DISPLACED
By Jeremiah Fastin
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2011 by Jeremiah A. Fastin
All rights reserved by the author
Acknowledgments
The author wishes to acknowledge the reporting of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, the reports of which were referenced in the production of this book.
Chapter 1
It hadn’t rained in several days and the road was cracked with rivulets and channels cut from the last downpour, a dried wash of rocks and clay that created a fine cloud of silt as the land rover drove over top. The road led to a home and Jonas Negusse sat up as he heard the first sounds of the vehicle approach and then got up from his chair and stood at the door peering out. An unannounced visitor was always some cause for concern and this surprise visit caused him a particular sense of unease. As the truck crested the rise and came out of the shadow of the gulley of the road, his fear was realized. He counted four to five men in the white land rover dressed in green military fatigues. It was already too late to tell his wife and daughter to run and he would stand at the door and play it straight. What could they know, he asked himself and convinced himself of the answer, nothing.
The vehicle stopped in front of the house and Jonas went onto the front porch to meet it. A smallish man with dark skin and an officer’s insignia exited the passenger side of the truck while the soldiers in irregular uniforms filed out of the back and reunited with their leader and stood slouching against the truck with their guns at their side or held by the barrel with the stock on the ground waiting. Jonas took the initiative and spoke first doing his best to sound natural, he introduced himself. “Hello,” he said, “I’m Jonas Negusse, what can I do for you gentlemen?”
He received no response from the four soldiers that had gotten down from the truck and looked at him narrowly. The officer approached him as if to make his acquaintance and then struck him in the jaw with his closed fist. This was the sign the others were waiting for and they filed past the man pushing Jonas forward into the house and onto the couch in the main room.
“Jonas Negusse?” the man who had hit him asked.
“Yes, I just said as much.” He said now sitting on the sofa, holding his jaw. “Please,” he said, “take whatever you want, just leave my family.”
“We’ll search your home,” the soldier said.
His daughter, Nicole, had been watching seated in a chair as her father was pushed through the door not knowing what to think or do, and one of the soldiers grabbed her by the arm and raised her from her seat. She protested and was slapped and then the soldier removed his bayonet and cut her blouse. Jonas shouted, “No!” and he was punched and kicked, and brutalized with a rifle butt. “Watch,” the soldier with Jonas’ arm in his hand and his foot on his head said as he twisted the arm backwards nearly out of the socket. But he did not watch, he closed his eyes shut and through his shock, such was the intensity of his feeling, he experienced a profound sense of regret. He did not blame the soldiers, at least not directly, they were part of the environment, but he blamed himself as all that he loved was being destroyed around him.
The soldier ripped Nicole’s sarong and forced himself on her. At the same time, her mother came in from the kitchen and entered the maelstrom, like a blind woman in a storm, and one of the soldiers hit her in the face knocking her into a wall. He threw her to the ground and rolled her dress up over her midsection. When he couldn’t get an erection, he beat her to death with the butt of his rifle causing the insides of her head to spill out on the floor.
Nicole flailed in panic and was struck again by the soldier. When he was done she remained sobbing on the floor and the others had their way in turn. Jonas could do nothing and lay on the floor asking his daughter for forgiveness.
“We’ve come for you Mr. Negusse, where do you keep your records?” the small dark man asked him.
Jonas, having been hit repeatedly and bleeding from his head, found some voice and sobbed for mercy. “Please take whatever you want.”
“We’ll take what we want. We like your daughter, she is very pretty. What we really want are your records, financial accounts, those things from the previous government.”
He gestured and they took him to the other room. They rifled through cabinets and desk drawers, and they came back out with several binders and loose papers.
“You’ve got what you want now please leave.”
“Sorry Negusse but you are too much trouble for us.”
Jonas felt certain that he would be killed and summoned his last bit of composure to make a bargain. “But leave the child, she doesn’t know anything, she’s not a threat to anyone. Take me and I’ll tell you everything.”
They were all together in the main room, all of them standing but Nicole. One of them was on either side of her father.
The soldier standing closest to Nicole pulled a pistol. “What of it?” he said and gestured to the leader.
“Go ahead leave her,” the man said. “She is ruined. Good for nobody- not to worry about.”
They marched Jonas holding his head out the door. Nicole heard the tin sound of the doors of the Rover Defender slam shut. The engine started and drove off, but she did not remove herself from the floor. Afraid to let go as her world spun out of control, she pressed her face into the cool tile. She could feel blood from between her legs. Her mother lay dead a short distance away, her head and face pulverized. She was lost. She had no family. She was ruined, spoiled, damaged goods. She began sobbing unable to move.
****
Omar had seen the soldiers heading out past the roundabout. A group of them armed, in a white Rover Defender passed as he worked at his aunt’s kiosk on the edge of town, on the road connecting the town of Bunia with the eastern suburb of Uhuru. The kiosk was one of three stalls in a low brick building with a sloped tin roof and front doors of iron for each of the three shops. A formica counter and metal gate to one side separated the front and rear of the store. Sandwiched between Harriet’s Hair Salon and a furniture business, the store was secure and the interior could only be accessed through the metal gate at the front. Omar passed his time at the front counter selling to the workers who commuted back and forth between their homes in the Bunia slums and Uhuru. Maids, cooks, gardeners and gate men all bought from him. Soda pop, matoki, chapattis, toothpaste and the occasional tube of skin lightener. His aunt did a brisk business catering to the daily commuters.
Omar had just begun closing up shop when he first saw the soldiers. Later, walking along the Windsor crescent, to take the cut through across the narrow stretch of vacant property separating Uhuru from the slum and other less affluent neighborhoods, he saw them again in the distance. The white truck came onto the roadway going the other direction from a drive connecting four houses to the main road, among them the Negusse’s home. Jonas Negusse was his other employer and Omar walked up the long drive to the home to begin his evening duties working on the grounds and watching the gate.
