route between Front de Force and Kabimba. But he found himself impotent in face of the obstacles put in his way by the head of that sector.
Each morning we heard the same old tune: Kabila has not arrived today, but tomorrow for sure, or the day after tomorrow…
Boats continued to arrive with plenty of high-quality weapons; it was a great pity to see how they squandered the resources of friendly countries (mainly China and the Soviet Union), the efforts of Tanzania, and the lives of some combatants and civilians with so little results.
Mitoudidi, now committed to organizing the [Upper] Base, took on the no small task of cracking down on the drinkers and thereby confronted 90 or 95 percent of the men. He also put a freeze on the delivery of arms and ammunition and, among other things, demanded that those who were using heavy weapons should show proof of their ability before they were given anything else, which at least ensured that nothing more would be distributed. But the challenges were too great and he was only one man; his assistants gave him very little help in this task.
We became quite good friends. I explained that my greatest handicap was my lack of direct contact with the combatants who didn’t speak French, so he sent one of his aides to teach me Swahili, so that I could communicate directly with the Congolese in that language. Ernest Ilunga, charged with initiating me into the mysteries of the language, was an intelligent young man. We began our classes with great enthusiasm, dedicating three hours a day, but the truth is that I was the first to reduce this to one hour, not for lack of time—I had too much of that, unfortunately—but because my character is completely incompatible with learning other languages. Another difficulty I was unable to overcome during my time in the Congo was the fact that Swahili is a language with quite a rich and advanced grammar, but in this country it is used as what they call their national language, alongside the mother tongue or dialect of their own tribe, so that Swahili has to some extent become the language of conquerors and a symbol of superior power. It is the second language of nearly all the peasants, but the backwardness of the region means that what they actually speak is a highly simplified “basic Swahili.” Moreover, they adapted very easily to our halfway language, because they found it easier to communicate in this way. Bound up as I was in these contradictions, I could not speak either grammatical Swahili or the peculiar regional version in that part of the Congo in my entire time there.
During these days I also got to know Mundandi, the Rwandan commander at Front de Force. He had studied in China and made quite a good impression of being firm and serious; but in our first conversation he revealed he had caused 35 enemy casualties in one battle. I asked him how many weapons he had captured as a result of the 35 casualties. He answered “none,” explaining that they had attacked with bazookas and that the enemy weapons had been blown into tiny fragments. My diplomatic qualities have never been very refined, and I told him quite bluntly that he must be lying. He then exonerated himself, on the grounds that he had not been present at the actual fighting but had been informed by his subordinates, etc. The matter was left to rest there—but since exaggeration is the norm in that region, to call a lie a lie is not the best way to establish fraternal relations with anyone.
On June 7, I set out for the Upper Base, after having consulted with Mitoudidi about the veracity of the promises that Kabila would be coming in the morning. He tacitly led me to believe that he was not expecting Kabila to return in the near future, especially as Chou En-lai2 was visiting Dar es-Salaam at the time and it made sense for Kabila to go there to try to put various requests with the Chinese leader.
As I was making the difficult climb back to the Upper Base, a messenger caught up with us to say that Mitoudidi had just drowned. His body remained in the water for three days, before being discovered on the 10th, when his body rose to the surface of the lake. Due to the fact that two Cubans had been in the boat at the time of the accident, I was able to reach the following conclusion from a series of personal conversations and inquiries.
Mitoudidi had been on his way to Rwandasi, the place where he was thinking of transferring the General Staff. It was hardly three kilometers from the Kibamba [Lake] Base,3 but he went by water because of the poor state of the road. There was a strong wind and big waves on the lake. It would appear that he accidentally fell into the lake. From then on a series of strange events occurred that could be attributed to outright stupidity, extraordinary superstition (the lake supposedly being inhabited by all manner of spirits), or to something more serious. The fact is that Mitoudidi, who could swim a little, managed to remove his boots and—according to various witnesses—called out for help for some 10 to 15 minutes. People threw themselves into the water to save him, and one of these, his orderly, also drowned; Commander François, who was accompanying him on the journey, also disappeared (I never found out whether he fell in at the same time or jumped in to save Mitoudidi). When the accident happened, they stopped the outboard motor, which made it impossible to maneuver the boat in any way. Then they started it up again, but it seems that some magical force prevented them from approaching the spot where Mitoudidi was floundering. In the end, while he continued to call for help, the boat headed for shore and the compañeros saw him go under shortly afterwards.
The nature of human relations among the Congolese leaders is so complex that it’s hard to know what to make of this. What is certain is that the man in charge of the boat at the time, who was also an army commander, was later sent to a different front—the explanation given to me being that the compañero had been involved in a number of incidents at the base.
Thus, a stupid accident took the life of the man who had begun to implant some organization in the terrible chaos of the [Kibamba] base. Mitoudidi had been young (no more than 30 years old), and had served as a functionary with [Patrice] Lumumba and a combatant with Mulele. Mitoudidi had said that Mulele had sent him to this area at a time when no revolutionary organization was functioning there. In our frequent conversations, he said Mulele had diametrically opposed methods, and described the completely different character of the struggle in that other part of the Congo, although he never gave any hint of criticism of Kabila or Massengo and he attributed all the disorganization to the peculiarities of the region.
I don’t know the reason—perhaps it had something to do with race or former reputation—but when Kabila arrived in the region, he was the chief and Mitoudidi became the head of his General Staff. The truth was that the only person with authority had now disappeared in the lake. The next day, the news was already known in the surrounding area, and Kabila gave signs of life by sending me the following brief note:
I have just heard about the fate of brother Mitu, and of the other brothers. As you can see, I am deeply hurt by it.
I am worried about your safety; I want to come right away. For us, this sad story is our destiny. All the comrades with whom you arrived should remain where they are until my return, unless they want to go to Kabimba or to see Mundandi in Bendera.
I trust in your steadfastness. We will put everything into motion so that we can transfer the base on a date certain.
During my absence, I have sorted out some matters with Compañero Muteba, and with Bulengai and Kasabi.
In friendship,
Kabila
Compañero Muteba, who was deeply affected by Mitoudidi’s death, came to see me to ascertain exactly our views about what had happened. It was probably due to superstition that they were contemplating the move to a different base; but I didn’t want to raise any objections because it seemed a very delicate issue and I thought it wiser to avoid giving a clear answer. We discussed the most important problems that had brought us to the Congo; we had been there nearly two months and still had achieved absolutely nothing. I mentioned the reports I had written for Compañero Mitoudidi that had disappeared with him, and then he asked me to do a general report for him about the situation to forward to Kabila. I took on this task and wrote the following. (I should
