Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart

by Tim Butcher

  Within two days Stanley boarded a ship for the journey home. As the boat headed out to sea he described his feelings at having survived crossing the Congo:

  Turning to take a farewell glance at the mighty River on whose brown bosom we had endured so greatly, I saw it approach, awed and humbled, the threshold of the watery immensity, to whose immeasurable volume and illimitable expanse, awful as had been its power, and terrible as had been its fury, its flood was but a drop. And I felt my heart suffused with purest gratitude to Him whose hand had protected us, and who had enabled us to pierce the Dark Continent from east to west, and to trace its mightiest River to its Ocean bourne.

  As we approached Boma my own sense of excitement grew. Hippolite had been prattling on throughout our journey about how he was well known in the area and how everyone there respected him as an important man. I switched off and thought of a Congo where people might one day prosper on merit and not, like Hippolite, on tribal connections with an unelected dictatorship. Each time we were stopped at a checkpoint I would be questioned about my motive for reaching Boma. By rote I would repeat my mantra: I am a historian interested in following the route used by Stanley before the colonial era, and please would the officials be so kind as to let me pass. I don’t think they believed my story for a second. I am sure they suspected I was another white profiteer looking to exploit their country, but after an hour or so of toying with me, they would let me pass.

  We were crossing a sparse landscape of mountain plateau. Bare hilltops rolled away to the horizon with just a thin covering of brown grass and an occasional splash of green from the odd cassava tree. Not far to the north of us was the narrow river ravine down which Stanley passed on those grim final days of his expedition. I asked Hippolite if he had heard of Isangila, the section of the river where Stanley described leaving the Lady Alice. He shrugged his shoulders and carried on talking about a prostitute in Boma whose number he had been given.

  Eventually the road dropped down into Matadi and I caught sight of the river again. It was tens of metres beneath us, below the span of the Marshal Mobutu bridge. We were waiting at another checkpoint having my paperwork examined before I was to be allowed to use this strategic military asset, and I watched as a large ship struggled against the current heading upriver to Matadi’s dockside. The bridge spans the river just below the lowest set of cataracts, and even from my high vantage point I could see the brown water was alive with eddies and undertows as it was squeezed through a steep-sided rocky gorge. If the hillsides had been covered in pines and the outside temperature about thirty degrees Celsius colder, I could have been looking at a Norwegian fjord.

  By now I was on the edge of my seat. I had less than a hundred kilometres to go to reach Boma. This last stretch of road carried no container trucks and so it had not been repaired by foreign money. It was badly pitted and our speed dropped accordingly. Forest returned on either side of the road now that we were down off the mountain plateau, and every so often we would see villagers cutting timber or carrying baskets. As we passed a group of children, I watched as one of them, who appeared to be carrying a large pine cone, flicked his wrist extravagantly. The ‘pine cone’ uncoiled like a yo-yo, stretched out straight and then bundled itself back up into a ball. I shouted at Roget to stop the jeep. The children came running and I had a better look at what they were holding. It was a pangolin, a nocturnal forest animal that I had only ever read about and never seen. Like a hedgehog, it defends itself by rolling into a tight ball, but instead of a hedgehog’s prickles it hides behind an armour of bony plates. ‘You want to eat, you want to eat,’ cried the pangolin’s chief tormentor.

  Finally we reached Boma. It has a sad, passed-over air. There are a few old colonial-era buildings close to the river’s edge, but a modern town of dirty streets and shacks spreads up a hillside on high ground some way from the river. Stanley made Boma his capital when he came back here to set up the Congo Free State for Leopold and, after I had been interviewed at length by the town’s chief immigration officer, I was eventually allowed to look around the relics of that period. There was a tiny Catholic church made completely from cast iron. A foundry in Belgium had moulded the wall panels, window frames, roof and spire before it was shipped out here and reassembled. I tried to go inside, but it was locked. On a hillock overlooking the church was the old governor’s house and below it an abandoned hotel. A rather elegant gallery wrapped around the second storey, its edges decorated with filigree ironwork, red with rust.

  I wanted to picture the scene when Stanley arrived here, half-dead from sickness and starvation after trekking from the other side of the continent. I tried to imagine the thrill he felt when he learned that Cameron, the Royal Navy officer who had set off two years before him, had not beaten him here and it was he who was the first outsider to chart the Congo River.

