Rwanda, Congo, Burundi: Summery

Best thing brought: Flic (who came with a tent a knowlege of card games and a sence of humour, Long Johns (5 degress up the volcano)

Worst thing brought: Blisters.

Best thing bought: Permit for National park.

Worst thing bought: Food, man, with the exception of Burundi, the area has some pretty bland food.

Most surprising: No big animals, haven't seen a gorilla, lion, elephant... the best I've seen so far is cows with big horns. I thouht this contenent was supposed to have masses of animals. I'm too cheap to go on a safari tour, but I would like to see a zebra or a giraff or even an anteater in the wild. Also supprising is just what African woman can carry on thier heads. There is the obivious water jugs and baskets of fruit, but what i didn't expect was handbags and backpacks... or shoes, and hoes.

Typically central African: Running to throw a few punches when you hear a theif has been caught. Also staring, smiling, laughing.

What's accepted: Ignoring the potentual genoside in Darfur, looting other countries mineral wealth.

What's not accepted: Outside countries ignoring your political problems, other countries looting your mineral wealth.

What works: Motherhood and babies, the babies are chilled, they are lifted up by a limb and swung around to their mothers backs, they don't whing or cry very often and they don't wear nappys. I saw a one year old on a train being washed infont of the open window (cold air rushing in) one woman held the kid up by its arms and another poured cold water over it... the kid just looked mildly inconvenanced.

What doesn't work: The Deoderant here, some people are really honkin. Sometimes, I'm also really honking... the buses can utterly pong.

What I learnt: Strong insect repelent melts plastic

What I learnt to do: Get myself resonably clean in only 3 pints of water from a bucket.


I knew I was in Africa when: I realised that I no longer had any expectations anmore when I heard words like 'hotel', 'toilet', 'food'

So the whole Congo, Rwanda, Burundi area has been (still is) a political mess for a while. I spoke to a Congolese Poilot and asked if he was glad that the war was finally over. He said 'No'. He got a hell of a lot more money for flying guns than he does for flying food.

So here is a breif idea of what went on. Most of this I got from Lonely Planet, and from 'Shackled Continent' by Robert Guest (really good book, explains a lot and even I understood it). I'm going to leave out Burundi in this because it's confusing enough as it is:

Late 1800's: King Leopold of Belgim owned Congo, (only private owership of an African country). He enslaved locals to tap rubber and collect Ivory. He'd slice off the hands of slackers and other nasty stuff.

1908: Belgim Govenment rule of Congo. (they took it off Leopold's hands), they built a few roads but never bothered with infustructure or education.

1916: Rwanda that was held by Gemans was handed over to Belgim (a WW1 thing) There were 2 major tribes: the Hutus (85%) and Tutsis (13%), They got on fine, there was intermarriage etc. The Belgims favoured the minority Tutsis and gave them prominent positions in govenment. This peeved off the Hutus, understandably.

1960: Congo got independance, The obivious guy for the job was too soviet for the Belgims and US (who for some reason had a say). So they place Moboto in power. He was an arse who thought that being presideint just means he owns everything in the country. He inspired the word 'kleptocracy' I think it is more a Kleptatorship. During this time Congo was called Zaire, then later it was given the ironic title of Democratic republic of Congo, but I'm just going to stick with 'Congo'. Moboto also gave himself some new names including "The cock that leaves no hen untouched" I think i'll just shorten it to "The Cock".

1962: Rwanda gets independance, as it's demoracy and Hutus are the majority, Hutus win leadership. Things get bad fro the Tutsis, some flee to Uganda (they come back into the story later).

1990: Rwanda 5000 of the ousted Tutsis decide to come back; in a violent way. Uganda supported the Tutsi rebels and France, Belgim and Moboto's Congo supported the Hutu gonvenment)

1993: Peace agreement signed between the Tutsi rebels and Hutu govenment in Rwanda. But the gonvenment used propaganda to fuel tensions, they portayed the Tutsis as evil.

