“Maybe I have at that,” I conceded, careful to inject just the right amount of disinterest into my voice. “Isn't he some kind of recycled prophet of consensus?”
“Met him, have you then?”
“My goodness no!” — how could I have given him such an absurd impression? — “I make rather a point of steering clear of Congolese politics, to be frank, Skipper. I take the view I'm better off without.”
Which, pre-Hannah, was pretty much the truth. When you assimilate, you choose.
“Well, steel yourself, because you're about to meet him,” Maxie informed me, again glancing at his watch. “The great man will be accompanied by a retinue of two: one faithful acolyte alias political advisor, and one semi-faithful Lebanese middleman named Felix Tabizi, Tabby for short. The Prof's a Shi, so's his acolyte.”
Tabby, I repeated to myself, as I was wafted back to the glittery house in Berkeley Square. Tabby the bastard, Tabby the eleventh-hour cliff-hanger. I was about to ask what a semi-faithful Lebanese middleman thought he was doing in the Mwangaza's entourage, only to discover that Maxie was already telling me.
“Tabby's the Prof's necessary evil. No African leader is complete without one. Ex far-out Muslim, used to run with Hamas, but recently converted to Christianity for his health. Helps manage the old boy's campaign, smoothes his passage, handles his finances, washes his socks.”
“And his languages, Skipper? Mr Tabizi's?”
“French, English, Arabic, and whatever he picked up free on his travels.”
“And Philip. What languages would he be speaking?”
“French, Lingala, bit of Swahili, not a lot.”
“English?”
“Of course he bloody does. He's an Englishman.”
“And the Professor speaks everything in the book, I take it. He's an educated man.” I didn't intend this as a dig at Maxie's lack of linguistic expertise, but from his frown of displeasure I feared he had taken it as such.
“So what's your point?” he demanded irritably.
“Well, you don't really need me, do you, Skipper? Not upstairs. Not as such. Not if the Mwangaza speaks French and Swahili. I'll just stay down in the boiler room with Spider and listen in.”
“Total and utter bullshit. You're star of the show, remember? Chaps who are in the business of changing the world don't expect to do their own interpreting. And I wouldn't trust Tabizi to tell me the time of day in any fucking language.” A moment of reflection. “Apart from which, you're essential equipment. The Mwangaza insists on speaking Swahili because French is too colonial for him. We've got one chap who speaks perfect French and minimal Swahili, and another who speaks a bit of Swahili and minimal French.”
Flattered as I was by star of the show, I had one more question. More accurately, Hannah had.
“And the desired end-effect of the conference, Skipper? Our dream outcome? How would we define that? — which is a thing I always ask my clients.”
It wasn't, but my recalcitrance touched a nerve in him. “We're sorting the place, Sinclair, for Christ's sake!” he expostulated in a pent-up voice. “We're bringing sanity back to a fucking madhouse. We're giving piss-poor, downtrodden people their country back and forcing 'em to tolerate each other, make money, get a fucking life. Have you got a problem with that?”
The patent sincerity of his intentions, which to this day I have no cause to question, made me pause but not relent.
“No problems at all, Skipper. Only you did mention democracy at the end of a gun barrel, you see. And I was naturally wondering who exactly was in your sights when you said that. I mean, at the end of the gun barrel. Given there's an election coming up. Why get in ahead of it, if you follow me?”
Have I mentioned that Hannah had pacifistic tendencies, as Mr Anderson would have called them? That a breakaway group of nuns at her American-financed Pentecostal Mission school had preached Quakerish non-violence at her with heavy emphasis on turning the other cheek?
“We're talking Congo, right?”
Right, Skipper.
“One of the world's worst graveyards. Right?”
Right. No question. Maybe the worst.
“Chaps dying like flies while we speak. Knee-jerk tribal killings, disease, starvation, ten-year-old soldiers and sheer fucking incompetence from the top down, rape and mayhem galore. Right?”
Right, Skipper.
