What's in a name?

A lot apparently. At least Mobutu thought so.

Two years after seizing power, he creating a political party to which all citizens automatically belonged and which had, as its objects, nationalism, revolution and authenticity. The first two were easily implemented: he nationalised the mines and other big companies, and outlawed foreign participation in trade.

Authenticity needed a bit more thought, and it was four more years before he launched his official campaign.

His first act was to rename the country Zaire.

Next he tackled the symbol of westernisation: clothing. This was not a new idea. Mao had done it in China, and there is considerable evidence that Mobutu saw himself as the Mao of Africa – in power terms, even if not in either political or ethical ones. The Zairean version of men’s clothing was a jacket in the form of a close fitting shirt, with pockets on the front, worn outside the trousers. African prints were a popular cloth for them. Once this had been decreed as the national form of dress it was illegal to wear a jacket and tie.

Then came names. We probably shouldn’t be surprised that he rejected his Christian names, Joseph-Desiré – so effeminate! So he ordered everyone to replace their Christian or European names with Zairean ones. Priests were liable to five years in gaol if they were found guilty of baptising people with Christian names. Finally, he decided that everyone should also have a “post-name” after their surname to give them an additional identifier. The post-name was normally supposed to be that of one or more of your ancestors, but it could be the name of a village, a clan or some personal attribute. 

Mobutu had great fun renaming himself. He chose the name to end names: Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga ("The all-powerful warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, goes from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake”).

The post-name is the last name but is not the family name, which is the second to last one: thus President Kabila’s name is written Joseph Kabila Kabange. This causes no end of confusion in official documents, and sorting names in alphabetical order etc. But if you ask a Congolese his name, he will first give you his surname (family name) which is actually his middle name, followed by his pre-name. Then, if you ask, he will give you his post-name. Confused? 

War and the art of procrastination

After the assassination of Laurent Kabila there was a long period in which multiple factions in the Congo jostled for power. A prolonged conference in South Africa resulted in agreement about the constitutional principles which all sides would accept. Three years later the new constitution was enacted.

What is very interesting is that the model adopted had strong similarities with the South African one. In the latter case the objective was to protect the rights of minorities such as Afrikaners and the interests represented by the white parties, and minority black parties such as Buthelezi’s Inkhata Freedom Party. The constitution stopped short of the federal model, but it entrenched the concept of provinces with their own elected government and legislature, in which central government could not interfere.

In the Congo, there were similar fears concerning the likelihood of central government being dominated by a single party and a dominant ethnic group. Not surprisingly, the resulting settlement was the same as in South Africa – establishing 15 additional Provinces (making 26 in all) each with their own government and legislature, their own revenue raising powers, and a guaranteed 40% of central government’s revenues.

For cynical politicians the nice thing is that once a constitution has been adopted, it is not so easy to force a government to implement it. In the Congo, where the courts are arms of central government, it is practically impossible.

So, guess what? Nothing has been done. After all, who wants to share power voluntarily?  Only saints like Mandela, not Kabila. So no new provinces have been created, in spite of a constitutional provision that the last date for the process was 36 months after it was enacted. In a belated attempt to rectify the situation, the constitution was hurriedly amended to postpone the creation of new provinces “until circumstances are right.”

As for provincial revenues, they are receiving only half of what they are supposed to get.

This has made a lot of people angry, especially when they contrast conditions in Kinshasa with their own situation. Of course there is always the option of going to war – which is what a lot of people have done. But these local bandits are fighting less for constitutional change than for a slice of the local economic cake, and it’s easier to get that by looting and harassment than entering the political fray. However, the M23, the largest of the current rebel groups, has made more decentralisation of power one of its central demands.

Will they get it? Of course not. Here’s why:

Elections: Provincial elections were supposed to be held last year, but there’s simply no money for them. Nor is there an electoral commission to plan and implement them: the last one was so discredited by the Presidential and Parliamentary elections in 2011 that a new Act of Parliament has been drafted but there is fierce resistance to government’s proposal by civil society so it has been deferred several times.

Government: Each province is supposed to have ten Ministers and supporting staff. In the case of the 15 new provinces there are no offices for them, and to build them will cost billions and take many years.

Assemblies: Each province is supposed to have a Provincial Assembly with its own supporting staff. Apart from the problem of elections, where will they meet (imagine building 15 houses of parliament), who will pay them, etc etc?

