Leopold’s ghost looms large as Belgian EU Commissioner Louis Michel is mobbed by Congolese protestors at the LSE

The history of Belgian involvement in the Congo - as documented in Adam Hochschild’s excellent book “King Leopold’s Ghost”, is not a happy one. Of the three colonies run by Belgium until the mid part of the 20th Century - Congo, Rwanda and Burundi - it is perhaps the Congo that came off worst of all. Hochschild and others have estimated that upwards of 10 million people died as a result of the Belgian occupation. Millions more were enslaved, and tasked with delivering their country’s fabulous mineral wealth into the hands of their colonial overlords.

The Congolese finally gained independence in 1960, and elected the charismatic anti-colonial leader Patrice Lumumba as their country’s first President, with a mandate to nationalise Congo’s mining companies and ensure that the wealth was used to develop the nation. But within months Lumumba had been assassinated - 40 years later Belgium admitted involvement.

From the 1960s to the early 1990s, successive Belgian governments helped prop up Lumumba’s famously kleptocratic successor, Mobuto Sese Seko. Mobutu curried favour with western countries by allowing them to maintain lucrative mineral concessions - while his country sank progressively deeper into poverty. After independence, as before, much of Congo’s wealth continued to be syphoned off to Belgium.

When, in the late 1990s, a brutal conflict began in the mineral-rich East of the country, drawing in armies from as far afield as Zimbabwe and Namibia - and fuelled, as ever, by competition over access to the country’s mineral wealth (gold, diamonds and particularly “coltan”) - a UN report found that many of the international companies engaged in illegal racketeering - largely with impunity - were Belgian.

Given this history, it might seem surprising that the UN should see fit to award the job of overseeing the 2006 Congolese elections - the country’s first democratic contest since Lumumba’s victory in the early 1960s - to a man who was, until recently, Belgium’s foreign minister. Among the Congolese, Louis Michel certainly seems to have been a controversial choice, amid accusations of apparent favouritism towards the encumbent candidate, the western-leaning Joseph Kabila, who went on to take the Presidency.  

An intriguing rumour circulating among Congolese critics of the former Belgian foreign minister is that he is the great-grandson of the original Congo kleptocrat, the infamous King Leopold II  himself. While wholly untrue, it surely says something about the way that many Congolese perceive the nature of international involvement in their country, and goes some way to explaining the shouts of “Louis Michel, voleur!” at the LSE a few months ago.

Two things seem particularly striking in the video above - the first is that those overseeing the meeting appear to make no attempt to engage with the protestors. The second is the somewhat surreal juxtaposition between the chaotic scenes in the auditorium, and the grandiose message being projected onto the wall - “Europe-Africa: the indispensible partnership”.

Obscure placenames part I: Diss, Norfolk

“There are over 1000 car parking spaces in Diss”, according to Diss Online, all of which “are free on Sundays and Bank Holidays, except the Railway Station”.

State-sponsored conspiracy theories - from China to Zimbabwe

 

Until I started researching “Don’t Get Fooled Again”, the typical image that sprang to mind when I thought about conspiracy theorists was that of the tin-hat wearing eccentric pictured here.

But one of the most striking things I found while writing the book was the extent to which conspiracy theories are often being disseminated not by lone “nuts” but by established governments.

The Chinese authorities have been at it recently, with a series of increasingly colourful claims about the nefarious global activities of the “Dalai clique” - but the prize of the month has to go to the ruling party in Zimbabwe, who have published several documents, including a letter ostensibly signed by Gordon Brown, detailing a conspiracy involving the British government, the German Central Bank and the Zimbabwean political opposition to invade the country, oust Robert Mugabe, and restore the old white-supremacist state of Rhodesia. Justice minister Patrick Chinamasa reportedly insisted he would stand by the allegations even if the documents were shown to be fake, because “even if Brown hadn’t put it in writing, everyone knows that is what the British are plotting”.

Time Magazine names Alexis Sinduhije as one among the top 100 most influential people in the world

I’ve just had a text message from a Burundian friend, telling me that Alexis Sinduhije has been named by Time Magazine as one of the top 100 most influential people in the world. Alexis is nominated among the list’s “Heroes and Pioneers” by Christiane Amanpower, CNN’s chief international correspondent, and is placed at number 36, just ahead of Aung San Suu Kyi.