“Elections won't bring democracy, they'll bring chaos. The winners will scoop the pool and tell the losers to go fuck themselves. The losers will say the game was fixed and take to the bush. And since everyone's voted on ethnic lines anyway, they'll be back where they started and worse. Unless.”
I waited.
“Unless you can put in your own moderate leader ahead of time, educate the electorate to his message, prove to 'em it works, and stop the vicious circle. With me?”
With you, Skipper.
“So that's the Syndicate's game plan, and it's the plan we're peddling today. Elections are a Western jerk-off. Preempt them, get your man in place, give the People a fair slice of the cake for once, and let peace break out. Your average multinational hates poor. Feeding starving millions isn't cost-effective. Privatising the buggers and letting them die is. Well, our little Syndicate doesn't think that way. Neither does the Mwangaza. They're thinking infrastructure, sharing, and long term.”
My thoughts sped back in pride to Lord Brinkley and his multinational group of fellow backers. Little Syndicate? Never before had I seen so many big people assembled in one room!
“Pot o' cash for the investors, that's a given, and why not?” Maxie was saying. “Never grudge a chap his pound of flesh for taking a fair risk. But plenty left in the kitty for the home side when the shouting and shooting are over: schools, hospitals, roads, clean water. And light at the end of the tunnel for the next lot of kids coming up. Got a quarrel with that?”
How could I have? How could Hannah? How could Noah and his millions of fellows?
“So if a couple of hundred have to go down in the first couple of days — which they will — are we the good guys or the bad guys?”
He was standing up, energetically rubbing his cyclist's hip. “One more thing while we're on the subject.” He gave it another rub. “No fraternising with the natives. You're not here to make enduring relationships, you're here to do a job. When lunch comes, it's down to the boiler room and a ship's biscuit with Spider. Any more questions?”
Apart from Am I a native? — none.
• • •
With Philip's folder clutched in my hand, I sit first on the edge of my bed, then on the Shaker rocking chair which rocks forward but not back. One second I am star of the show, the next I am scared witless, a one-man Great Lake with all the rivers of the world pouring into me and my banks overflowing. From my window everything remains deceptively serene. The gardens are awash with the sloping sunlight of Europe's African summer. Who would not wish to take a leisurely stroll in them, away from prying eyes and ears on such a day? Who could resist the tempting cluster of reclining sun-chairs in the gazebo?
I open the folder. White paper, no hallmarks. No security classification top or bottom. No addressee, no author. Arm's length. My first page begins halfway down and is numbered seventeen. My first paragraph is number twelve, leading me to conclude that paras one to eleven are unsuitable for the tender gaze of a mere interpreter slogging his heart out for his country above and below the waterline. The heading of para twelve is WARLORDS.
Warlord the First is named Dieudonne, the Given One of God. Dieudonne is a Munyamulenge, and therefore racially indistinguishable from the Rwandans. I am instantly attracted to him. The Banyamulenge, as they are called in the plural version, were my dear late father's favourites among all the tribes. Ever the romantic, he dubbed them the Jews of Kivu in deference to their reclusion, their battle skills, and their direct communion with God on a day-to-day basis. Despised by their “pure” Congolese brethren as Tutsi interlopers and therefore fair game at all times, t
he Banyamulenge have for the last hundred years and more installed themselves on the inaccessible Mulenge plateau in Kivu's Southern Highlands, where despite perpetual harassment they contrive to lead the pluralist life, tending their sheep and cattle and ignoring the precious minerals within their boundaries. Of this embattled people Dieudonne appears a prime example:
At thirty-two years of age a proven warrior. Part-educated in the bush by Scandinavian Pentecostal missionaries, until old enough to fight. No known interest in self-enrichment. Has brought with him the full empowerment of his elders to pursue the following aims:
a) inclusion of Banyamulenge in new provisional government of South Kivu ahead of the elections
b) resolution of land disputes on the High Plateau
c) right of return for the thousands of Banyamulenge driven out of the Congo, in particular those forced to flee after the 2004 troubles in Bukavu
d) integration of Banyamulenge in Congolese civil society and a formal negotiated end to the persecution of the last fifty years
Languages: Kinyamulenge and Kinyarwanda, Shi, Swahili, basic French (very).