  In my heart I also felt thrilled. When Stanley got here he was heralded as a hero by the Europeans manning the Boma trading station, because they knew how important his journey was. They knew it changed everything, solving a geographical mystery dating back hundreds of years and promising more visitors, trade and development. My thrill was more private. I had faced down the Congo, the most dangerous, chaotic, backward country in Africa.

  I walked by myself down to the water’s edge and thought about the river. Forty-four days earlier I had started my trip where Lake Tanganyika drains into the headwaters. From there I had watched the river gather strength through the savannah of Katanga and the thickening jungle of Maniema, before its sweep across equatorial Africa all the way to Boma. But the river did not just link me to the places passed through by Stanley. The river was the thread running through the continent’s bloody history, connecting me not just to Stanley, but to Leopold, Conrad, Lumumba, Mobutu and other spectres from Africa’s dark past.

  Taking one last glance at the river before turning for home, I felt a lump in my pocket. It was a pebble I had picked up from the river shallows on my pirogue 2,000 kilometres upstream. Its surface was cracked and uneven. I rolled the stone between my fingers, imagining how the waters of the Congo River had washed over it year after year. I looked at it for a final time. It was the colour of dried blood.

  Epilogue

  In the two years since I completed my journey, much has happened in the Congo and yet little has changed.

  In general the peace treaty of 2002 has held without a return to full-blown war. This does not mean the Congo has been free from violence. In southern Katanga, just weeks after I left, the town of Kilwa was seized by anti-government rebels, driving thousands of refugees across the border into neighbouring Zambia. Without any vehicles of their own, troops loyal to Kinshasa requisitioned jeeps from a nearby foreign-owned copper mine and descended on the town. According to eye-witnesses more than a hundred people, including women and children, were summarily executed as the soldiers ran amok.

  Further north, rebels have continued to kill and cause mayhem across a large swathe of Congolese territory close to Uganda and Rwanda. MONUC, now the largest United Nations peacekeeping mission in the world, has adopted a much tougher posture than in my time, deploying attack helicopters and well-armed troops on combat patrols. They have been moderately successful at persuading some rebel groups to lay down their weapons, but this has not been without cost to the UN. In the worst incident in February 2005, nine Bangladeshi peacekeepers were ambushed and executed in the Ituri region of eastern Congo. Before they died they were tortured and mutilated.

  So while the war remains officially over, the humanitarian crisis in the Congo claims lives on a staggering scale. The most recent assessment, published in January 2006 by the eminent British medical journal, The Lancet, suggests that 1,200 people die each day in the Congo as a direct result of endemic violence and insecurity.

  Furthermore, the Congo’s malign influence continues to leach across the region. An attempt in 2006 to persuade the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda to accept a peace deal failed because many of their mili
tia slipped across the border into the Congo, where they found sanctuary in its lawless jungle. And its influence has been felt in the worsening crisis in Sudan’s Darfur region, where some rebel groups have financed their operations by selling ivory and rhino horn illegally poached from Sudan’s southern neighbour, the Congo.

  The most important single development in the Congo since my journey has been the attempt by the international community to install democracy. It cost more than four hundred million dollars, was boycotted by a major opposition party and took place two years behind schedule, but on 30 July 2006 the Congo held an election to choose both president and parliament. The first meaningful poll in the Congo since the 1960 general election that brought Lumumba to power, it was enthusiastically embraced by Congolese voters. Ballot boxes were delivered by dugout canoe, motorbike courier and helicopter to 46,693 polling stations across the vast country. Villagers trudged for days to take part amidst a mood of optimism that the election might just end decades of instability and reverse the spiral of decline.

  It is too early to say if these hopes have been fulfilled, but the initial signs are not good. Fighting erupted in Kinshasa hours before the results were to be announced. Official reports said twenty-three people died on the streets of the capital, although other estimates put the death toll five times higher. The fighting was so bad that the head of the UN mission and fourteen foreign ambassadors were holed up in the house of a presidential candidate overnight before a special MONUC squad rescued them. The result was so close that a second round of voting had to be held in October 2006. Joseph Kabila was declared the winner, although the loser, Jean-Pierre Bemba, continues to dispute the result.

