Dancing in the Glory of Monsters

by Jason Stearns

  And yet it was clear from the beginning that their independence would be severely limited by Rwanda’s influence. After all, it was Kigali that had brought them together and provided them with soldiers, phones, and houses. Indeed, by the time the besuited politicians met in Kigali, the armed insurrection on the ground was already two weeks old, had taken control of the border cities of Bukavu and Goma, and was advancing on Kinshasa. The political leadership of the RCD was attached as an afterthought, an appendix to the military machine. “We thought we would take Kinshasa within a month at the most,” Colonel Patrick Karegeya, one of the masterminds of the Rwandan offensive, told me. “We didn’t pay that much attention to the political wing.”6

  Wamba could not claim that he didn’t know what he was getting into. Like the others, he, too, had been contacted by the Rwandan government. A few days after his arrival in Kigali, it was Paul Kagame who, in a closed-door meeting with the aspiring rebels, suggested that Wamba become president of the movement. Wamba had a good international reputation, the Rwandan leader argued, and had not participated in the previous rebellion, which could make him appear a neutral arbiter among the various other tendencies represented. Crucially, Wamba was close to former Tanzanian president Nyerere and, by virtue of his membership in the pan-Africanist movement, could also sway other African leaders such as Mandela, Museveni, and Graça Machel, the former first lady of Mozambique. “Any objections?” Kagame asked. Of course, there were none.

  Wamba had his reasons for advocating a military rebellion. He had been a frontseat observer to the various resistance movements against Mobutu’s dictatorship. Over twenty-five years, he had watched the autocrat, with the help of the United States, France, and Belgium, skillfully crush and co-opt any opposition to his rule. At the end of the cold war, persistent protests forced Mobutu to accept multiparty democracy, and he called for a National Sovereign Conference, in which Wamba participated, to decide the future of the government. When the conference elected Etienne Tshisekedi as its leader, Mobutu simply ignored the verdict and imposed his own prime minister. Wamba didn’t see much hope for pacifist opposition to a regime that locked up and tortured its opponents.

  The genocide in Rwanda finally ripped Wamba out of academic complacency: “[It] was the turning point, my road to Damascus. Here you are, a social scientist who has been theorizing about social movements, trying to understand how African societies work, how they might be changed for the better. Then you see that genocide is taking place right in front of your face, and you find yourself powerless to do anything.”7 When he received the phone call telling him that he could take the lead in a new rebellion and, without the hardships and improbabilities of grassroots organizing, play a decisive role in shaping a new, albeit armed, opposition, he didn’t hesitate.

  In a speech to African philosophers, he obliquely justified his position: “Congolese academics talk of the Congolese population as being ignorant and President J. Kabila as knowing nothing. They are happy doing their routine theoretical work and not caring much about the fact that they are sitting in a sinking boat. I find this attitude deplorable.... Development can only be consciously pursued and not left to chance or to others.”8

  Many others with similarly high ideals made the same deal with the devil as Wamba. After all, being a leader takes vision and charisma, but it also requires propitious circumstances. Hadn’t Che Guevara tried and failed, limping away malnourished and dejected? Hadn’t Tshisekedi, who had marched with tens of thousands against Mobutu in 1992, also been reduced to a marginal figure, with only a handful of diehard supporters heeding calls for protest marches? They had failed because the circumstances had not been ripe for them, whereas Wamba and his new comrades now did have the right circumstances: a formidable, time-tested military machine that could undoubtedly take them to the summit of the state. Change and power were being offered on a silver platter.

  A total of twenty-six dissidents were ferried out to a small hotel in Kabuga, on the outskirts of Kigali, and spent several days debating the structure and composition of their new rebellion. As they debated, Rwandan army officers milled about outside in gumboots, toting machine guns.

  “ It was a strange bunch,” Wamba remembered. He had a tendency to close his eyes for minutes on end and stroke his forehead when we spoke. “You had capitalists and socialists. You had Mobutists and those who had thrown them out of power. You had academics and people who apparently had never read a book.”

  This amalgam produced tense moments, as at the beginning, when Kalala Shambuyi, a radical from the Belgian diaspora, stood up and pointed at Lunda Bululu, who had been prime minister under Mobutu. “ I will not be associated with Mobutists after all they did to my country!” He walked out, but was later calmed down and brought back in. On another occasion, the Rwandans showed the draft of a press statement to Zahidi Ngoma, the rebellion’s first spokesperson, who exploded, protesting, “ I am not in primary school! I can draft my own press statements!”

  For most of those assembled, their differences of opinion didn’t matter much, as they believed they would be in Kinshasa in a matter of weeks or, at the most, months. Wamba found himself alone arguing for a “democratizing rebellion.” Military pressure for him was just a means to begin negotiations with Kabila. “Most of the people in that room hadn’t thought about strategy, how they would use their power to bring about social change. They just wanted military victory.” Some RCD leaders already began discussing which positions they would get when they got to Kinshasa. In the meantime, Wamba held forth in long speeches about Congolese history and their responsibilities toward the Congolese people.