It’s great that such a major news outlet is giving this recognition. I know of no other journalist in the world with such a track record of fearlessness in the face of brutality. Whether by speaking out against the abuses of Palipehutu-FNL, highlighting the involvement of the elitist Tutsi government of Pierre Buyoya in the murder of the WHO official Kassi Manlan, or blowing the lid on CNDD-FDD’s attempt in 2006 to jail the entire political opposition on the basis of a bogus conspiracy theory, Alexis has been tireless in speaking up for the truth, and opposing injustice.

Equally, outside of the African media, and the reports produced by Amnesty, Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Sans Frontieres, his work - and the life-and-death issues involved, have been a fairly well kept secret.

Alexis Sinduhije’s account of the aftermath of the 1993 assassination of President Ndadaye is still one of the most moving that I’ve ever read. I quoted from it in the final chapter of Titanic Express, and I thought I might include an extract from it here. The full version can be read by following this link.

For me as a journalist, the cycle began all in one moment on the night of October 21, 1993 at two o’clock in the morning. The army, dominated by a Tutsi majority, attacked the palace of President Melchior Ndadaye. Ndadaye was Burundi’s first Hutu president and had been democratically elected, in sharp contrast with his Tutsi predecessors, who had seized power through military coups. At around two o’clock that morning, mortar shelling and automatic weapons fire woke the entire city of Bujumbura. I got out of bed and began making phone calls.

Nobody knew what was happening. I was working as a reporter for the state radio station, Radio Burundi, and had just begun to work as well as news editor for an independent weekly called La Semaine. I made a few more calls, but still got no reply.

I said to my wife, Diana, that I thought it was either a military coup or an attack by members of Palipehutu, the radical Hutu party that had been banned from the recent elections. When I turned on the radio, there was no sound. I knew then that it was a military coup. With great difficulty, I convinced my wife that I had to go cover the story… As I left my house, I saw that our Hutu neighbors were also awake, and tense with anger. Many looked at me full of hate. I understood that the situation was going to degenerate into violence, but I didn’t know how bad it was going to be…

One of my childhood friends, a Hutu named Gashira, saw me and asked, “You Tutsis, why are you so arrogant? We elected our president and your soldiers killed him.” The question troubled me. It is true that I had brothers in the army, but I wasn’t responsible for their actions. I was surprised and afraid at how ready he was to include me among those who were responsible.

Over the next few days, everywhere emotion took hold of reason. In the eyes of the Hutus, the Tutsis were guilty. I hadn’t really answered Gashira’s question. Although we were of different ethnicity, we both lived in the same neighborhood, one of the poorest in the capital, so I couldn’t see why he spoke of arrogance… I headed toward the palace. It wasn’t easy because the army had blocked all traffic and the Presidential Palace was more than 6 kilometers from Kamenge. I decided to walk.

After more than an hour, I reached a hotel called the Source of the Nile where foreigners stayed and which was adjacent to the Presidential Palace. Troops were everywhere. Thanks to a soldier I knew, I got access into the palace courtyard, where I found a group of soldiers pillaging the house. They had already emptied the presidential refrigerator, and were drinking and celebrating. They asked me if I wanted some champagne. I replied that I never drank before sundown and it wasn’t yet midday. One of them told me that I was missing a unique opportunity to taste champagne. We all burst into laughter. Champagne is the drink of the rich in Burundi, and then only the extremely rich… They had raided the president’s residence to drink it.

The palace roof was riddled with holes, windows were shattered, and the southern walls surrounding the palace were destroyed. “That was from a shell fired from a tank,” the soldiers explained to me, laughing. I asked if there were any dead among the president’s bodyguards, and they burst out laughing again. They replied that the bodyguard was comprised of soldiers, and that they wouldn’t fire upon their colleagues… They confirmed that… the president had died at 10 A.M. in a military camp in Musaga, 6 kilometers south of Bujumbura.

I knew that the president’s death would have grave consequences. I remembered what Gashira had said to me, but now I pretended to support the soldiers’ act. In reality, deep down inside, I hated them because I thought of the thousands of Tutsis who would end up paying for it. I was convinced that the Hutu officials in the countryside would pit the Hutu peasants against the Tutsis. Then soon after, I learned from military sources that the situation was, in fact, turning catastrophic.

