day of the trial, Lidy called Yannick Kyenge, his last witness. If the looks on the faces of the soldiers in the gallery could have killed, he wouldn’t have made it to the witness box. Joseph was sitting behind the prosecution table and winked at Yannick, who looked relieved to see someone he knew.
Yannick told how he had been in the forest when he heard gunfire and explosions. In fear of his life, he had hidden in the foliage and watched villagers running in blind panic across open space toward the safety of the trees as soldiers fired at them. Many didn’t make it to the forest and were killed. He had crept to the edge of the village in the early hours of the morning and saw soldiers engaged in a drunken orgy. He choked up when telling how he’d watched the gang rape of women and young girls. A naked little boy, no older than six, had tried to escape the grasp of a soldier, who’d pulled out his pistol and shot him in the head. As the sun had edged over the horizon, the soldiers looted the huts and then set them ablaze.
Joseph knew that Yannick had crept back to the village, but other than the fires, he had not said anything about the atrocities he’d witnessed.
Paul Banze was as angry as the defendants, and the soldiers in the gallery. For the first time, he left the table and strode over to the witness box until he was no farther than two feet from Yannick. The judges said nothing. “You have some cheek, don’t you?” he thundered.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Yannick replied.
“Oh, I think you do. Aren’t you the leader of the rebels?”
“No. I work at the mine and live in the village.”
“With the other rebels?”
“I am not a rebel, and nor are any of the mine workers or villagers. We went on strike for better wages and conditions. Nothing more. Then the soldiers came and executed the striking mine workers.”
“How do you know? You weren’t there. You’ve just testified you were sniveling in the forest.”
Joseph clenched his fists. He wanted to leap over the prosecution table and smash them into Banze’s face. He took a deep, calming breath and glanced around at the sullen soldiers sitting behind him. Colonel Donatien was staring at him, a mirthless smile on his face. He hasn’t been here before. Why is he here today? Oh, no, Joseph thought.
“Once the soldiers had gone, I went back to the mine. I saw at least ten bullet-riddled bodies piled up on top of one another in a deep ditch. Only the soldiers had machine guns.”
“You had weapons,” Banze said. “Didn’t you take the guards’ rifles when you supposedly went on strike?”
“We didn’t use them. We only took them to stop the guards using them on us.”
“Really? Did you have a spear or spears?”
“Yes, only to protect myself.”
“Do you own a knife?”
“Of course. All villagers do.”
Banze paced up and down before the bench before abruptly turning. “Two soldiers were killed. Do you know how?”
“I heard one was killed by a spear, and the other had his throat cut.”
“You heard.” Banze sneered. “It was you who murdered them, wasn’t it?”
“No, sir, I did not.”
Joseph turned around to see a sea of angry faces all focused on Yannick. Fortunately, it was a few minutes to one, and the court was preparing to recess for lunch. Joseph leaned over and said to Lidy, “Take Yannick to one of the meeting rooms. I’ll see you there soon. I have to talk to Leon.”
Thirty minutes later, Joseph embraced Yannick. “You are courageous, my friend, but you are in great danger. As soon as you leave t
he court, they are going to arrest you. They’ll hang you in prison or slit your wrists and make it look like you committed suicide. We have to get you to safety before they get hold of you.”
Yannick frowned. “I knew they would arrest me if I testified. I am resigned to my fate. It’s time I stood up.”
“Rubbish,” Joseph said. “We’re going to get you to safety.”
“Do you have a plan, Joseph?” Lidy asked.
“Yes. The toilets are at the back of the courthouse. A fire exit leads to an alley at the rear.”
“Yes, yes, I know,” Lidy said.
“Yannick,” Joseph said, “just after four o’clock I want you to amble toward the toilets. Don’t rush. Then go out the fire exit door and voila, you’re free.”
“They’ll be expecting it,” Lidy said, shaking his head. “It’ll never work. If he runs, they’ll shoot him in the alley.”
“No, they won’t,” Joseph said. “As we speak, Leon is talking to the leaders of those huge crowds who have been at the front of the court.”
“The crowds who have been chanting your name?” Lidy asked.
“Yes, they’re going to pack into the alley at the rear of the courthouse just after four o’clock.”
“I shouldn’t be listening to this.” Lidy grinned. “But I’m glad I am.”
“Now listen carefully, Yannick, and memorize what I tell you. When you go out the rear door, go low and stay hidden. The soldiers will follow you, but the crowd will press in on them and impede their progress. Work your way to the main street, and then turn right, but remain close to the ground because the soldiers on the steps will probably join in the chase. The crowd will stretch for at least four hundred yards. You should be in the clear by the time you reach the end of it. Stay on the main street until you reach Boulevard Kianze, where you will turn left.
“As you turn the corner, you’ll see a man as big as a hippo with a cigarette dangling from his mouth, standing next to a black limousine. His name is Leon, and you can trust him with your life. On reflection, you will be. The rear door will be partly open. Get in and lay on the floor. Leon will take you to a safe house where some of his friends will get you out of Kinshasa,” Joseph said, sliding $5,000 across the table.