Donat Tshimanga is the founder of press freedom advocates Journalists at Risk. Photo by Ellen Otzen
Ellen Otzen finds out what people in the capital and the southeast think of Congo&${esc.hash}39;s first free election in decades. August 8, 2006It&${esc.hash}39;s been 10 days since the elections and Kinshasa is buzzing with rumours on the validity of the polls. Partial results were promised yesterday, but nothing official has been announced yet.
I speak to five different people here who claim there were turned away at the polling stations on election day. They say when they arrived with their voting cards, officials told them someone else with the same number had already voted.
One of the Kinshasa residents who went to the polling station in vain was Christian Neron, a 20-year old Communications student. He feels that the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) was not as unbiased as it should be.
"They are dragging their feet in announcing the results because they want to manipulate them. Their candidate is the man chosen by the international community - the incumbent president Joseph Kabila. But he is not the leader people here in Kinshasa want."
While Kabila has a strong following in the eastern part of the country, he is considerably less popular in Kinshasa and western Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). People think he&${esc.hash}39;s stiff, uneducated and uncharismatic. And they don&${esc.hash}39;t like the fact that he didn&${esc.hash}39;t grow up in Congo
"His origins are dubious. When he speaks in public, he just reads out a speech other people have written. And he hasn&${esc.hash}39;t done anything for Congo while leading the transitional government" Bibi, a 23-year old Kinshasa civil servant, says.
She&${esc.hash}39;s referring to a persistent rumor claiming that Joseph Kabila was adopted by Laurent Kabila, former president and rebel leader, and that his birth mother is a Rwandan Tutsi.
Rwanda invaded Congo twice in the late 1990s and while the two countries officially have made peace, there is still resentment amongst the Congolese towards Rwandans.
In Kinshasa, people think the frontrunner is Vice President Jean-Pierre Bemba from the Uganda-backed Congo-Liberation Movement (MLC). A loud, stocky man, Bemba has been accused of war-crimes in the Central African Republic. The International Criminal Court says he&${esc.hash}39;s responsible for looting and rape carried out by his men. But that doesn&${esc.hash}39;t seem to bother Bemba&${esc.hash}39;s supporters much.
"Bemba is 100 percent Congolese - a child of this country," Bibi tells me. "We are hoping good things will happen with Bemba in power. He seems like an honest man."
That was yesterday afternoon in downtown Kinshasa. This morning I meet Donat Tshimanga, the founder of Journalists at Risk (Journalistes en Danger, in French), which does its best to defend press freedoms in Congo.
He confirms that many registered voters were unable to use their vote. On polling day, Donat went to three different polling stations before he was allowed to vote. He claims the logistical confusion is a deliberate strategy to discourage people from voting.
Two weeks before the election, the IEC admitted that a million registered voters&${esc.hash}39; had disappeared off its register.
"The international community knows that all these people couldn&${esc.hash}39;t vote, but they turn a blind eye to it," Donat tells me.
So what agenda lies behind the alleged voter manipulation? Donat is categorical in his answer.
"Because the international community has paid for the elections, many Congolese feel that the U.N. and the donor countries have a certain agenda for Congo. The elections are seen as a legitimate way of imposing the candidate the international community wants - Joseph Kabila. How else would you explain the fact that two days prior to the elections, Louis Michel, the European Commissioner for Cooperation, declared that Joseph Kabila represents an opportunity for the DRC? It was a campaign for Kabila on behalf of the supposedly neutral international community."
I left Journalistes en Danger in a taxi and got a last look at Kinshasa by daylight. Once known as Kin-la-Belle - Kin the Beautiful - things have gone downhill for the capital since the 1960s. Charming is not the first word that comes to mind.
Endless rows of dirty-grey high-rises, it looks like a faded version of George Orwell&${esc.hash}39;s nightmare in some areas. The few traffic lights that are there don&${esc.hash}39;t work and crossing the street on foot is a risky business.
We leave for London tonight. I can&${esc.hash}39;t help feeling a sense of relief at going home. Last night the receptionist at our hotel was reading the Old Testament, the Book of Job. It&${esc.hash}39;s one of the darkest books in the bible, and I hope it&${esc.hash}39;s not symbolic of what the future looks like for the Congolese people.
Days before, Ellen Otzen talked to people in the resource-rich southeastern province of Katanga August 2, 2006Africa is shaped like a revolver and the trigger is in the Congo, Caribbean anti-colonial writer Frantz Fanon said in the 1950s. There&${esc.hash}39;s still some truth in that image, I find out this morning when I hitch a ride with two election observers from neighbouring Tanzania.
One of the observers, Paul Mwanga from the Christian Council of Tanzania, tells me Tanzanians are keeping their fingers crossed for a stable Congo after the elections, and their reasons are not entirely generous.
Thousands of Congolese refugees and gunmen fled across the border during the war, and looting and instability became rife in western Tanzania. If Congo&${esc.hash}39;s peaceful, Mwanga hopes it will encourage refugees to go home, as well as improving business on both sides of the massive lake that divides their countries.
