Empty Hands, Open Arms
Also by Deni Béchard
Cures for Hunger
Vandal Love
© 2013, Text by Deni Béchard
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher: Milkweed Editions, 1011 Washington Avenue South, Suite 300, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55415.
(800) 520-6455
Published 2013 by Milkweed Editions
Cover design by Christian Fuenfhausen
Cover photos © Christian Ziegler and Getty Images
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First Edition
ISBN 978-1-5713-1849-7
Milkweed Editions, an independent nonprofit publisher, gratefully acknowledges sustaining support from the Bush Foundation; the Patrick and Aimee Butler Foundation; the Dougherty Family Foundation; the Driscoll Foundation; the Jerome Foundation; the Lindquist & Vennum Foundation; the McKnight Foundation; the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund, and a grant from the Wells Fargo Foundation Minnesota; the National Endowment for the Arts; the Target Foundation; and other generous contributions from foundations, corporations, and individuals. For a full listing of Milkweed Editions supporters, please visit www.milkweed.org.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013944089
Milkweed Editions is committed to ecological stewardship. We strive to align our book production practices with this principle, and to reduce the impact of our operations in the environment. We are a member of the Green Press Initiative, a nonprofit coalition of publishers, manufacturers, and authors working to protect the world’s endangered forests and conserve natural resources. Empty Hands, Open Arms was printed on acid-free 100% postconsumer-waste paper by Edwards Brothers Malloy.
Contents
Part I: From Iowa to the Bonobos of Équateur
Naked Apes, Furry Apes, Godlike Apes
Part II: Grass Roots
Albert Lotana Lokasola
From Slave State to Failed State
Sally Jewell Coxe
Africa’s Great War
Michael Hurley
Economics around the Campfire
Human Cultures and Cultured Animals
Territory and Power
Part III: Sankuru
André Tusumba
Defending the Vocation
Viral Conservation
The River
Epilogue: The Red Queen
Acronyms
Notes
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
I will take with me the emptiness of my hands
What you do not have you find everywhere
—W. S. Merwin
On a sweltering afternoon, I reached the border that separates Gisenyi, Rwanda, from the city of Goma in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The sky was cloudless, the sun glaring on the dusty, broken roadway and the windless lake that stretched alongside it. After receiving the Rwandan exit stamp in my passport, I walked around a metal gate raised by a single soldier for passing cars, though there were none.
I approached the yellow building on the other side, where an agent sat at a counter, behind an open window. He suddenly appeared engrossed in organizing his desk. He thrust his jaw and furrowed his brow, gathered papers into a pile, then spread them like a stack of cards. He scanned the pages, moving his head back and forth, as if hunting the source of a grave injustice. I’d often seen officials do this, demonstrating self-importance, making travelers wait, creating an atmosphere of disapproval and difficulty, so that when they finally took the passport, it would seem natural for them to find fault and demand an additional payment.
Across the street from the yellow building, in what appeared to be a small guardhouse, a door opened, and another agent stepped out, perspiration beading on his round face. He hurried over, smiled at me, and reached for my passport. The first one grunted and shook his head, sat back in his chair and crossed his arms, staring off in anger.
The new agent stepped into the yellow building, behind the counter, and flipped open a book of smudged graph paper. He wrote my passport information, asking my profession and, when I said écrivain, “writer,” what I would be writing.
“A book on conservation,” I replied in French, “on tropical forests and natural resources, and endangered