When he arrived at the home, Nicole was still on the floor. Omar came to the threshold of the house and hesitated in disbelief. “Oh God, Oh God,” he murmured. His first instinct was to flee and he went back and forth across the front porch undecided about whether to get help or assist those inside. Finally he went in and knelt down by Nicole, “I’ll be right back, I’ll get your Uncle, he’ll know what to do,” he told her. Omar had known the family for a little over a year. He liked the Negusses, Mr. Negusse treated him well and gave him books to read. Now he ran to get Mr. Negusse’s brother.
****
Jonas Negusse’s brother, Tshindundu Mukadi, or Uncle Mukadi as he was known by his extended family, had fallen out of favor in Congolese politics in 1996 when Mobutu fell from power. Accused as a loyalist, he was stripped of his government post. His position went to a minister loyal to Kinshasa, who was later killed while trying to enforce his writ. Mukadi managed to hold onto his seat in the Parliament for some time, but eventually that too was taken away.
Then in the wake of the assassination of the first president Kabila, he was rounded up with the usual suspects after security services visited his home. He spent four fitful nights in a camp outside of Bunia. Separated from the outside world by two rows of metal fencing and a wind of concertina wire, he tried to speak to his wife, Beatrice, some ten feet away in a manner not to draw attention. He spoke in proper French, hoping to elude the guards who spoke either pidgin or the local dialect. Cash is what he needed, he told her, and much of it, and give it to the commander in charge. Dutifully she had pressed the relatives and upon raising a sufficient amount, she visited the camp commander, a large dark man with a creased face that resembled a closed fist. “Please sir, here are the necessary fines for my husband,” she said. The commander accepted payment with a salutary grope of her buttocks.
It turned out that Mukadi was not the man they were looking for after all. Before his release, he had only to spend four days sleeping on the ground and defecating in a bucket. There was the obligatory interrogation, consisting of statements in the form of questions. “When did you join the opposition?” he was asked. “Who did you conspire with to oppose the new government?” If there was any conspiring to be done, it would be done by them. To make the point clear, he was spread on his stomach across a table top, and two guards took turns hitting the soles of his feet with a baton and alternately cinching the rope that held his head down to the hardwood table. This went on for an hour or so while being questioned and then taunted about his support for the previous government under Mobutu. When it was over, he could only crawl and had to be carried from the room only too grateful that his rectum had been spared. Later, when he was released, the commander sent him off with a stern warning against the danger of opposition party politics.
He had been detained another time, after Mukadi had apparently ignored the commander’s warning and taken up with another political party in Ituri. But Beatrice had had enough. Another relative would have to raise bail. She knew it was only a matter of time before they came for her, and she was raped or worse. A woman from a well to do family, she preferred France or Belgium, or some other European country of which he had lost track, to Bunia. So she left. She secured transport overland and then by river to Kinshasa and from there to France, Belgium, Europe. He didn’t blame her.
Mukadi was a Mobutuist and had come of age politically during President Mobutu’s regime, shortly after independence. He still clung to his belief that the movement under Mobutu was the right and necessary course for holding the country together. Even if his countrymen did not appreciate it now, he was convinced that his generation had assured the legacy of a free Congo. He compared that legacy with the current state of the country overrun by Ugandans and Rwandans. The Congolese had lost control of their own franchise, which had reverted to shifting acronyms of groups of Tutsis, Hutus, Hemas, and Lendus. Mukadi nurtured a particular contempt for the Rwandans, and his spite was ironic considering that he was often told, if not accused, that his features, tall, thin, and with a thin nose, resembled those of a Tutsi. Nevertheless, he considered the Rwandans rapacious in their quest for resources and resented the way they used the Congo as their personal fief for settling political scores. The Rwandans had thrown the Mobutuists out and it was the Rwandans now that raped the land. What kleptocracy? he thought. Now only Kigali and Kampala saw the profits from the Congo.
He had resolved himself to a fate of political obscurity and was making the best of his forced retirement, not ungrateful for having survived. He lived on a ridge overlooking a grove of banana trees that had been neglected and were slowly being overtaken by the bush. His house was a simple one story block house that retained its ceramic shingles. From his porch on the side of the house, he could make out the expanse of Lake Albert in the distance. The government and the political forces that controlled Ituri pretty much left him alone. He had been mostly forgotten and was no longer of other use or a threat to anyone. He sat on the porch on the side of his house sipping beer and reading a ten day old copy of the East African News.
“Wa Mukadi, Wa Mukadi” Omar was running down the unpaved track to the house, his flip flops clapping against his heels. “The soldiers came and they took Mr. Negusse.”
****
When Mukadi entered the house, Nicole had made it to the couch. She was curled up in the fetal position with her back to the room. On the floor among the broken furniture and smears of blood lay her mother, her face unrecognizable in concave having been collapsed inside of itself by a rifle butt.
“I’m so sorry darling, I’m sorry for all of this” he tried to console Nicole and she convulsed with sobs. “I’ll take care of you now, we’ll get you away from here. I promise.” He promised and not for the first time, for he had made similar promises to others before. His wife hadn’t waited for fulfillment but had taken matters into her own hands.