1994: Hutu Gonvenment extreemests began the genoside by shooting down the presidentual plane killing their own and the Burundian presidents. Within 45 minutes road blocks had been set up across the country and the genoside had begun (obiviously planned... nothing happens that fast in Africa). It lasted only 3 months and killed about 800,000 people. the genoside ended when the Tutsi rebels banded together and overthrew the gonvenment. (ok, from now on in it's the Tutsi who are in gonvemnent and the Hutus are now the rebels). The UN didn't help, the French came but helped by creating an exit route for the fleeing Hutus genosideies into Congo where they are fed and housed with foreign aid (the French are not well liked in Rwanda). From this base they made attacks back into Rwanda. So Rwanda appealed to Congo to close down the camps... Mobotu was buddies with the old Hutu govenment so encouraged them instead.

1996: Rwanda invaded Congoin the hope to scatter or kill the genocidaires and set up a buffer zone. Turned out that attacking Congo was supprisingly easy and they decided that they simply replace Mobotu who was being a pain in the arse.

1997: There were still a load of Rwandan Hutu rebels hanging out just across the border in Congo which annoyed the Rwandan gonvenment so they got together with Uganda and overthrew Mobutu and placed a guy called Kabila. The Cogolese were happy and supported the new leader, cause he couldn't be as bad as Mobutu... surely. Actually, you guessed it, he was worse (promised elections but never held them, jailed and tortured suspected opponents, printed money... actually that is a common trick with African leaders, I had a long converstaion with a Ugandan the other night tryiing to explain why printing more money doesn't make more value... it just makes more bits of paper... my explination failed). But, his biggest mistake was not fufilling his promise to Uganda and Rwanda who placed him in power. He never closed down the refugee camps that held the genocidaires.

1998: Rwanda, knowing how easy it was to attack Congo decided to do it again and overthrow the man they had put in power with teh help of their old freinds Uganda and the hodge podge of Congolese rebel groupd who also didn't like the current leader. Kabila got onto the phone and called up some of his dictator mates. Armies from Zimbabwe, Angola, and Namibia arrived. They pushed the rebels and rwandans back. The ill trained Congolese army pretty much fired at random, they were told to kill anyone with a long noes (a trate of a Tutsi) .

1999: Now it gets really confusing. At one time or another 9 National armys were involved and they all had various alliances with the several rebel groups and militas. It was a mess. They attempted a peace pact but no one honoured it. there's a simpole reason to all this. Congo is rich, filled to the brim in copper, diamonds, gold, cobalt and coltan (a rare mineral used in mobile phones. As soon as an army seizes a mine, they simply loot it and use the money to buy more wepons/planes. They didn't seem to pay their solgers though, who robbed villages and killed apes for bush meat.

2000: Rwandan and Ugandan troopws blasted eash other in a Congolese city for 6 days (distroying much of the town) over the spoils of the area. They were supposed to be on the same side. A thriving diamond market sprung up in Rwanda, a country that doesn't produce diamonds.

2001: Kabalia was assisinated. killed by his aid who in turn was shot minutes later. He was replaced by his 29 year old son Joseph.

Kabila Jr. seems to have just been a better human being, he has signed peace agreements, created a transitional govenment with leaders of the differnt groups and actually held elections. Forigen troops finally have left, and there is a huge UN presence still there. Kabila Jr. lost the election, but talking to locals they don't seem to like the new guy, even the ones who voted for him. so hopefuylly they will have a chance in the future to vote again. Africa seems to have its own form of demorcracy: one person, one vote, once.

Meanwhile here in Tanzania the big guys in the Rwandan Genoside hare being tired, thier maxomum sentance is life imprisonment, they are getting apretty good deal with HIV drugs unavaliable for most people in their home country. while, in Rwanda the smaller players in the genoside are getting local trials where the maximum sentance is death.

This has been a long blog... actually it's a bit more like writeing a time line for high school history class. It's more for my own personal record, and I don't claim it to be the most thorough repersesntation for a huge history. Just a word about Burundi, It has a similar make up of Hutus and Tutsis like Rwanda. And they even came pretty close to their own genoside, except it was the other way around, the govenment army dominated by Tutsis killed about 200,000 in 3 months, a further 100,000 fled. I never even heard about that until I got here.