  Where possible I have tried to keep in touch with many of the people I met on my journey. All of the foreign aid workers I met have moved on, as if duty in the Congo is a tough but necessary career rite of passage. Tom Nyamwaya, the Care International employee who made my trip possible by providing me with motorbikes through Katanga, left his post in Kasongo in 2004 and moved to a new aid job in Sudan. After Benoit’s contract with Care International ended, he moved back to his home near the Congo’s border with Rwanda, but his motorbiking partner Odimba remains in his birthplace, Kasongo. In Kalemie, Georges Mbuyu continues to work for his pygmy human-rights group in the ramshackle house he calls his headquarters. It became even more ramshackle in December 2005 when Kalemie was hit by a powerful earthquake registering 6.8 on the Richter scale.

  When I got home to Johannesburg I was disappointed by the lack of interest in my journey from two of my most prominent Congolese contacts. Congo’s ambassador to South Africa had talked enthusiastically about my journey when signing my laissez-passer before the trip, but when I tried to contact him to tell him how I had got on, he did not return my calls. And Adolphe Onusumba, the rebel leader I had courted before the journey, underwent a radical change. We had been exchanging emails and telephone calls regularly, but a few months after I got home all communication ended. I then found out that the former rebel had been co-opted into the government of his erstwhile enemy, President Kabila, as Defence Minister. I concluded that the ambassador and minister were too ashamed to hear what I had discovered about their failed state.

  My own work took me to Jerusalem, from where I now cover the Middle East region for the Telegraph. I might have moved, but my obsession with the Congo – the daunting, flawed giant that symbolises Africa’s triumph of disappointment over potential – remains stronger than ever.

  Tim Butcher

  Jerusalem, October 2006

  Index

  The page references in this index correspond to the printed edition from which this ebook was created. To find a specific word or phrase from the index, please use the search feature of your ebook reader.

  Act of Berlin (1885) 82

  Affonso, the ManiKongo 38–9

  African Queen, The (film) 92, 226, 234, 249, 264

  Albert I, King of the Belgians 83, 115

  Albertville see Kalemie

  Ali, Muhammad: ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ boxing match (1974) 239, 319

  America see United States of America

  American Civil War 43

  Angola 9, 14, 323–4

  ants, African 199, 246

  Apendeki, Yvonne 172–3

  Arab slave trade/slavers 41, 46, 47, 54, 78, 82, 83, 121, 137, 145, 147, 157–9, 164, 167–8, 198–9, 200, 257, 283

  army, Congolese 132–3, 149–50, 229–30, 263

  Arnold, Sir Edwin 46

  Arubu, Kago 227, 228

  Avenir, L’ (Kinshasa newspaper) 55, 56

  Babundu 222–4

  Bade, Malike 213–14, 215, 217, 218, 221–3, 225, 227, 228–9, 233, 234–5

  BaKongo, the 33

  Banga-Banga, the 70

  Bangana, Benoit 96–9, 100, 102–7, 110, 114–15, 119, 120, 123, 124–5, 127–35, 137, 139, 140, 141, 142–5, 148–50, 174–5, 180, 345

  Bantu tribes 126

  Banyamulenge, the 89

  Barker, Frederick 48, 198

  Barnes, Ann 268

  Batetele, the 159

  Batianduku 250

  Belgium/Belgians 121–2

  administration and bureaucracy 112–13, 138, 162–3, 165–6, 196–7, 239, 265

  and Arab slavers 82–3, 147, 151, 157–9, 164

  arrival in Congo 57

  brutality of regime 11, 159–60

  cotton industry 99, 108, 138

  development of ports and settlements 20, 54, 77, 80, 83, 181, 236

  and granting of Congolese independence (1960) 57–8, 113, 186, 237, 299, 333–4

  and Lumumba’s assassination 58, 59, 284

  mining industry 57, 63

  and Mulele Mai rebellion (1964) 161, 168–9, 173, 272–3

  railways 103, 183–4

  road network 138–9, 150

  websites 23

  see also Leopold II

  Bemba, Jean-Pierre 345

  Bendera hydroelectric plant 86, 87, 105

  Bennett, James Gordon 42, 44, 46, 47

  Berlin Conference (1884) 82, 159

  bicycle taxis (tolekas) 85, 281

  Bilole, Jerome 312

  Binakulu 262

  Binnie, Adrian 283

  Bogart, Humphrey 92, 226

  Boma 151, 257, 316, 325, 336, 337, 339, 341–2

  Bomboko, Justin Marie 11–13, 14

  Bonnardeaux, Michel 70, 72, 80, 83, 85–6, 87–9, 90, 91–2, 95, 99–101, 102, 105, 114

