Authors: David Van Reybrouck

Congo (103 page)

BOOK: Congo

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The massive theft of raw materials has been proven irrefutably by consecutive reports from the United Nations panel of experts (www.un.org/News/dh/latest/dr congo.htm). An overall, quantitative analysis is lacking, but Stefaan Marysse and Catherine André carried out pioneering calculations for the years 1999 and 2000 in “Guerre et pillage en République Démocratique du Congo,”
L’Afrique des Grands Lacs
(2001). The
L’Afrique des Grands Lacs
yearbooks, currently edited by Stefaan Marysse, Filip Reyntjens, and Stef Vandeginste, provide a wealth of information for all those wishing to study the more recent periods in Congolese (but also Rwandan and Burundian) history. Back issues can be downloaded in their entirety from the University of Antwerp website.

Marvelous work has also been done by a number of independent NGOs. Human Rights Watch documented the smuggling of gold by Uganda in two reports,
Uganda in Eastern DRC
(2001) and above all
The Curse of Gold
(2005). Global Witness investigated Rwanda’s role in the smuggling of tin,
Under-Mining Peace: Tin, The Explosive Trade in Cassiterite in Eastern DRC
(2005). In a two-part study, IPIS looked at the international markets for coltan:
Supporting the War Economy in the DRC: European Companies and the Coltan Trade
(2002). Pole Institute, a Congolese studies center in Goma, published
The Coltan Phenomenon
(2002), with extensive interviews with mineworkers. All these reports are also available online.

Two studies in particular showed me that it is not sufficient to look only to the regimes of Rwanda and Uganda when it comes to the raw-materials robbery in the eastern Congo; there are other players as well, both “downstream” and “upstream.”
Network War: An Introduction to Congo’s Privatised War Economy
by Tim Raeymaekers (IPIS, 2002) pointed out the crucial role of private, “nonstate actors” in today’s globalized world, while Koen Vlassenroot and Hans Romkema showed how normal Congolese citizens also profited: “The Emergence of a New Order? Resources and War in Eastern Congo,”
Journal of Humanitarian Assistance
(2002).

Concerning the consequences of the war at the local level, social and otherwise, Koen Vlassenroot and Tim Raeymaekers edited the noteworthy compilation,
Conflict and Social Transformation in Eastern Congo
(Ghent, Belgium, 2004). Among others, the anthropological chapter by Luca Jourdan, “Being at War, Being Young: Violence and Youth in North Kivu,” was one I read with great interest. As early as June 2002, Human Rights Watch published a report on sexual violence:
The War within the War
. For the ecological impact of the conflict, I consulted both the UNESCO report
Promoting and Preserving Congolese Heritage: Linking Biological and Cultural Diversity
(2005) and the ambitious survey
Forests in Post-Conflict Democratic Republic of Congo
, edited by L. Debroux et al. (2007).

CHAPTER 13

The political and military aspects of the transitional period are described clearly in the above-mentioned works by Reyntjens and Prunier. The most detailed study once again comes from Gauthier de Villers,
De la guerre aux élections
(Tervuren, Belgium, 2009), with which he completed his trilogy on Zaïre/Congo during the long transition from the Second to the Third Republic (Villers, 1997, 2001, 2009). The thoroughgoing character of these studies makes them a reference work for the period 1990–2008, like the yearbooks published by the CRISP for the period 1959–1967.

This chapter deals in some detail with the interplay between multinational concerns, pop music, Pentecostalism, and the mass media in urban Congolese society. Because these are recent phenomena, no integral studies have yet been written. Theodore Trefon’s compilation,
Reinventing Order in the Congo: How People Respond to State Failure in Kinshasa
(London, 2004), contains a number of fine contributions. The standard work on life in the capital, however, is Filip De Boeck’s masterful anthropological study,
Kinshasa, Tales of the Invisible City
(Ghent, Belgium, 2004), illustrated with photos by Marie-Françoise Plissart. Two of his doctoral students, Kristien Geenen and Katrien Pype, have in recent years published admirable studies of Kinshasa’s street children, youth gangs, and religious soap operas. In 2010 De Boeck himself released the documentary
Cemetery State
, about youth and death in a city that eludes description.

Information about pop music I gleaned from the Internet and from countless conversations with Congolese people. In addition, my most important sources were
Rumba on the River
by Gary Stewart (London, 2000) and
Rumba Rules
by Bob White (Durham, NC, 2008). To the best of my knowledge, no systematic research has been carried out into Heineken’s activities in Africa. In 2008 the Dutch television broadcaster RTL made the rather superficial and patriotic documentary
Een Hollands biertje in Afrika
. The documentary dealt solely with Bralima in Kinshasa, with a main role reserved for Dolf van den Brink, and can be seen on that broadcaster’s website.

In addition to Katrien Pype’s work dealing with religious broadcasters, I received insights into the workings of the Congolese media from Marie-Soleil Frère’s
Afrique centrale, médias et conflits: Vecteurs de guerre ou acteurs de paix
(Brussels, 2005) and her more recent articles. For the impact of mobile telephony in Africa, see Mirjam de Bruijn et al.,
Mobile Africa: Changing Patterns of Movement in Africa and Beyond
(Leiden, The Netherlands, 2001).