****
Jonathan LeClerc’s job normally shielded him from the worst banality of overseas development work. As a freight forwarder for the World Food Program, his role was straight forward, he made sure shipments of aid transited the airport in Entebbe, on their way to Goma and Eastern Congo. He hadn’t managed to exclude himself from this particular seminar, however, and he sat with other aid workers at a long conference table in the World Bank offices in Kampala, Uganda, looking at his watch under the table as a participant described a rights based approach to development that used synergies between stakeholders and local governments to promote the economic security of persons in rural communities. He didn’t wince or roll his eyes when two volunteers acted out the approach with one person petitioning his local official for funds to build a well. By outside appearances, he appeared alert and engaged despite the deep skepticism he harbored for the usual development rhetoric. Attendance was mandatory, and at such gatherings topical pieties are observed and he was unwilling to play the apostate.
By his reckoning, corruption hadn’t abated from any World Bank program. Most noticeable to him were the new Mercedes outside the government ministries when the World Bank checks came through. Corruption and poverty were healthy in east Africa and no poverty eradication white paper would change that. And yet, with his skepticism firmly in place, change was happening. Incomes were rising as was the Kampala skyline whether he wanted to acknowledge it or not.
Jonathan was glad to be outside and heading across the rutted parking lot to his used Toyota pickup. The previous owner, an officer with the Swedish Embassy, had let it go for one million Ugandan shillings or about $1,800.00 US. The car suited him, slightly worn, not remarkable but dependable. In his early thirties with average looks, Jonathan’s most notable feature was the mass of straight dark black hair affixed to his head.
“Hey Jonathan, let me guess back to Entebbe.” The voice came over his shoulder and was immediately recognizable. Kampala was a small town for expatriates and Karen worked for DANIDA, the Danish aid agency. Thin with brown hair, she smiled at him as he turned to face her.
“That’s right, back to the airport.”
“So how’s work,” she asked.
“The freight comes in and freight goes out” he said in reply. “You know how it is.”
“Right, okay, well I’ll let you get back to that.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it”
“We’ll see you this evening at Ougadougou?”
“I wouldn’t miss it” he said as she smiled and turned to go. He waived and turned and opened the door to the Toyota which creaked with rust before placing his key in the ignition and turning over the engine which whirred under the hood. In first gear, the transmission gave a short high pitched squeal, or was it the wheel joints, as the car became animate and moved off across the parking lot, through the congestion of Kampala, and finally the road out of town toward Entebbe.
When Jonathan arrived at the airport, Ronald Kasozi was standing in the shade to one side of the freight office. Chubby and expressive with a round face in constant motion, Ronald was the counterpart to his partner’s reserve. His white teeth flashed across the smooth brownness of his face when he talked, which he did often.
“I do not know why they let them fly that plane in here?” he said gesturing toward a small Antonov turboprop plane with Butemba Airline markings that taxied toward the main strip in the opposite direction.
“Maybe it’s a special flight, you know, special clearance,” Jonathan replied obliquely.
“I know it’s a special flight, they’re all special flights, that’s the problem,” Ronald protested.
Jonathan looked off over the taxiway and didn’t question the legitimacy of the Antonov 26 that labored for takeoff overloaded and bound for Goma. A Butemba airlines flight not recorded with the Civil Aviation Authority of Uganda, and registered with the aircraft registry of the Democratic Republic of the Congo with a duplicate registration number assigned to multiple aircraft. The Antonov, with a crew wet leased out of Khartoum and invalid certificate of air worthiness, gained speed and then took off into the bright blue sky. Jonathan watched and then turned and looked at Ronald with a shrug of his shoulders.
“That’s all you have to say” Ronald said in response. “Most enlightening, as always a great source of information – I can’t tell you how comforted I am.”
Jonathan grinned at Ronald’s theatrics.
It was near impossible to be involved in air transport to Eastern Congo and not be touched by smuggling and bribery in some form. Jonathan considered it part of the territory. It was a cost of doing business and he was willing to make allowances. He looked the other way when the Pakistani logistician for the UN peacekeeping mission asked to include a pallet of material for Mongbwale or Goma. They were, after all, on the same side and the food aid he was responsible for still got through. He never questioned the occasional favor or gift that found its way to him. Ronald knew that Jonathan did business under the table but tolerated his indiscretions provided they weren’t overt and he was left out of it.
Jonathan mostly traded in the currency of favors. When he needed flight or loading priority, he usually got it. Space in the customs warehouse or no problems with customs clearance, he could get that as well. This was the grease that made the operation run and he prided himself on his ability to get things done. Over time, however, he had become more enmeshed and breaking the rules had become routine. Others had become dependent on his willingness to cut corners and he had received payments in return for his flexibility. Not directly, but sometimes in the form of visas that he could sell to a Ugandan national in Kampala who ran a foreign exchange. Sometimes in the form of small stones that were presented to him like souvenirs, tokens for his consideration. He didn’t really need the money but it became a way of doing business. A way of doing business that made him increasingly uncomfortable. Now that he was in it, he didn’t know how to get out, but knew that he had to.
Jonathan walked from the office at the end of the terminal across the back of the terminal and onto the tarmac. The day was cloudless and warm and the black top was heating up in the afternoon sun. He waved at a short Pakistani man dressed in a khaki uniform.
“Mr. Singh how are you today?’
“Good Jonathan good, it is good to see you.”
“Likewise, good to see you.”
“I’m glad I ran into you. I need to talk to you.”
“What can I do for you?” He asked Gurpatwant Singh, a Major in the Pakistani Army, who could have appeared in a Rudyard Kipling novel with a moustache and red beret that he kept folded and tucked under his left epaulet.
When they first met, Major Singh had also asked Jonathan for a favor. “It is a small thing,” he’d explained originally. “You are still doing your job” and “we are on the same side.” So Jonathan acquiesced when Singh had asked to put some additional supplies on a flight to Goma because the UN peacekeeping mission needed additional foodstuffs. Over time the relationship deepened and the Major offered to pay him for the trouble. “Go ahead Jonathan, its paper money, money saved out of the budget for transport,” as if this somehow distinguished it from other money. Always a rationale, always the façade of legitimacy and Major Singh’s soothing calm, reassuring that it was proper, part of the mandate.