  Many in the group saw Wamba as out of touch with reality. “He was an old professor in sandals,” one remembered. “He knew a lot about Marxist theory and African history. But what did he know about governing? About leading a rebellion?”9 A Ugandan commander who was in charge of Ugandan troops told a leading member of the RCD: “Let the old man write his books, we’ ll get to work.”10

  A Rwandan military escort took the group to its new headquarters in Goma, Mobutu’s former palace on Lake Kivu, where chandeliers and marble floors recalled the good old days before the pillaging and destruction. The Rwandans, in an effort to build team spirit, made the RCD leaders sleep together in the same house. This sparked indignation from some.

  Rwandan influence was initially subtle. In the meetings of the RCD assembly, delegates sent from Kigali were often in attendance, but the Congolese debated freely and fiercely over the direction the movement should take. Tito Rutaremara, an old Left Bank Parisian intellectual who was an influential RPF ideologue, gave presentations on how to develop revolutionary ideology. But no one could impose cohesion and a sense of purpose. “ It was like herding cats,” Wamba remembered. “Most of the people in the movement were not sincerely interested in democracy.” They had learned from the Mobutu and Kabila school of governance: They thought power was developed through intrigue. Each leader developed his personal contact in Kigali. Diplomats became used to seeing the RCD leaders at the luxury Umumbano Hotel in Kigali each week, sitting at the same corner table on the terrace, meeting with Rwandan officials. All of the main leaders of the RCD had houses in Kigali, just a three-hour car ride from Goma.

  “It was difficult to say who was in charge,” Wamba said. “Our executive council met once every two weeks and took decisions. But then I found out others were sending conflicting reports to Kampala and Kigali.” It was a typical case of traffic d’influence—using personal contacts as leverage behind the scenes to get what you wanted.

  The cacophony became so bad that Vice President Kagame had to intervene on several occasions. Once he convened the leadership in Kigali and told them an anecdote about a king. “The monarch had a wonderful advisor who saved him many times,” he told his audience. “As a reward, one day he told his advisor that he could make one wish that he would grant him without condition. The advisor told him:‘I have but one simple request. When I want to tell y
ou something, can I whisper it in your ear?’ The king, baffled by the request, granted it immediately. From then on, whenever there was an important decision to take, the advisor would go up to the king and whisper banalities in his ear—he talked about the weather or what the cook would make for dinner—and the king would nod. The advisor would then go and tell the court that the king had agreed with his recommendations regarding national policy.” Kagame then thundered, wagging his finger. “Some of you fools come and see me here in Kigali, just to say hello and ask about my family! Then you go and tell the rest that Kagame agrees with your decision on this or that matter.” He banged his fist on the table. “ I will have none of this!”11

  But the Rwandans were not just innocuous bystanders. Approval for all major expenditures from the RCD budget had to come from Kigali. Both RCD finance minister Emmanuel Kamanzi and chief of staff General Jean-Pierre Ondekane spent most of their time in Kigali, making decisions without conferring with the rest of the RCD leadership. Major leadership changes were imposed by Kigali, and all military operations were led by Rwandan commanders in the field. The more the RCD’s disorganization became apparent, the more Kigali began to intervene. “ Were we dominated by Rwanda, or were we just very weak?” a former RCD leader asked rhetorically. “It wasn’t clear.”12

  It quickly became obvious that Wamba was ill-suited as president of the RCD. He tired of Rwandan interference and the gluttony of his colleagues. From the first days of the rebellion, as their soldiers were blazing across the country, he called for a cease-fire and negotiations with Kabila, causing Rwandan commanders to grind their teeth in frustration. Finally, the height of impudence, he called for a financial audit of the rebellion and made its leaders declare their income and belongings. The results were embarrassing to the RCD: While their coffers were almost empty, many leaders were buying houses in South Africa. Jean-Pierre Ondekane, the military chief of staff who had a taste for diamond rings and used skin-lightening cream, had bought a sports car that he imported to Kigali. “How would he ever drive that thing on Goma’s terrible roads?” Wamba wondered.

  “After just four months, things were so bad between us we wouldn’t talk much together,” Wamba remembered. The last straw came on New Year’s Eve 1998, when Wamba was scheduled to give a seasonal radio address. His colleagues were with family or friends, enjoying the holiday, when they heard him on the radio:“There is zero oversight of the leaders of the rebellion. This is why even the most notorious incompetence does not elicit the slightest reprimand. The professional relationships have been transformed into a nepotistic politicking: Scratch my back and I will scratch yours.” 13 Zahidi Ngoma, who was enjoying a glass of wine at home, rushed to the phone and called the radio station. “Cut him off!” he ordered.

  Predictably, the RCD leaders were called to Kigali to explain their supreme disarray. Both Rwanda’s president, Pasteur Bizimungu, and its vice president, Paul Kagame, attended the meeting. Wamba complained that any initiative he undertook was blocked by others, in particular the Mobutists. Some Tutsi raised their voices to say that Wamba was excluding them based on their ethnicity. Then Wamba interjected, “I wasn’t even given a Christmas dinner! What kind of rebellion is this?”

  The other members sighed, and an old Mobutist complained, “This debate has sunk too low. Christmas dinner!”