Alexis went on to found Studio Ijambo, before moving onto the project for which he is most famous, Radio Publique Africaine.

Alexis Sinduhije enters politics in Burundi

I first met Alexis Sinduhije in Oxford in the summer of 2002. He was visiting the UK to meet with international donors who’d been supporting his groundbreaking radio project in Burundi, Radio Publique Africaine. RPA distinguished itself by taking on ex-combatants both from the Tutsi-dominated national army and from the Hutu-led rebel militias, and training them to work together as journalists. Not only was this useful as an exercise in “peacebuilding”, it had also given the radio station excellent contacts with all the major parties to the conflict. With a growing reputation for exposing abuses and corruption on both sides of the conflict, RPA quickly became one of the most listened to radio stations in the country.

Over the years, RPA has repeatedly covered the “Titanic Express” case, but the most memorable occasion in my mind was the live interview that Alexis did with my mother towards the end of 2002, where she called for justice over the massacre in which Charlotte died. It was after this broadcast that we first heard about the leak of the FNL’s detailed report of the Titanic Express attack, signed by the commander of the battalion responsible, which is still one of the most important pieces of evidence we have of the group’s involvement.

During his career as a journalist, Alexis has been arrested and beaten up, had shots fired at his house, and been threatened on numerous occasions. Things became particularly heated in August 2006, when the ruling CNDD-FDD government falsely claimed to have uncovered a coup plot, and arrested senior politicians from every major opposition party. Alexis was openly incredulous, challenging the government to produce the evidence. In response, the authorities stepped up their harrassment of RPA and other independent media who echoed Alexis’s comments. But Burundi’s journalists had done enough to focus the international spotlight on what was going on, and within months the government had been forced to back down.

Alexis announced his candidature in December last year, but this is the first in-depth interview I’ve seen where he talks in English about what he’s trying to achieve. He has always taken a very strong line on the need end the culture of impunity in Burundi, by bringing to justice those on all sides who have committed abuses. In the interview above, he talks candidly about the need to bring to account the hitherto “untouchable” Tutsi politicians and army officers who orchestrated the 1972 genocide of educated Hutu, alongside those implicated in more recent crimes - and the dangers inherent in taking such a position. Alexis Sinduhije’s work has been admired by many people around the world and while it seems impossible to know what the outcome will be, I know that he will have plenty of well-wishers, both internationally and in Burundi.

Blogging for Amnesty

(Image via Rachel North’s excellent blog).

Today I finally succumbed to the impulse to start blogging about Serious Things at the new Amnesty UK discussion website.

The house where I grew up

(note the proximity to the “sludge lagoons”…)

Burundi politican jailed for calling the President an “empty bottle” (and inciting armed rebellion)

Here is an odd story. Back in 2006, when I wrote this article for Comment is Free, Burundi seemed to be sliding towards dictatorship, and the prevailing view was that Hussein Radjabu, then Secretary General of Burundi's ruling party CNDD-FDD, was at least partly to blame. 

Radjabu had made a number of open threats against the independent media - describing journalists who criticised the government as “talking skulls” on one occasion - and was widely believed to have been behind the arrest and torture of several prominent opposition leaders on the bogus pretext (no evidence was ever produced - the giveaway sign of a conspiracy theory) that they were jointly plotting a coup. He was also suspected of orchestrating a number of unexplained killings, together with a botched attempt on the life of the award-winning journalist Alexis Sinduhije, and of using kickbacks from a number of corrupt business deals to fund his own private militia.

But in early 2007, ruling party members voted to oust Radjabu from his position, and he was then arrested. The instability continued, however, and when I met some CNDD-FDD members who visited London last summer, it was clear that Radjabu's influence was still casting a long shadow. One of those I spoke to, Senator Mohammed Rukara, told me that unknown assailants had fired shots at him earlier in the year, and many believed that Radjabu's associates were behind the attack.