And what of the bullet proof vests by way of Kigali and then Arusha? The ones with the misspelled designation “Rwandan Defence Force.” They weren’t UN issue. “Not to worry we work for the UN, we take what we can get. But for your trouble, I know this is not part of your regular job.” His regular job was delivering food to the displaced people outside of Goma and in North Kivu, not delivering supplies to combatants. But not combatants, UN peacekeepers, and don’t mind the additional crates with the mishandled bills of lading and Chinese markings.
And again today, the Major asked for transport. “Jonathan, I’m wondering if you have any room on your flight this evening, the one to Mongbwalu.”
“I think we might have a bit of space, let me check my manifest and get back to you.”
“Thank you Jonathan – just a little space – just some supplies – a big help.”
“Not a problem, I’ll get back to you.”
Jonathan continued across the edge of the tarmac toward a pair of two ton trucks and the staging area at one end of the hangar. Later that same afternoon, he found some space in the Illuyshin bound for Ituri. He watched as the loadmaster loaded two crates, with bills of lading checked for various office supplies with port of origin in the United Arab Emirates but not entered through Ugandan customs, into the belly of the plane among the boxes of formula.
In the early evening, Jonathan drove alone on the road back to Kampala. He drove fast, the way everyone in Uganda did. Weaving around minivans filled with passengers as they picked up and dropped off commuters at the end of the day. The roadside contained stalls, beauty salons and small markets, many with names in broken English appropriated from western franchises. The road was mostly smooth with occasional patches of potholes filled with red clay and it was open for most of the journey. It jammed as he approached the roundabout at the southern end of Kampala. A mass of humans headed to the taxi park, private cars, white Toyotas, with mopeds for hire weaving in and out. He forced his way through, relying on his horn, to the drive bordered by the golf course that bounded downtown Kampala to the west and the suburbs on the east. He turned right and drove up Acacia drive through Kilolo, an upscale neighborhood, home to the better restaurants, diplomatic residences, and many expatriates. He drove up the hill and arrived at a strip mall in the shape of an L with a rectangular parking lot in its angle known as Kismenti.
He parked and walked across the street to a high posted wooden structure. The main entrance was only partially enclosed and provided the option of an art gallery on the first floor and stairs leading up. Jonathan took the stairs that opened up to the second floor, a large room with a sloped thatched roof that also served as a ceiling. On the opposite side from the stairway was the bar which lined one of the three walls that made Ougadougou, the fourth opened to the outside and incorporated a large deck. The bar was an expatriate hangout in Kisementi with a mixed crowd. Jonathan recognized many of the faces and he sat down at a table next to Anne, a brown young woman who greeted him with a sarcastic smile.
“Hello Mr. Jonathan”
“Ms. Anne, so nice to see you.”
“You know Jonathan…,” she started.
“No” he interrupted shaking his head, “I don’t know, I’m hoping you’re going to tell me”
“You know” she started again with a wider smile “I think you can afford to get your laundry done”
“Hmm, I get it, you’re suggesting there is something wrong with the way I’m dressed.”
“Uh well, your shirt is wrinkled, and what’s this?” she asked pointing to a black grease stain on his pants.
Gaddy an Ethiopian American, and one of the three Americans in the group the others being a Jewish American and a Wisconsin American, interrupted. “You’d think he’d have more class,” he offered to Anne. “Really man, you got a good job, you can hire someone to do your laundry.”
“Well first of all thank you for addressing me as a ‘man’ okay ‘man’” Jonathan responded affecting a superior air, clothing be damned. “And secondly, my laundry is fine.”
Chris, the Wisconsin American, bought a bottle of Waragi for the table, which he mixed in glasses with bottles of Krest ordered from the bar.
“I saw some UN guys in town yesterday,” he said, “they had some nice shirts and jackets with the UN insignia. You should get yourself some UN apparel.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s for official use only” Jonathan responded. “I love these Americans” he said to Anne “they treat everything like it’s a gift shop.”
“Speaking of Americans where’s Mike?”
“I don’t know, he almost didn’t make it home last weekend” explained Gaddy.
“We went to Kigali and he didn’t have a return visa for getting back into Uganda.”
“Well, then how did he get back in.”
“They let him back in.”
“I figured that much.”
“They made him get off the bus and the guy there at the border, the border patrol officer or whatever he was just gave him a talking to and then they let him back on the bus. But seriously man, you can’t go out to the clubs in that outfit, look at your boots, you look like you’ve been walking through a tar pit”
Jonathan looked at his boots which had suffered from recent asphalt work at the airport. “Again I want to thank you for addressing me as man” he said “and no I’m not going out to clubs tonight, I need some sleep. Hey Addie” he said wanting to change the subject and tiring of talking about his clothes, “I’ve got a question for you.”
“You’ve got a question, you always have a question, there’s a lot you don’t know.”
“No, seriously Addie, when do you think they’ll catch Osama Bin Laden.”
“You’re like a broken record with that shit”
“Gaddy, really, we’re friends, I just can’t understand why the United States hasn’t caught him yet.”
“You can’t understand is right, there’s a lot you can’t understand.”
“You know, Jonathan,” Anne restarted.
“I know? What do I know? Please tell me.”
“Okay,” she laughed.
“You know,” Chris said picking up the thread. “I think I’ll buy another bottle of Waragi,” he said and got up and went to the bar.