So Kabila and his cabinet are able to claim that they would love to decentralise, but they simply cannot so due to a lack of funds. And that, of course, is the fault of the donors. Nothing to do with political will. Nothing at all.

Do we exist?

I was more than a little amused when I received my first airline tickets from the US which referred to Kinshasa as being in “Zaire”. Zaire, as readers will know, was Mobutu’s name for the Congo when he launched his indigenisation campaign (apparently loosely modelled on Mao’s Cultural Revolution). It was at that time that he also renamed all the towns, so that, for example Leopoldville became Kinshasa. However, in 1997, when Laurent Kabila overthrew Mobutu, one of his first acts was to rename the country the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

So when you get an official document locating Kinshasa in Zaire you begin to wonder. At first I thought it was a once-off aberration, but no, right until late 2011, it was there – see picture (don’t be confused by the Ethiopian Airlines reference – the airline used made no difference). Since then, someone in authority must have asked a question “Where is Zaire?”  When she didn’t get a satisfactory response, no doubt after much head scratching, she must have decided to omit it altogether. Because now all the tickets simply state Kinshasa, with no clue as to which country it’s in. Just as all UN maps state that the boundaries on their maps do not represent the official position of the United Nations, the airline ticketing system in the US obviously preferred to avoid official endorsement of the name change made in 1997 by omitting it altogether.

This was all triggered by a recent internet incident. I am pestered by a web-site called Booking.com which obtains cheap deals at hotels. Since we regularly book visitors into hotels in Kinshasa, and I know the going rates, I thought I would play a trick on it and see what offers it had for our hotels. (If you are wondering whether any hotels in Kinshasa might show up on a standard internet site, let me confirm that at least two, the ex-Intercontinental Hotel, now called The Grand Hotel, and operated by Lonrho Hotels; and the Memling Hotel, which is operated by Sabena Hotels, are part of international chains).

So, after taking quite a while, here’s what the site found:

    Kinshasa

    We think you are looking for one of these five options:

    Cities:              Las Vegas

    Airports:          North Las Vegas

                            McCarran

    Hotels:             Kinshasa Hotel, Dubai

                            Kinshasa Hotel Branch, Dubai

That proves it, doesn’t it? We don’t exist. Quite a nice feeling.

Rebel rousing

Here’s a way to end wars. You invite the protagonists to a luxury hotel, put them and their huge retinues in the best rooms, and feed and drink them without stint. This is what Uganda has been doing with the Congolese Government and the M23 rebels.

This treatment does not accelerate peace, of course: in fact it puts everything on hold, because the fighting factions would much rather be in the grand hotel than roughing it in the bush.

However, according to a rumour from a normally reliable source a couple of weeks ago the whole deal started to become unstuck. The rebels allegedly demanded “per diems” failing which they would leave Kampala and go back to fight. In other words not satisfied with the fact that they were being housed and fed, they also wanted pocket money for wine, women and song. In the circles in which I move such per diems would be in the region of $20 - $40 a day. A modest allowance for minor expenditure. In those circles, I’m sure that $200 a day would be considered more appropriate.

Uganda was not, apparently, pleased. But a few days later talks resumed, and within a few days the parties had even signed an agreement acknowledging that there was wrong on both sides and they promised to try and settle their differences. That’s the most progress we’ve seen since early December. Viva the per diem – saviour of the Congo!

The blue light brigade

As a rough rule of thumb, the larger and the more showy presidential motorcades are, the worse the President really is. You can contrast Nyerere who used to ride in a Peugeot 504, sitting next to the driver, with Mugabe who has a massive entourage of flashy black Mercedes, motorbikes and the rest. Woe betide anyone who does not pay due respect to this show of might. Anyone not stopping instantaneously, and getting right off the road, is considered insolent, if not traitorous, and beaten up or hauled off to prison or both. Interestingly South Africa is one of the major culprits. Even minor Ministers love to surround themselves with these flashy motorcades, and their security men are continuously being sued for assault due to their enthusiasm for punishing offenders.

Of course there’s one country which outdoes the rest in their obsession with security and therefore absurd motorcades: the mighty U.S. of A. When Clinton came to Johannesburg they even closed many of the roads on which he would be travelling: Not just ordinary roads, but motorways – in both directions. 