  Bizimungu responded, “No! What the president is saying is important! How can you feed fifty million people if you can’t even feed your president?”

  Kagame took the floor. “Your problem is that you don’t love your country. You need to suffer; you are living the good life. When we were in our rebellion, we were so poor that we didn’t have plates to eat out of. We took banana leaves and put them in a hole in the ground to eat our meals.”

  The debate turned acrimonious, with Zahidi accusing the finance minister of signing contracts in his bathrobe at home and not even informing them, while Wamba was lambasted for having his head in the clouds. The Rwandans intervened to calm the group down, but it was clear that the rift would be difficult to mend. In early 1999, Wamba was toppled as the president of the RCD.

  The rebellion was militarily successful. By the beginning of 1999, the RCD had seized over a quarter of the country, including the third largest city, Kisangani, and were headed toward the mining hubs of Lubumbashi and Mbuji-Mayi. Under the strict guidance of the Rwandan army, the Congolese battalions performed relatively well, although they became well-known for pillage and abuse. Faced with aerial bombardments and artillery barrages from the well-equipped Zimbabwean and Chadian armies (the Angolans chose mostly to stay behind and guard Kinshasa and Bas-Congo), the RCD fought well on a shoestring, using guerrilla tactics to their advantage.

  Politically and socially, however, the RCD was a disaster. Outside of the Hutu and Tutsi population of North Kivu, the movement was never able to convince the population that it wasn’t a Rwandan proxy. Spontaneously, local militias—focused on ethnic self-defense—were formed, claiming to be protecting Congolese against foreign aggression. The RCD responded with a brutal counterinsurgency, targeting civilians in response to attacks. Within the first four months, several massacres took place, in which over 1,000 civilians were killed. “At first I didn’t believe the reports,” Wamba said when I asked him about these massacres. “But then I started using my own, parallel channels of information and discovered it was true. But I had no control over the military, and by the time I had found out, I had already fallen out with the others.”

  I pressed him on one massacre in particular, at Kasika, which happened just weeks after he took the helm of the RCD, on August 24, 1998. According to UN investigators, as well as witnesses I interviewed, at least five hundred civilians were butchered by Rwandan and RCD troops there.

  Wamba looked at me in shock. “Five hundred? No, impossible.” I told him that I had been there myself to interview eyewitnesses. “No, no. That isn’t possible,” he insisted, shaking his head.

  In his office in Goma, Wamba was isolated from the suffering of the population. The leadership created the semblance of a functioning administration, with an executive council and legislative assembly playing the role of executive and Parliament. Laws were passed, press conferences called, and budgets discussed, but all this was a sideshow to the military operations. “Sometimes it felt like the only thing we did was sit in meetings all day,” José Endundo, an RCD finance commissioner, remembered. “Meetings that went nowhere and had no impact.”

  The organization lacked not only ideological vision, but also the means with which to implement it. One of Wamba’s largest frustrations was his inability to carry out any sort of social or humanitarian project for the population. According to one leader, 80 percent of the RCD’s $2.5 million revenues each month went to feeding soldiers and buying supplies for military operations.14 “ We had health and transport departments but no money to build roads or schools,” Wamba said. They had over 15,000 soldiers who were deployed in an area the size of France. They had to feed the troops and provide for everything from credit for the satellite phones to fuel for the vehicles and bullets for their guns. The RCD was a predator that sucked resources out of the population and provided next to nothing in return.

  According to many of his former rebel colleagues, Wamba was never in it for personal gain. Even when I visited him, the collar of his shirt was threadbare; he complained that he had been threatened with eviction on several occasions after he was unable to pay the rent. When I asked him about a friend of his, he tried calling him, but realized sheepishly that he had run out of phone credits.

  Anyone who has spent much time in the Congo can understand Wamba’s desire to bring about radical change through armed rebellion, given the lack of viable options. But his gravest sin was to have remained in the rebellion for so long despite its glaring flaws. A former colleague of his quoted a Swahili proverb to me: “Don’t get into a ship with a hole in the bottom; it will eventually sink.” He said of Wamba, “ I don’t think he raped or
killed or stole, but he was part of a machine that did. He is guilty of that at least.”

  Perhaps the only good decision Wamba could have made was to leave the movement. Instead, he stayed on and made increasingly bizarre choices. In July 1999, Wamba made a desperate effort to raise funds for infrastructure projects—he wanted to open up the hinterlands’ economy by rebuilding three hundred and fifty miles of road from Kisangani to Bunia, close to the Ugandan border. He signed a deal with the African Union Reserve System, a previously unknown company, to set up a central bank with a new currency, “for the advancement and economic development for the Congo.” The company would be financed by Congolese gold and diamonds and would remit 35 percent of profits to Wamba’s treasury, with a $16 million loan up front. The company’s owner was Van Arthur Brink, who presented himself as the ambassador of the Dominion of Melchisedek, a fanciful spiritual order that sold banking licenses in the name of a virtual state. Unsurprisingly, it was a swindle. The crook’s real name was Allen Ziegler, who was on the run from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for fraud worth $400,000, and who had set up shop on the small Caribbean island of Grenada. The rebels, of course, never saw a cent of the promised money.