Lynnette a young dark skinned Ugandan with extravagant curly hair and a sing song way of talking, walked in and pulled up a chair and immediately joined in the conversation. She had a habit of asking questions in her speech just so that she could answer them. “I was late because of what?” she would ask and then immediately answer, “the traffic.” When Jonathan found himself talking with her he felt like a kid in school unable to answer her questions before she did. Andy and Robert and three English girls joined the group smoking cigarettes and talking about fags and quids and Andy’s familiarity with the prostitutes at the Rock Garden. A woman named Sarah asked Andy if he thought she was an easy shag, but Jonathan didn’t hear the response. He sat back in his chair and listened to the conversation and looked out over the treetops toward the city to the south.
****
When Tshindundu Mukadi and Omar picked up Nicole and moved her to the car, she was firmly cocooned in despair.
“We have to move you dear,” he told her.
They took her to Mukadi’s home and he laid her on the bed in the guest room where she curled up in a ball. Later when the doctor came to examine her, she did not resist allowing herself to be manipulated, reacting mechanically and impassively to instruction. Mukadi left her alone that evening and she cried herself to sleep.
The next morning when he brought her food, she was sitting up in one corner of the bed with the covers clutched to her face and her chin buried in her neck.
“Here dear having something to eat.”
“What happened to Father?”
“He is gone. They took him dear.”
“I am ruined and alone uncle.”
“You are not ruined.”
“I am spoiled and no one will have me,” she cried.
“They will be lucky to have you. Listen Nicole, you are still the same, you are still the same you.”
“Why uncle? Father is not in the government anymore.”
“The past has a way of catching up with us. Your father … made enemies, your father knew too much, what he knew was a threat to others. You’re his daughter – maybe you’re also a threat. I think they may have made a mistake. I think we need to get you out of the country.”
****
The Democratic Republic of Congo national road no. 2 was a wide dirt track that flooded with the seasons and had fallen into disrepair. Nicole’s Uncle decided that north was the only route available and the only route out. There was violence to the south and west to Kinshasa was neither practical nor safe. They started out early in the morning and drove north, the farther they got from Bunia, the greener the landscape, until they came to patches of ashen countryside denuded for charcoal and lumber. The green and brown alternated for a time until the road returned to verdant jungle. The white Toyota would just get up to speed only to be forced to slow at a series of deep ruts and potholes in the packed clay road. Mukadi maneuvered the car carefully amongst the fissures in the road. Unavoidably the car would go into a sink at slow speed and dip down as if submerging into the road just before bottoming out. The wheels would emerge from the other side with the body of the car rising and falling with the topography of the road. Nicole in the passenger seat rose and fell with the car as she looked out the window into the early morning while her Uncle navigated obstacles intent on throwing a tire, wheel or axle. At his side and beneath his seat a carton of cigarettes and some bottles of beer, a possible offering in the event of a road block. In this way, they made progress toward her Aunt Philomene’s house.
They arrived in Mongbwalu in the early afternoon. Mukadi greeted his sister and reassured Nicole that she would be fine and that Philomene would see her the rest of the way to the border. He gave her the contact information for a friend in Kampala, and Nicole assented that she wouldn’t lose faith and stick with Philomene and everything would be okay. He was anxious to get back on the road and return before dark and made his farewells before climbing back in his Toyota for the trip home. He left Nicole with her duffle bag of possessions in Philomene’s care and her Aunt busied herself with Nicole showing her where to put her bag and her bed for the night.
Philomene lived in a single story house with whitewashed walls and tiled floors north of the middle part of the town of Mongbwalu. A central common room bisected the home and was surrounded by four bedrooms. The next morning when Nicole awoke the sun was shining and there was movement outside in the street. She walked into the main room in her flip flops and night clothes. Philomene was busy wrapping food in wax paper and cloth, and packing it in a cloth bag. During the night two UN peacekeepers had gone missing from their post and now they had been found dead, one shot through the head, the other through the stomach, their bodies dumped in a small ravine and covered with brush.
Stability a precarious notion in Mongbwalu under the best circumstances had been shattered. As a result, lines were shifting and established norms of control were upended. The UN peacekeepers were repositioning and moved from their most exposed posts in town and consolidated their forces at their base to the south. They were expected to retreat further toward their strength in Bunia. The local militias were positioning themselves to take advantage of the vacuum.
“Nicole get yourself dressed and pack your clothes, we need to be ready to leave.”
Nicole, unnerved by the uncertainty, began shaking but did as she was told. She put her bag by the door and sat down folding her arms and putting her head on the table, she felt tired again. The rumors had reached her Aunt that morning that it was the Lendu militia that had killed the two peacekeepers and dumped their bodies by the side of a road. To distance themselves from the murder, they had pulled back from the eastern edge of town. Retreating west, gangs of militia had burnt the homes of suspected Hema. Other antagonists had used the opportunity to better their position and fill the space left by the retreating UN forces and the Lendu. A Hema militia lead by a Commander Jerome moved east toward town, squeezing the civilian population in the middle.
The front door swung open and Moses, Philomene’s next door neighbor, said it was time to go. They gathered their things and walked the dirt drive connecting the home to the road. As they approached the main road, they heard the sound of movement a dull rumble and saw a procession of people moving east. They joined the crowd adding their bodies and possessions to the greater mass that walked with the few things they could carry, many with only some clothes in a bag. They moved quietly slowly marching out of town. They were mostly Lendu, or so Nicole guessed, the line between Lendu and Hema was not always easily decipherable by appearance.
Nicole and Philomene had walked only a short distance, maybe half a mile from their home, when suddenly there was a surge from the rear as if those in back were out of step and needed their cadence checked. The sudden push caused those in the front to move forward and then to stop and look back. Everyone then stopped and remained standing in quiet. They watched as three young men with no belongings came into view and just as quickly sprinted past using the side of the road and the shallow ravine that bordered the road on the other side. Then in subsequent order they heard a scream, a shot, and another scream.