The BBC's latest report suggests that Radjabu's fall may alienate Burundi's Muslims. As ever, it's very hard to know how you could evaluate such a claim or find evidence for it. I'm generally sceptical of the presumption that a community as a whole will inevitably feel victimised simply because someone who happens to belong to that community has been found guilty of a crime and prosecuted. While Radjabu and his allies may try to paint this case as an attack on the entire Muslim community, this doesn’t automatically mean that every Burundian Muslim will share this view.

What the reports on this case don’t seem to mention, regrettably, is that some of the fiercest and most high-profile opponents of Radjabu have also been Muslim - not least Senator Rukara, who is a leading member of Burundi's Islamic community. 

But the story does seem to highlight the irony of Burundi's topsy-turvy judicial system. The charge for which Radjabu was jailed was "plotting an armed rebellion", and - most heinously of all - calling the President an "empty bottle". The fact that he is also suspected of orchestrating torture, assassination, and mass-killings seems to have played no part in his prosecution and conviction. And there is no sign yet of any justice for the victims of Buta, Teza, Muyinga, Gatumba, Itaba or the Titanic Express.

Burundi, Current Affairs, Politics, Africa, Titanic Express

Tags: Burundi, Current+Affairs, Politics, Africa, Titanic+Express

From “Titanic Express” to “Don’t Get Fooled Again”

“Don’t Get Fooled Again” is a very different kind of book from “Titanic Express”, but there are some common elements. Both, in their own ways, centre around a search for the truth, personally and politically. Both also look at how we can distinguish what’s true from what isn’t - or at least how we can tell a reasonable assumption from a completely nonsensical one - and why it is that these things matter. And both look in some detail at the issue of conspiracy theories, and the damage they can do.

In “Titanic Express”, the conspiracy theories I came across were often all-encompassing - so much so that at one point I was told that my sisters’ killers suspected me of being part of some devilish global plot to discredit them. And in “Don’t Get Fooled Again”, many of the most disturbing delusions I looked at - such as the belief that HIV doesn’t exist or is harmless, seemed ultimately, again, to rest on the belief in some conspiracy or another. What I wasn’t able to do in “Titanic Express” was to look in detail at the features that define a conspiracy theory, what it is, psychologically, that attracts us to such ideas, and the tools that we can use to unravel them - so it was great to have a chance to go into these questions a bit more in DGFA.

Titanic Express

My first book, Titanic Express, was published by Continuum in 2006. It takes its title from the bizarre name of the bus that was ambushed by Burundian rebels in December 2000, close to the capital Bujumbura. One of the 21 victims of the attack was my elder sister Charlotte, who had been working as a teacher in neighbouring Rwanda. Her Burundian fiancé - another Richard - who was travelling with her, was also killed.

It took over a day for the news of Charlotte’s death to reach us. More or less from the moment I heard it, I was consumed by an overwhelming desire to know what had happened to my sister in the last moments of her life. But as time went on, this developed into a much wider interest in the chaotic chain of political events that had led to her death. The Titanic Express massacre was just one among hundreds - if not thousands - carried out by ethnic extremists, both Hutu and Tutsi, in Burundi since the current conflict began in 1993. Yet I’d known almost nothing about it until it had a personal effect on me. One of my reasons for writing the book was to try to make some record of the lives that had been lived - and lost - in a largely forgotten part of Africa.

Although this was always going to be a niche book, the response was immensely heartening. Titanic Express was covered sympathetically in several mainstream newspapers, including the Times, Sunday Times, and Independent, among others. Equally gratifying was the reception it got from many of my Burundian contacts. While not everyone agreed with my recounting of Burundian history - some deny, for example, that a genocide was committed against the Hutu population in 1972, and there was some disquiet over my criticism of the involvement of the current Rwandan government in the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the disagreements were much milder than I had expected!

Since Titanic Express was published, I’ve continued to campaign on the issues raised in it, and later this year I hope to be involved in an event in London marking the fourth anniversary of the August 2004 Gatumba refugee camp massacre, which was another of the cases I highlighted in the book.

One of the most moving independent reports about the Titanic Express case was written in French by a Burundian journalist, writing under a pseudonym for fear of reprisals against his family, who interviewed the mother of Charlotte’s fiancé back in 2005. I made a rough translation into English and, not knowing what else to do with it at the time, published it on Indymedia here.