I turn to Warlord the Second. He is Franco, named after the great African singer whose work is well known to me from Pere Andre's cracked gramophone record in the Mission house. Franco is an old-style Bembe warrior from the Uvira region, aged around sixty-five. He has zero education but considerable cunning and is an impassioned Congolese patriot. But Philip should have put up a health warning before he went on:
Under Mobutu, served as an unofficial police thug in the Walungu hills. Imprisoned when war broke out in '96, escaped and fled to the bush and joined the Mai Mai as a means of escaping persecution for his former allegiance. Currently believed to hold the rank of colonel or above. Partially disabled by wound in left leg. One of his wives is daughter of Mai Mai General so-and-so. Has substantial landholdings and six wealthy brothers. Part literate. Speaks his native Bembe, Swahili, poor French, and somewhat surprisingly Kinyarwanda which he acquired in prison, as well as its close cousin Kinyamulenge.
It is hard to describe at this distance what grotesque images these few words conjured up in my secret child's mind. If the Mai Mai were not the dread Simba of my father's day, they ran a close second to them in the barbarity stakes. And nobody should be fooled by “colonel”. We're not talking cleaned-and-pressed uniforms, salute-your-officers, red flashes, medal ribbons and the like. We're talking feathered head-dresses, baseball caps, monkey-skin waistcoats, football shorts, tracksuits and eye make-up. Preferred footwear, sawn-off Wellington boots. For magical powers, an ability to change bullets into water, which the Mai Mai, like the Simba before them, can do any time they feel like it provided they've observed the necessary rituals. These variously include not allowing rain to enter your mouth, not eating from a plate with colour on it, and not touching any object that hasn't been sprinkled with magic potions, such powers being derived directly from the pure soil of the Congo which the Mai Mai are sworn to defend with their blood, et cetera. We are also talking random, feckless murder, rape galore, and a full range of atrocities under the influence of everything from leading-edge witchcraft to a gallon or two of Primus beer laced with palm wine.
How on earth these two groups — the Mai Mai and the Banyamulenge — are ever to become reconciled partners in a sovereign and inclusive Kivu under one enlightened leadership is therefore in my opinion somewhat of a major mystery. True, from time to time the Mai Mai have formed tactical alliances with the Banyamulenge, but this has not prevented them from sacking their villages, burning their crops, and stealing their cattle and women.
What does Franco hope to get out of today's conference?
a) regards Middle Path as potential fast route to money, power and guns for his militias
b) anticipates substantial Mai Mai representation in any new Kivu government: i.e. control of frontier crossings (revenue from bribes and customs) and mining concessions (Mai Mai sell mineral ore to Rwandans irrespective of their anti-Rwandan sentiments)
c) counts on Mai Mai influence in Kivu to raise its stock with federal government in Kinshasa
d) remains determined to cleanse all Congo of Rwandan influence provided Mai Mai can sell their mineral ore to other buyers
e) regards upcoming elections as threat to Mai Mai's existence and aims to preempt them
Warlord the Third is not a warlord at all, but the wealthy, French-educated heir to an East Congolese trading fortune. His full name is Honore Amour-Joyeuse and he is known universally by its acronym of Haj. Ethnically he is a Shi like the Mwangaza, and therefore “pure” Congolese. He recently returned to Congo from Paris, having attended business school at the Sorbonne where he passed with flying colours. The source of his power, according to Philip, lies neither in the Banyamulenge's Southern Highlands nor in the Mai Mai's redoubts to north and south, but among the rising young entrepreneurs of Bukavu. I gaze out of the window. If my childhood has a paradise, it is the former colonial town of Bukavu, set at the southern tip of Lake Kivu amid rolling valleys and misted mountains.
Family interests include coffee and vegetable plantations, hotels, a brewery complete with fleet of trucks, a minerals comptoir trading in diamonds, gold, cassiterite and coltan and two newly-acquired discotheques which are Haj's pride. Most of these enterprises are dependent on trade with Rwandans from across the border.