A brief murmur went through the crowd and it began moving with urgency. Those at the front began to run and those to weak to run far cried and called out in desperation. Many in the crowd abandoned the road altogether and sought hiding places or ran through the warren of streets that formed one end of the town bordering on slums. The road once full quickly emptied and all that remained was the litter of cast off articles as people dropped their possessions and ran.
Philomene grabbed Nicole by the top of her sleeve near the shoulder and practically dragged her through the ravine on the side of the road and up the other side through the overgrowth to a bordering field. They ran through the field to another and over a wire fence now angled almost parallel to the ground having been trampled by a group running ahead of them. At one end of the field they approached a row of mud and brick huts with metal roofing and Philomene pulled Nicole down in the grass beside her. They hid in the tall elephant grass on one side and the back of a hut and partially finished or collapsed cinder block wall on the other.
Nicole was breathing hard and she buried her head in the mud and brick in front of her and dared not look out. Philomene raised her head over one portion of the wall and viewed the central road through Mongbwalu. A rearguard of three boys still in their teens with machetes approached the center of town. Another one, older, had an elderly man by the arm and dragged him toward the middle of the street. The man twisted around the radius of his wrist as he tried to free himself. The boy hit him on the head with the flat part of his machete in response. “You are my enemy,” he shouted at the man. “We are going to exterminate you – the government can’t help you now.” He kicked the man and pushed him with the sole of his foot, knocking him face forward to the ground. He raised his arm and swung the machete into the back of the man’s neck. It briefly caught as the boy yanked and then freed itself giving way to a spray of blood. The boy swung again and Philomene could see the flash of scarlet when he raised his machete. Another joined and hacked at the now lifeless body completely separating the head from the torso.
Behind the small group of boys appeared men with guns, some in uniforms or irregular uniforms, others had spears and one had a rocket propelled grenade. They went from house to house, checking the premises and pulling out anyone remaining and questioning them. Philomene watched as they took one of her neighbors, Kasore, a Lendu man in his thirties. They took him out of his family home and he was crying and begging for his life. They led him into the street and attacked him with knives and a hammer. The son was being held by two soldiers and made to watch and his eyes were big and white like eggs. A third soldier approached and without warning cut the boy’s throat. Philomene could not see his eyes glaze over and roll into the back of his head but watched from a distance as he dropped to the ground and bled out. It wasn’t enough to simply kill their enemy but to render him in a ritualistic orgy of the grotesque. The men, like experienced butchers, cut the tendons on his heels and smashed his head, and Philomene gagged and turned away when they cut open his abdomen and removed his intestines. At the end of their vivisection, her neighbor was reduced to his parts and his guts lay strewn on the dirt roadway in a gray viscous heap.
More soldiers entered town and increased the house to house search. It was clear to Philomene that this was the Hema militia, and although Hema herself, she felt no kinship and was unwilling to risk revealing herself. She watched as those suspected of being Lendu were taken aside to be dealt with later. As the militia set themselves up in the center of town, gunshots could be heard in the distance directed at the fleeing Lendu militia. The shouts of noncombatants, as well, could be heard fleeing into the bush as soldiers pursued civilians, who sought refuge in the surrounding countryside. In one house an incendiary grenade exploded with a thump. Philomene saw the muffled flash through a window frame of shattering glass and watched as flames engulfed the house from inside out until the roof caught fire and collapsed in on itself.
She got down on all fours and began pulling at debris to surround them on the one exposed side. “We can’t leave now Nicole, we’ll stay here until night” she said to reassure her niece. What would happen at night she didn’t say or know. She gathered a piece of corrugated metal and leaned it against the fallen down wall. Over the tin she draped a sheet of once translucent plastic now stained by mud and clay. Surrounded by trash and overgrown grass, they appeared as a debris pile against the back wall of the deserted hut.
****
Father Ignatius Boniface was living in a state of in between leaving his old life and adapting permanently to a new one. Large and black with a barrel chest, broad puffy face and coke bottle glasses, he appeared as caricature, somewhere between Uncle Remus and little black Sambo. A refugee in Kampala, the Dioceses had ordered him reassigned from Bunia after repeated death threats. Now out of place, he had struggled to find a role for himself and had taken up duties at the local Church, saying Mass during the week and once on Sunday.
In addition, he had taken to ministering to the diaspora in Kampala. Initially it was a single parishioner asking for intervention with the immigration ministry, then another needed a small loan to hold him over. Now a resource for the local Congolese community, he was torn by his memories from home and the connections he was making to his new residence. He tried to take it in stride and ascribe his situation to providence, but it stuck in his craw, there was someplace else he was supposed to be and his life in Kampala felt a betrayal to his past.
He had been at home when Mukadi called and the connections from his past reached out to gather him again. When he heard Mukadi’s voice on the line, he did not immediately associate the voice with a name, but with a face and a place. He remembered his childhood friend and the time he spent in school in Bunia in the small compound run by Father Andreas. He had become friends with Tshindundu Mukadi, a child as different from himself as possible save for their shared African heritage. Tshindundu and Ignatius came from different tribes when their tribal distinctions seemed to matter less. As the children of civil servants, they were among those lucky enough to attend school. Thin and lean and athletic to Ignatius Boniface’s youthful robustness, Tshindundu excelled in school and this was their commonality.
He remembered fondly the schoolhouse with cement walls, thatched roof and open spaced windows. Father Andreas, the tall severe Franciscan, correcting his diction. “One doesn’t know it, Mr. Boniface, one knows of it.” It was Father Andreas, who had encouraged his education and Father Andreas, who had written the letter of recommendation for school in Lyon when his parents emigrated.