On clear days, you can see the coast of Tanzania on the other side of Lake Tanganyika from Kalemie, where the election observers tell me voter turnout was 70 percent. A Congolese U.N. worker I spoke to a few days ago told me that compared to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania is the land of milk and honey.
I meet King Kilema, team leader of Danish aid agency DanChurchAid&${esc.hash}39;s HIV education programme in the Tanganyika region. True to his name, King has a strong presence although he is no more than five feet tall. When he talks, people listen.
He tells me that when his team began informing people in the area about AIDS, they soon realised they were up against a mountain of die-hard myths. Some men had heard that lubricant on the tip of condoms contained the HIV virus, and they&${esc.hash}39;d get AIDS if they used them.
Others claimed that AIDS was an imaginary disease invented by Europeans to discourage young African couples from making love. The French acronym for aids , SIDA, was interpreted as "Imaginary Syndrome for Discouraging Lovers".
I look for condoms on the shelves of the local pharmacy, but can&${esc.hash}39;t see any. I ask Djuma, a nightwatch guard wearing a "Fight AIDS" t-shirt, how people in Kalemie get hold of condoms. Giggling, he says the pharmacy does have them, they just don&${esc.hash}39;t put them out. It&${esc.hash}39;s still considered an embarrassing thing to buy.
There is no anti-retroviral programme available in Kalemie. The hospital can treat an HIV-positive person treatment for symptoms of illness, but cannot give the medication that keeps the virus under control.
But back to King. The aid agency he works for combines landmine clearance with HIV education, so when they tell locals about the danger of AIDS, they compare it to the threat of landmines: You might be walking on a landmine without knowing it - in the same way you might have a potential mine inside your body which could explode if you don&${esc.hash}39;t take precautions. People respond well to this metaphor, King says. But The Catholic Church doesn&${esc.hash}39;t encourage the use of condoms and since it&${esc.hash}39;s a powerful force in Congo, King and his team have their work cut out for them.
After lunch I speak to Rosette Mwaka, head of the demining team. She chose this work after losing two nephews to the mines. She quietly describes how her team travels around suspected landmine areas for weeks at a time, using metal detectors and following tips from local villagers. The first time she had to detonate a landmine, Mwaka&${esc.hash}39;s heart was pounding madly, but she says she isn&${esc.hash}39;t afraid any more. So far the demining team hasn&${esc.hash}39;t had any accidents.
This woman has one of the scariest jobs around, yet she seemed completely unfazed by it. Removing the mines is a spiritual mission, she says.
Mwaka&${esc.hash}39;s three children and her husband - a Protestant priest - are supportive about her work. "I know that I am taking a risk. If I die, think of all the lives I have already saved."
August 1, 2006I hear an explosion at 8:30 this morning, and think maybe it&${esc.hash}39;s the sound of boats colliding in the harbour. A few hours later, I find out a four-year-old&${esc.hash}39;s been killed by a grenade. Two toddlers were playing with a pencil-sized lump of metal sticking out of the ground, but it exploded when they tried to open it with a stone. The boy died instantly, his two-year-old brother&${esc.hash}39;s skull was ripped open, and four more people were injured.
It&${esc.hash}39;s not connected to the elections - it is simply an ugly reminder of the war that tore apart central Africa in the late 1990s.
Augustin Bazige, an aid worker for Danish agency DanChurchAid, has been to the site of the explosion and met the dead boy&${esc.hash}39;s parents. He tells me that passers-by 10 metres (33 feet) away were hit by splinters from the grenade. The grenade victim&${esc.hash}39;s brother is badly hurt, but he&${esc.hash}39;ll live, Bazige says. So will the young girl and three women who were injured too.
Who placed these deadly toys in the ground? Landmine experts in Kalemie say it&${esc.hash}39;s impossible to tell - so many different militia groups from neighbouring countries came through the area during the war. But Bazige, who teaches people in Kalemie about landmines, says the grenade went off near a hill the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD) militia once used as their headquarters.
Landmines and grenades are popular weapons in the so-called poor man&${esc.hash}39;s war. They cost hardly anything to make and leave the enemy incredibly vulnerable.
We spend the rest of the morning with the Red Cross listening to more accounts of atrocities. The Red Cross in Kalemie helps child soldiers demobilise and reunites families separated by the war.
Luc, their local programme officer, drives us up a bumpy hillside where we met Kisimba, Munakila, Dody and Huguette. Most of them are in their late teens, and all of them have fought in militia groups and killed people, and this was before they turned 15. Various logistical problems mean that none of them have voted, although they all say they would have liked to vote for Joseph Kabila, the current interim president.
"Because he can bring peace," we hear them say again and again. As we chat, dozens of people gather round us, most of them other children. Older people seem to be scarce.
Dody and Huguette&${esc.hash}39;s story stands out in my mind. When Dody was 10, in 1996, he joined the army of Joseph Kabila&${esc.hash}39;s father, Laurent Kabila - the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (ADFL).
Why? The army promised money and glory.
His parents tried to stop him, but the army seemed happy for him to join, he tells me.