So a warlord who is not a warlord, then, and is dependent on his enemies for his livelihood.
Haj is a skilled organiser who commands the respect of his workforce. Given the right motivation, he could instantly raise a militia of five hundred strong through his links with local headmen in the Kaziba and Burhinyi districts around Bukavu. Haj's father Luc, founder of the family empire, runs an equally impressive operation in the northern port of Goma.
I allow myself a quick smile. If Bukavu is my childhood paradise, Goma is Hannah's.
Luc is a veteran of the Great Revolution and long-standing comrade of the Mwangaza. He has the ear of other influential Goma traders who, like himself, are incensed by Rwanda's stranglehold on Kivu's commerce. It was Luc's intention to attend today's conference in person, but he is currently receiving specialised care at a heart hospital in Cape Town. Haj is therefore standing in for him.
So what precisely do they offer, this father-and-son duo of urban barons?
Given the moment and the man, Luc and his circle in North Kivu are ready to spark a popular uprising in Goma's streets and provide underhand military and political support to the Mwangaza. In return, they will demand power and influence in the new provincial government.
And Haj?
In Bukavu, Haj is in a position to persuade fellow intellectuals and traders to embrace the Middle Path as a means of venting their anger against Rwanda.
But perhaps there is a more prosaic reason for Haj's presence among us here today:
As a token of his willingness to commit to the Middle Path, Luc has agreed to accept an advance commission of [DELETED] for which he has signed a formal receipt.
Haj speaks Shi, poor Swahili, and for trading purposes appears to have taught himself Kinyarwanda. By preference he speaks “highly sophisticated” French.
So there we have it, I told Hannah, as I rose to answer the banging on my door: one Munyamulenge farmer-soldier, one crippled Mai Mai warhorse and one French-educated city slicker deputising for his father. What possible chance had a septuagenarian professor, however idealistic, of knocking this unlikely trio into a peace-loving alliance for democracy, whether or not it was at the end of a gun barrel?
“Skipper says here's the rest of your homework,” Anton advised me, shoving an office folder into my hand. “And I'll take that item of obscene literature off you, while I'm about it. Don't want it lying around where the kids can get at it, do we?”
Or in plain language: here is a photocopy of Jasper's no-name contract in exchange for Philip's no-name briefing paper.
• • •
Restored to the Shaker
rocking chair for my preparatory reading, I was amused to observe that the French accents had been added despairingly in ink. A preamble defined the unnamed parties to the agreement.
Party the First is a philanthropic offshore venture capital organisation providing low-cost agricultural equipment and services on a self-help basis to struggling or failed Central African states.
In other words, the anonymous Syndicate.
Party the Second, hereinafter called the Agriculturalist, is an academic in high standing, committed to the radical reorganisation of outdated methodologies to the greater advancement of all sections of the indigenous population.
Or in plain French, the Mwangaza.
Party the Third, hereinafter called the Alliance, is an honourable association of community leaders pledged to work together under the guidance of the Agriculturalist — see above . . .
Their common aim will be to advance by all means at their disposal such reforms as are essential to the creation of a unified social structure embracing all Kivu, including a common fiscal policy and the repossession of Kivu's natural resources for the greater enrichment of all its people . . .
In consideration of Syndicate's financial and technological assistance in the lead-up to these reforms, hereinafter called the Event, the Agriculturalist in consultation with his partners in the Alliance pledges to grant favoured status to Syndicate and such corporations or entities as Syndicate at its sole discretion sees fit from time to time to nominate . . .
Syndicate for its part undertakes to provide specialised services, personnel and equipment to the value of fifty million Swiss francs by way of a one-time payment as per attached Annexe . . .
Syndicate undertakes to provide out of its own purse all necessary experts, technicians, instructors and cadre personnel as may be necessary to the training of the local workforce in the use of such equipment, and to remain on site up to and including the formal consummation of the Event, and in all circumstances for a period of not less than six months from the date of commencement. . .