Having in that instant placed the name with the voice, Father Boniface responded warmly. “Hello Tshindundu, what a nice surprise. So good to hear a voice from an old friend.” The two men exchanged greetings before Tshindundu explained the purpose for his call.
“I’m sorry to hear it.” Father Boniface said on his end of the conversation.
“Yes, yes, of course I remember Nicole.”
“I see … to Kampala, right.”
“You say overland? … right of course.”
“Anything I can do Tshindundu, anything at all. I will get on it right away, We can take care of her here.”
“No, no, not to worry, I am fine.”
“It’s not necessary, your family has always been good to me, it’s the least I can do.”
“Okay, okay”
“Be safe friend”
“Okay, au revoir.”
Father Boniface hung up the phone. When Father Boniface’s parents emigrated, Tshindundu’s family had remained in the Congo. Under the Mobutu regime, Tshindundu had prospered. His father had been a minister in Kinshasa then provincial governor with authority for awarding the regional mineral concessions. This he did to a Belgian company for a kickback payable by deposit in a numbered Swiss account. The only divergence had been the Father’s marriage to a member of the Luba Kasai, which raised eyebrows in Kinshasa. Father Boniface remembered Tshindundu’s mother, an elegant woman, who disdained politics at home and remained quiet whenever Mobutu’s name entered the conversation. Tshindundu was named for her father, his maternal grandfather, which created its own problems, nominally identifying him as Luba Kasai. Tshindundu the first had died in one of the fits of ethnic cleansing under Mobutu and the Luba Kasai had fared no better under either of the Kabilas, whom resented their elitism and craved control of their land. Tshindundu bore this legacy in secondary school when the other students accused him of being “too Rwandan.” He had stood his ground then and Father Boniface had admired his toughness. They had become friends and their families and their education had shielded them from the worst of tribalism. Tshindundu’s father’s connections had allowed the son to get ahead despite his name.
Father Boniface was loyal too. He had not known Jonas, the younger brother, as well. He remembered in school Jonas enjoyed the protection of the older tougher Tshindundu. Over time the younger brother also entered the family business and was made chief of the government mineral concession in Ituri. The position had meant something when Mobutu was in power but had lost its authority after the Rwandan and Ugandan invasions. Thus the brother nominally in charge of the mineral concession became something less than a figure head. An obstacle that either had to be bought or overcome. Father Boniface had met Jonas’ daughter Nicole at Church, and remembered her as mousey and quiet, with coco skin. “She is smart,” Tshindundu had said, “she helps keep the books.”
Later that day, Father Boniface was thinking of Nicole as he left the lobby of the Kampala Marriot and stepped into the sun. As he waited for a taxi, he saw Jonathan exit a taxi that had just pulled up and was now last in line. He waved off the doorman, who was opening the side door of the next car for him.
“How are you Jonathan – haven’t seen you around lately.”
“I’m fine father, good to see you again,” Jonathan said. He was taken a bit by surprise, his thoughts had been elsewhere and he hadn’t seen Father Boniface coming. The Priest, whom he considered a friend, nevertheless put him on edge.
“We were hoping to have seen you at Church, or maybe afterwards, or really at any time. You are always welcome.”
“I know, I apologize, I haven’t been around lately.”
“It’s not just that – we would have liked to have seen you.”
“I’ll try and make a point to come around.”
“Okay, Okay, I don’t mean to put you on the spot. I just wanted to say hello, it’s good to see you. Also, I may have a favor to ask you.”
“Anything Father, name it.” Jonathan said with enthusiasm to change the subject from Church attendance.
“Well, I’m expecting someone, someone from my home district.”
“Your home in the Congo?”
“Yes, my home in the Congo. I’m not sure when she is going to arrive or even how. The thing is I promised to help. This woman is the niece of a good friend and I may need your help.”
“Okay, I’m not sure what I can do.”
“Well, I’m not sure either. I know that you know people and there is the matter of immigration. My friend has relatives in the United States and I was thinking you might know someone who can help.”
“Unh huh, I see.”
“Look, I don’t want to ask too much. She isn’t even in Kamapala yet, if you could just keep an open mind, maybe meet with her when she gets here.”
“Well sure Father, I’ll meet with her, but I can’t promise anything. I’m not sure what you’re asking, I’m not sure what I can do.” In the past, in return for cargo space, Jonathan had been able to secure preferential treatment in the UN resettlement program. He leveraged this preferential treatment to individuals allowing them to jump the line and secure resettlement in the United States. Was Father Boniface referring to this or just talking generally?
“I know, I’m sorry if I’m a bit evasive, I’m just not sure how things are going to play out.”
“Okay, well just let me know.”
“Okay and thank you Jon, I really appreciate it, I knew I could count on you.”
“Okay, not a problem.”
They shook hands. Father Boniface looked him in the face and gripped his shoulder. “God bless you.”
“Okay, see you Father.” The Priest’s forthrightness made him feel awkward. His own ambivalence felt apparent in the face of the other man’s conviction.
Jonathan watched as Father Boniface got into the white Toyota taxi. He as much put the car on as he entered it, his large frame almost overwhelming the vehicle before it drove off. Jonathan went inside through the lobby to the pub, he looked around and then took a seat at the bar. The day had been eventful. A shipment of crates manifested as medical supplies from Boston destined for Bunia had arrived at the airport the evening before. That morning, a forklift operator was moving the crates to the staging area to be loaded on a plane when they fell off the palate and broke open revealing their contents of military uniforms from the Rwandan army. Ugandan security services seized the shipment and proceeded to arrest the importer, Peter Nsegiyuma, in connection with the shipment. Ronald had thrown a fit and made not too subtle hints, that if he wasn’t careful, Jonathan would end up the same way. Jonathan sipped his beer and waited for a friend.