  Brazzaville 15

  Britain 308

  colonialism 80, 121–2, 310

  exploration 40, 41–42 see also Livingstone, David; Stanley, Henry Morton

  slave trade 39–40

  Bruyne, Sergeant de 158–9, 168

  Bukavu massacre (2004) 56, 73, 74, 89, 95–6, 155, 156, 269, 299–300

  Bulloch, John 187

  Bumba 259, 267, 312

  Burton, Richard Francis 42

  Burundi 14, 73, 83, 88, 114

  Butcher, Lisette (author’s mother) 8–9, 10–11, 208

  Cameron, Commander Verney Lovett 121, 122–3, 146, 199, 341

  Across Africa 121, 125, 146

  cannibalism xiii, 8, 24, 71, 127, 134, 146, 159, 190

  Cão, Diogo 31–4, 35, 36, 337

  Care International 72, 97, 98, 99, 114, 152, 155, 156, 172, 174–5, 180

  Casement, Roger 308

  cassava 123, 169–71, 195, 223, 246

  cassiterite mining 191

  Chad 14

  charcoal-burners 89

  China/Chinese 64, 65, 68, 191

  cotton 171–2

  cholera 20–21, 95, 183

  Christianity 34, 35, 167, 184, 193, 194, 195, 233, 234, 275

  Church Mission Society 194, 195

  ‘Clive’ (Zimbabwean businessman) 25–6, 61, 64, 67

  clothes trade, second-hand 219, 223

  cobalt mining 14, 24, 26, 57, 61, 63–8, 191, 319, 320, 322, 324

  Coca-Cola 223–4

  coffee industry 256
, 275

  Cohydro (petrol company) 280–82

  coltan mining 25

  Congo Free State 82, 83, 159, 258–8, 283, 308, 333–4

  Congo River xiii, 14–16, 192, 215–16, 304, 305, 339, 342

  boat traffic 192, 201–2, 204–5, 206–7, 216, 259, 263, 264–6, 267, 294–7, 298, 301–2, 306

  cataracts 326–7, see also Stanley Falls (below)

  depth and width 16, 31, 181, 204, 263, 294, 301

  discovery of 31–2

  exploration of 6, 33–4, 40–41, 46–7, 326–8, 341

  flooding 219–20

  Marshal Mobutu bridge 239, 328, 340

  Stanley Falls 225, 229, 244, 257–8, 261–2, 293

  Stanley Pool 16, 325–6

  tributaries 33, 105, 305, 327

  upper reaches 179–81

  water hyacinths 306–7

  Congolese National Movement (MNC) 284

  Congolese Railway Company (The Great Lakes Railway Company) 205–6

  Conrad, Joseph 258–9, 303, 331–2

  The Heart of Darkness 4–5, 179, 201, 226, 239, 258, 296

  copper mining 23, 57, 63, 166, 237, 334

  Coppola, Francis Ford: Apocalypse Now 5

  corruption 8, 16–17, 61–2, 63, 66–7, 68, 237–8, 240, 289, 329–30, 335

  cotton industry 99, 108, 138, 169

  Chinese 171–2

  crocodiles 207–8

  Crystal Mountains, the 81, 326–7, 328, 336

  Daily Telegraph 3, 5, 6, 18, 23, 46, 47, 48, 187

  Department for International Development (DFID) 244–5

  diamond mining and industry 14, 24, 58, 237, 276–7, 298, 307, 324–5, 334

  Dias, Bartolomeu 37

  Difuma Deux 185–6

  Dino, Father 275

  Ebola River 305

  economy, Congolese 8, 24–5, 64–5, 66–7, 237–8, 242, 325

  election (2006) 344–5

  Elisabethville see Lubumbashi