Concerning the rise of charismatic Christianity, I consulted, among other sources, Gerrie Ter Haar’s
How God Became African: African Spirituality and Western Secular Thought
(Philadelphia, 2009). The interaction with the recent history of migration is described in Emma Wild-Wood’s
Migration and Christian Identity in Congo
(Leiden, The Netherlands, 2008). For more about the rise of the Congolese diaspora in Europe, see Zana Etambala’s
In het land van de Banoko
(Leuven/Louvain, Belgium, 1993) for Belgium, and Marc Tardieu’s
Les Africains en France
(Monaco, 2006) for France. For the much more recent community in London, see the interviews collected by David Garbin and Wa Gamoka Pambu in
Roots and Routes: Congolese Diaspora in Multicultural Britain
(London, 2009).

A few articles in newspapers and magazines have described the interaction between popular culture and politics. In “La victoire en chantant” in
Jeune Afrique
(2006), Luc Olinga investigated the impact of Congolese pop music on the 2006 elections. Marie-Soleil Frère, in “Quand le pluralisme déraille” in
Africultures
(2007), looked at the influence of commercial and religious television on the electoral campaign.

In the field of cinematography, see
Congo River
by Thierry Michel (2005) for a lively impression of Congo during the transitional years, and
Congo na biso
by Chuck de Liedekerke and Yannick Muller (2006) for a lucid political approach. Lieve Joris’s
Het uur van de rebellen
(Amsterdam, 2006) is a courageous book about the uphill battle to reform the Congolese army.

CHAPTER 14

Few books have yet appeared, of course, about the most recent phase of Congolese history. A highly readable account of the first free elections in decades was written by the Congolese Alphonse Muambi, who returned briefly to his former fatherland as an international observer,
Democratie kun je niet eten
(Amsterdam, 2009).

The early days of the Third Republic are described in two widely divergent works. In
Vers la deuxième indépendance du Congo
(Brussels, 2009),
Le Soir
journalist Colette Braeckman presents a cautiously optimistic view, while the compilation edited by Theodore Trefon,
Réforme au Congo (RDC): Attentes et désillusions
(Tervuren, 2009), strikes a much more somber note. In addition to the regular printed media, I sought and found further documentation in
Mo
magazine,
Le Monde Diplomatique
, and
Jeune Afrique
. The blogs by Colette Braeckman (at lesoir.be) and Jason Stearns (congosiasa.blogspot.com) were a great help in placing the recent developments in their proper perspective. I also profited greatly from the razor-sharp analyses distributed by Kris Berwouts as director of EurAc, the umbrella organization of European NGOs active in Central Africa.

The websites of the International Crisis Group (crisisgroup.org) and Human Rights Watch (hrw.org) are without equal when it comes to conflict analysis and fieldwork concerning human rights violations. The macroperspective provided by the former is equaled only by the detailed, on-the-ground observations of the latter. For years, both NGOs have been doing outstanding work that not only pleases historians, but above all aims to save human lives.

The websites of
Le Potentiel
and Radio Okapi, the best newspaper and the best radio broadcaster in Congo, respectively, allowed me to keep up to date on daily current events in the country even from a distance. Rapper Alesh, who I interviewed in Kisangani, can also be heard on the Radio Okapi website. A number of brave Congolese NGOs have recently started distributing reports on the Internet: special mention here goes to Asadho (Association Africaine de Défense de Droits de l’Homme), Rodhecic (Réseau d’Organisations des Droits Humains et d’Éducation Civique d’Inspiration Chrétienne), and Journaliste en Danger.

Concerning the intricacies of the tumult in Katangan mining, Thierry Michel made the interesting documentary
Katanga Business
(2009). I owe much to the reports from IPIS, RAID, Global Witness, and Resource Consulting Services.

In recent years a few good studies have appeared dealing with the growing Chinese presence in Africa. For an analytical approach, see Chris Alden,
China in Africa
(London, 2007), and Serge Michel and Michel Beuret’s
La Chinafrique
(Paris, 2009) for a most lively journalistic account. Outstanding by reason of its balanced approach is the study by Martine Dahle Huse and Stephen L. Muyakwa, “China in Africa: Lending, Policy Space, and Governance” (www.afrika.no, 2008). I found a fine analysis of the Congolese-Chinese contract in Stefaan Marysse and Sara Geenen, “Les contrats chinois en RCD: l’impérialisme rouge en marche?”
L’Afrique des Grands Lacs
(2007–2008).

CHAPTER 15

Little research has been carried out into Guangzhou’s African community. The first academic articles are now seeing the light of day, but are generally very descriptive in nature. See Brigitte Bertoncelo and Sylvie Bredeloup, “The Emergence of New African ‘Trading Posts’ in Hong Kong and Guangzhou,”
China Perspectives
(2007) and Li Zhang, “Ethnic Congregation in a Globalizing City: The Case of Guangzhou, China” (www.sciencedirect.com, 2008). See also Zhigang Li, Desheng Xue, Michael Lyons, Alison Brown “Ethnic Enclave of Transnational Migrants in Guangzhou” (asiandrivers.open.ac.uk, 2007), and Adams Bodomo, a Ghanian professor in Hong Kong, “The African Trading Community in Guangzhou,”
China Quarterly
(2010). I learned a great deal from my conversations with the Belgian consul Frank Felix, with the Flemish economic attaché and sinologist Koen De Ridder, and with the China-based Congolese journalist Jaffar Mulassa; as stated, however, I learned the most from talking to those directly involved.

NOTES

INTRODUCTION