Chapter 2
By appearance, Jean Pierre Bembe was a large expansive man. His globe like head sat on his shoulders like a pumpkin. A small brown pumpkin with full cheeks. When he smiled, he showed a full set of white teeth, and when he laughed, really laughed, you could see a pink flash of tongue. A natural politician, one might mistake him for jolly, but his eyes were keen and behind them was a kind of craftiness. More recently, however, he was given to fits of self pity as he had yet to resolve himself fully to his situation, which was detention at the International Criminal Court in the Hague.
“The only difference between me and Kabila is that he won and I lost,” he complained to the lawyer in the room. “They say my men killed in Ituri, Kabila’s men killed everywhere,” he continued. “Yes civilians died, but this was a political struggle,” he argued to nobody but the young lawyer, who sat at one end of the table. The lawyer did not take notes. He waited and he nodded in ascent at his client’s ruminations.
Bembe sat with his face in his hands fingering the scar that creased one side of his face. The detention center’s visiting room was clean and large enough, and had a narrow window that let in outside light.
“War crimes, no not war crimes,” he went on. “My crime was to challenge Kabila, my crime was to challenge Kabila and lose. That was my crime,” he concluded.
The young lawyer nodded his agreement and looked at his watch under the table, while Bembe massaged his head. One of a team of lawyers arranged and paid for by parties unknown for which in return Bembe maintained omissions in his testimony. He acknowledged his relationship with the mining companies, he had had to. But only insofar as it was a legitimate commercial transaction between the government and an outside contractor. Commissions, protections fees, militia taxes, and bribes were not acknowledged. These could create problems as foreign corrupt practices and Bembe was insistent that the business had been legitimate and for the benefit of the people.
The two men waited sitting for a time without talking.
“Please excuse us Paul,” said a tall well dressed man as he held the door open for the young lawyer. “I’ll talk to you later when I get back to the office and thanks for everything.”
“Sure, not a problem, we’ll talk later,” responded the younger man as he gathered his case file and walked through the open door.
Simone Matanda sat down at the table opposite his long time business partner. “Listen Jean Pierre, I’m afraid I have bad news, they are not going to let you go on parole. The prosecutor’s office has appealed the decision of the judge and they’re going to detain you during the appeal. You’re considered a flight risk and no country is willing to take responsibility.”
“Of course, of course, I am the great danger,” he grumbled. “I am the war criminal. I never raped anyone, I never killed anyone. Kabila, he rapes, he and the Zimbabweans, they rape the whole country.”
“Okay, well let’s not go back over that again.”
“Let’s. Why not? I have time.”
“We’re moving backwards. It’s called command control, your troops raped and killed and the prosecution is alleging that you’re responsible, but you already knew that.”
“I should have never left Kinshasa.”
“You’d be dead,” said Matanda, relieving him of any illusion. He knew the man too long and too well to indulge him.
Matanda and Bembe had known each other from childhood in Ituri. Bembe’s father had been a successful businessman and Mobutu supporter, from whom Bembe inherited his considerable wealth. Bembe followed his father’s legacy as a supporter of Mobutu. When Mobutu was forced out, Bembe took his support into the bush leading a militia against the government in Kinshasa. An eventual peace agreement allowed him to leverage his political opposition into becoming vice president in the transitional government under a power sharing arrangement. While Bembe was in the bush it had fallen to Matanda to manage what remained of his commercial affairs. This he did while keeping his hands clean and maintaining his distance from Bembe’s adventures as a warlord. Tall lean and dignified, he was the self contained erudite compliment to Bembe’s effusive and capacious brashness,
“They still have to make their case,” Matanda said. “The torture charge has been dropped and there has been a new development one of their witnesses has gone missing. The rumor is that Negusse can’t be found.”
Bembe picked up his head at the mention of the name of the former mining official, an individual he knew well from Ituri. He looked across the table at Matanda with squinting eyes.
“He was going to testify, and no I had nothing to do with it, but others did,” responded Matanda cryptically. “However it happened, it’s good for us. They’re having trouble putting together their case. This helps our defense. The attack on Bogoro was a legitimate military engagement. Civilian deaths were an unintended consequence and so on,” he said with manufactured enthusiasm.
“It’s all Kabila’s doing,” said Bembe having lost interest in the details of his case and lapsed into a familiar refrain. “Do they know Kabila was behind this?’
“Yes, we’ll tell the press.”
“It’s all political.”
“I know.”
“I’m isolated here. Sometimes, I think I’d rather be in jail in Kinshasa,” he paused and rubbed his eyes. “At least there I’d have someone to talk to. There is another fellow on my wing and he doesn’t speak French. We have to speak in mime, it’s pathetic. And the food is terrible. I can’t eat it, no African food.”
“I’ll bring food next time I come. They might let you cook for yourself.”
“I should have gone to London and applied to be a refugee like you.”
“The UK is a member of the Court.”
“The United States then.”
“The US has its own laws, besides they wouldn’t give you a visa.”
Matanda leaned forward, shifting his weight so that his legs folded under and around the base of his chair and his long arms extended on the table in front of him.
“Look,” he said again. It seemed he was always telling Bembe to “look” or “listen.” Speaking in the voice of an old friend, he continued, “let’s focus on the good okay? They dropped one of the charges, the legal bills are being paid, Negusse is out and the gold mines are not an issue, okay?”
“Okay, and you’ll bring food the next time you come, right?”
“Yes, yes of course, the food. Do you want a lawyer or a caterer?”
“Ho, ho – that’s one of the funniest things you’ve said,” responded Bembe taking delight in goading a friend.
“I’m glad there’s something I could do to make you happy,” he responded.
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