One of the tricks they like to play is to have several dummy cars, so the assassin cannot tell which one the Big Man is in, which makes the show even more silly. I saw it once in Ramallah, on the West Bank, when Hilary Clinton was there: there were five identical black four wheel drives with heavily tinted windows, all driving at twice the safe speed. Maybe she wasn’t even in any, who knows. Assuming she was in one of them, what she felt like is not known: did she enjoy it, or did she feel a bit silly – or arrogant maybe? Because it is above all the arrogance of these shows that annoys people, especially when “important” people think they have the right to close roads in the middle of rush hour.

So where, on this scale, would you expect Kabila to fall? Pretty near the top, I would expect, right next to Mugabe. But no, he’s not like that at all, and though this is one of the few nice things I can think to say about him, I think it’s quite endearing.

He evidently despises all this security fuss. We were out in a park once when we (almost) bumped into him walking along, evidently paying a surprise visit to a nearby school. Yes, he had bodyguards front and back, but there was no fuss. We see him driving himself in a black and very well polished, Land Cruiser along the river bank, looking both happy and ordinary. Sometimes he gets bored with cars, and drives a quad bike instead. The security people must hate it, and he is always followed by a convoy of cars bristling with guns, and an ambulance at the rear in case he has a crash, but he does it. You also even see him, in an official motorcade of five or eight cars, soldiers back and front and numerous officials in tow, driving himself.

Maybe he does this because he spent several years in Tanzania and learned how Nyerere endeared himself to his subjects by his humility. Or maybe, and more likely, he’s like a little boy who wants to have fun.

There’s a nice story about Nyerere: he was flying to London for some international meeting regarding the liberation of Zimbabwe. After they had been airborne for a few hours, he was surprised to see Joshua Nkomo walking down the aisle, exercising his greatly overweight body. They were indeed as surprised as each other, and when they got talking Nyerere discovered that Mugabe was on the same flight. How come they hadn’t seen each other before? Why, Mugabe and Nkomo, using funds given by well-wishers for the liberation of Rhodesia, were flying business class. Nyerere, true to form, was travelling economy.

That’s something that Kabila will never emulate. NEVER.

Just in time

It was 22 January 2012. The posters being put up were truly special: the Rolls Royces of poster-making. They were printed in full colour on thick plasticised fabric, with brass rings at each corner to prevent tearing when nailed to walls or strung up between trees. They were advertising a conference to discuss the Congo’s latest report on the subject of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) to be held just three days later – the 25th.

We all know that the topic of conflict minerals is a hot one. While blood diamonds used to be at the top of the list (and remain a hotly debated subject in Zimbabwe) now interest is very much focussed on the mines in the Congo. It is alleged that the motives of the various warring factions/countries in the East of the DRC are primarily to get possession of the mines there, which include diamonds, gold and coltan. The last one is a little known but highly important mineral in the manufacture of cell phones. Certainly, there’s massive evidence to show that all neighbouring countries are benefitting from the smuggling of these minerals, whether by armed gangs or organised crime, so there must be something fishy going on.

As one of the world’s leading producers of coltan, the Congo, with its endless wars, has come under increasing scrutiny. The activist lobbies in the US began to link coltan with war crimes, exploitation, rape and numerous by products of the industry. The EITI was intended to reduce the scope for armies and bandits to gain financially from mined minerals by requiring certification at the source. The theory was that if you can stop the illegal trade in minerals you’ll stop the fighting.

The United States led the fight, when, in an extraordinary piece of logic, it included a passage making it illegal for US manufacturers to use minerals that were not certified as part of the Dodd-Frank Act of July 2010 entitled “Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act”. This is a massive, 849 page piece of legislation which was intended to regulate the financial industry. The legislation may have been just what was needed as far as Wall Street was concerned, but its impact on the Congo was disastrous. Hundreds of tiny mines, consisting of nothing more than a few men with a wheelbarrow or two and shovels were put out of work because they had no way of getting their production certified. Some minerals still get through by smuggling (it’s interesting that exports from Rwanda and Burundi of these minerals, even though they don’t have any mines, continue), but the impact of the law has been to wholly negative, not least by reducing prices as the goods can only be sold under the counter. Meanwhile the fighting intensifies.