This was in 1996, at the time of the first Congo war, when Kabila the elder - with support from Burundi, Uganda and Rwanda - was pushing his forces to topple Mobutu Sese Seko, president of the country that was then called Zaire.
Army life was constant suffering. When Dody was 12, he had to shoot an enemy soldier for the first time. It wasn&${esc.hash}39;t the last time. When he was 16, he was bodyguard for a general who tried to assassinate Laurent Kabila. The attempt failed, but Dody went to prison for three months, where he was tortured. The general is now living somewhere in Europe.
In the capital Kinshasa, Dody met Hugette, a pretty schoolgirl. She soon joined the national army too, and at 15 she gave birth to their son.
But after a few years, army life became unbearable and the Red Cross in Kinshasa helped them demobilise and move back to Dody&${esc.hash}39;s birthplace, Kalemie. Now they live with his family and are learning to sew. Despite their ordeal, they seem amazingly hopeful.
Dody, now aged 20, wants to own a shop of his own one day. Huguette is 18, and wants to study IT. They have recently learnt French at nightschool and speak it well. Life is better now, they tell me.
July 31, 2006There&${esc.hash}39;s been shooting and looting in the capital Kinshasa during the election run-up, but here in the southeastern town of Kalemie the sound of celebratory singing is drifting out of the Pentecostal church this afternoon, and people in the streets are calmly walking on their way.
The second largest town in the province of Katanga, its idyllic location on Lake Tanganyika made Kalemie a popular bathing resort for the Belgians under colonial rule in the 1940s and 1950s. These days, however, the fishing industry is slow, the beach promenade is a run-down dirt road dotted with scruffy vegetable stalls and children as young as five are selling peanuts and plastic sandals.
Despite the air of sleepiness, everyone I speak to is excited about the elections. Anissa, a young mother of four who sells sugar from a table in the street, tells me that incumbent president Joseph Kabila was getting her vote. For her, he is "the man who brought peace to Congo". Another young girl, wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the face of Vice-President Azarias Ruberwa, says she is voting for Ruberwa simply because she "loves him".
This despite the fact that many people claim that Ruberwa has blood on his hands from the 1998-2003 war, when his Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD) movement was one of the major warring parties in the Ituri region near the Rwandan border.
Yesterday, on election day, I met people at a polling station who had been standing in line since 4 a.m. to vote. It might take weeks before the final results are out, but Joseph Kabila looks set to do extremely well out here in the east.
When I ask which candidate got their vote, most people tell me enthusiastically they voted for Kabila. The fact that Joseph Kabila&${esc.hash}39;s father, former president Laurent Desire Kabila, went to school here in Kalemie might have something to do with his son&${esc.hash}39;s strong standing here.
Inside the polling station in a modest schoolroom, three voting booths made from a few pieces of cardboard, covered with colourful ballot papers. Alongside each candidate&${esc.hash}39;s name is a party symbol and a photograph - crucial to many people in a country with high illiteracy rates.
Election witnesses representing various Congolese political have a brief argument about rules with the election observer at the other end of the room. But things don&${esc.hash}39;t get more heated than that. Even the troops from the U.N. mission in Congo - MONUC - are relaxed, listening to Bob Marley on the car stereo as they give me a lift into town.
But people here in Kalemie haven&${esc.hash}39;t just been thinking about who they want as president. This is a general election, and deciding which local Kalemie candidates go to the parliament in Kinshasa will determine the development of the Tanganyika region.
One of them, Vicky Mukalay from the Social Front of Independent Republicans (FSIR), known as Madame Vicky, has become something of a role model for Kalemie women. She tells me about her modest background - her mother was a cleaner. Today, Madame Vicky holds a seat in the parliament in Kinshasa, has a beautiful second home on a hill above Kalemie and counts the French ambassador as one of her good friends.
She wants to modernise the fishing industry here and make sure that girls can get an education, she tells me, and she&${esc.hash}39;s proud of opening the first Internet cafe in town. "My hope is that one day there will be a thousand Vickys like me in Kalemie," she says.
The main goal for Jean Sakala, another local candidate and member of the Christian Democrats, is building new roads in the region to promote business. He&${esc.hash}39;s more concerned about highway construction than AIDS education, he says. "Let the Europeans find a vaccine against AIDS. Meanwhile, we&${esc.hash}39;ll build new roads here in Congo."
Congo&${esc.hash}39;s HIV infection rate is about 3.2 percent, according to U.N. statistics. To put it in perspective, that&${esc.hash}39;s 16 times Denmark&${esc.hash}39;s HIV rate of 0.2 percent, for example.
There are no official figures on HIV and AIDS in Kalemie, but DanChurchAid, a Danish NGO working with AIDS education, estimates that it is bound to be high as a result of numerous rapes carried out by rebel groups in the area during the war.
At the beach outside the polling station, 23-year old business student Yasante took a celebratory swim after voting for the first time. "I felt such a sense of freedom this morning," he tells me. "I walked to the polling station holding hands with both my parents. I&${esc.hash}39;ve never felt this happy."
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