There’s another story about mining in the Congo. In 2009 the DRC revoked the mining licence of First Quantum Minerals, a Canadian company that had invested $750 million in a new plant to process copper tailings. In effect, not only did First Quantum lose the licence, but they also lost the investment which was, effectively, expropriated. (After a lengthy arbitration they were compensated for some of their loss). Having thus acquired a very lucrative asset, the Congo government sold it to Dan Gertler, and companies in the British Virgin Islands linked to him, for a fraction of its real value (the figure of $30 million has been used). He is a young Israeli entrepreneur with a flair for making friends in high places and keeping his money in tax havens. Dan Gertler then sold the mining rights to another mining company for hundreds of millions of dollars. The proceeds were then, allegedly, shared between him and his protector, President Kabila.

In September 2011 the IMF, as part of their due diligence procedures, asked for explanations from Sodimico and Gecamines, both state owned mining companies, concerning sales of assets at below market value and without publicity to Gertler. This was in connection with the IMF's proposed loans to the DRC worth $561 million to strengthen the economy.

These dealings are public knowledge. However what is less well known is that payment of the latest tranche of the IMF loan, about $85 million, has now been suspended because the government has refused to disclose details of the Gertler deals. It (the Government) even had the cheek (I was told by the IMF representative) to demand a renegotiation of the loan agreement, while refusing to allow the last three IMF inspection teams entry into the country.

Gertler’s shady dealings have not gone unnoticed in the stock exchanges of the world, and in December 2012, it was reported that Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC) had spent $550m buying itself out of a DRC copper-mining partnership with Gertler, in order to protect their good name. They accused him of making the majority of his $2.5bn fortune from "looting Congo at the expense of its people". So when we talk about transparency in mining, it’s clear that the Congo might squirm a little.

But no, as the poster shows, they are trumpeting their adherence to the principles of transparency, and their wholehearted support for the EITI, even though it looks like a bit of a sham.

But wait: the report to be discussed at the conference on the 25^th is for the year 2010. That’s all right then – let’s let bygones be bygones.

Gotcha!

Readers will know that the police here have a bad reputation. One of the first indications of how bad it was came from someone had been running a police training programme for several years: “the only threats to law and order in this country are the army and the police”, she said.

Several stories of harassment by traffic police, especially of women drivers, reinforced the stereotype.

But occasionally it is good to be wrong, and here’s a case to prove it.

Our driver is a man who sees himself as one of the ruling classes, if only by association. He will not be bossed around by anyone, and while not arrogant can be highly argumentative if he feels that his point of view is not being understood.

He came to me recently with a request to borrow money to buy a piece of land on which he wants to build a house. It wasn’t a huge amount of money, so after all the usual warnings about being careful that he bought it from the real owner I gave it to him - $600.

Two weeks later the deal was done. He had a bit of time on his hands because we were out of the country, so he went to the said plot and started cutting the grass and clearing out debris etc.

His work was interrupted by a gang of three youths. “Who are you?” they asked. “You must account for yourself. What are you doing on this land?”

“I,” he replied, drawing himself up to his considerable full height, “answer to no one but the police. If you are police then you have the right to ask me the questions. If you are not, and I can see that you are not, I do not need to answer, and I shall not.”

This wasn’t what they wanted to hear, so they attacked him. What happened in the melee is not clear, but what is certain is that he was struck on his right eye by a massive rock, and was left, semi-conscious, lying on the ground bleeding and half blind.

Passers-by found him and helped him get medical treatment. Fortunately, the sight came back to his eye within a day and his vision seems to have fully recovered. The other cuts and bruises healed relatively quickly.

The day after his attack, nursing the massive black eye as evidence, he went to the police to lay charges against the youths. Within a day the gang had been located. One was arrested, and although the other two escaped (it’s not clear whether any money changed hands to facilitate the matter), he was in court within two days. We willingly gave our driver time off to attend the hearing and witness the young man being sentenced to several months of what is surely pretty close to hell.

I was sceptical about the apparent ease with which the police found the suspects. How did they arrest them so quickly? Was he sure that the one in dock was truly the culprit?

“Yes,” he said, “of course it was the right man. They know what they are doing.”

One could end it there, but the case reminded me of another one: a friend of ours had his passport stolen by pickpockets in the centre of Kinshasa. He too got it back within a day. Not bad, as police work goes.