busy regrouping. People feared what might still happen in the near future – and a photograph could be used to identify you.
The rubbish-littered market reflected the town’s economic status. The products were aimed at the impoverished masses and the stalls specialised in cheap Chinese flip-flops and second-hand clothes from Europe. The market was held on a large open piece of ground without any protection against the sun. Pieces of raw meat were covered by a thick crust of flies. It was only after a day or so that someone took me to a storage place where thousands of local art works, carved bone, fetish dolls, witch-doctor goodies, elephant tusks, hippopotamus teeth, leopard skins and gorilla hands were on sale.
At the market I asked a few children whether I could take their photograph, but without success. Then a bashful teenage boy with a wooden bicycle approached me and asked whether I wanted to take his photograph. He was older than the other children I had photographed so far, but it would have been rude to say no. After I took the photo I gave him the equivalent of R2. Within moments another boy was next to him, trying to grab his R2. I was dumbfounded. All of a sudden I was a spectator at a fist fight that quickly escalated into a full-blown wrestling match. Everyone around me began shouting hysterically.
The market, which had been quiet and fairly empty up until then, suddenly swarmed with people. It was as if some animal instinct took over. Nobody knew what the fighting was about, but everyone wanted to be part of it. And I’m not talking about four or five people – from nowhere a group of about 60 people appeared and gathered around us.
The fighting was relentless and as the accidental instigator I felt I had to do something about it, but there was no way that I could try to break up the fight. Then I saw a knife glistening in the sunlight. The situation had become too hardcore for me. Seconds later I heard automatic gunfire as a lorry with soldiers rounded the corner at breakneck speed.
I noticed a movement to my left. A taxi driver opened his door: “Time for you to go,” he said. I did not argue and never returned to the market. The trip to the hotel, which was shorter than a kilometre, cost me 50 dollars.
The hotel was a nice enough place, but as in Kigali there was not much to do there. After the first day the prostitutes realised that I wasn’t a potential client and left me alone. I relaxed next to the swimming pool and paddled about in the glistening lake, accompanied by an armed guard. I initiated conversations with mercenaries and diamond smugglers in the bar.
One night, after a few stiff drinks, one of the diamond dealers showed me the contents of his reinforced Adidas sports bag. It was half-filled with diamonds. The next day I saw him boarding a smoking aircraft in dire need of a service on an untarred runway just outside town. The same night he returned with more diamonds. Several days later I recognised him when he walked through customs and immigration at OR Tambo with the same bag. No one investigated its contents.
For some reason the security chief who issued me the safe pass took a liking to me. Out of the blue he arrived in Gisenyi to see what I was up to. He had an interesting proposal: Would I like to see what the DRC looked like?
Gisenyi’s neighbouring town is Goma. In actual fact, it’s more or less the same town with a passport control point in the centre. At that time, as today, the eastern part of the Congo was a mess. There were so many rebel factions that nobody knew who was on whose side. Sometimes they didn’t even know themselves.
Gisenyi didn’t have any nightlife. Every night I could hear the parties in Goma while I searched for an English channel on television. I was a frustrated party animal. The security chief’s offer was tempting, but I told him that I did not have a visa for the DRC. He said it was not a problem, since Rwanda controlled much of that region, and that he could organise that I go through without one. He wanted to show me exactly how powerful he was.
To spend a day with the gorillas in the mountains would have cost $500, but I couldn’t afford that. What it would cost to see the guerrillas wasn’t clear yet, but at least I was about to find out.
The road that linked Gisenyi and Goma was obstructed by a single cross-bar. The soldiers who manned the control point took a great deal of pleasure in taunting everyone who wanted to go through. Here they played God as they decided who could go through and who could not. Women were pawed and men humiliated to make sure everyone knew who was boss. Strangely enough, it did not seem to bother most people – they accepted that this was how things worked.
The soldiers didn’t exactly look fighting fit, but they were certainly well armed. Each of them carried that all too popular symbol of power in Africa: the AK47. They prodded people into rows with the barrels. Some were called out of the line and taken around the corner for interrogation. The people who stood in the rows did not make eye contact and looked steadfastly at the ground. Even if the person in front or behind them was pushed around, they did not show any reaction.
When I got to the front, the security chief ordered me to leave my passport at the control point. My courage failed me. This was flagrantly disregarding the number one rule of international travel – you should always have your passport on you. “I’m the boss here. You leave passport. We pick up when we come back,” he barked at me. I doubted the wisdom of my decision, but I had to concede even if it was unwillingly.
Goma and Gisenyi may be sister towns, but they certainly had different fathers. A different set of rules applied in each of the two towns. Although no road or river linked Kinshasa and Goma, it was still more Congolese than Rwandese. Goma was a bustling little town. There were cars and taxis and street café’s and pool tables where people drank beer. The roads were in an even worst condition than those in Gisenyi.
The town smelled strange and “dark” in a way, something I attributed to a flight of fancy before I realised there were active volcanoes close by. This also explained the dirty, black layer of silt that covered everything.
Our first stop was a local bar where the security chief shooed people away from a table so that we could sit down. It was ten o’clock in the morning. The table was vintage plastic garden furniture; the walls were unpainted and for drinks you could choose between whisky, gin or cognac. South Africa was represented by Amarula and Castle. The security chief explained loudly and with large gestures how Goma and the countryside surrounding it also belonged to Rwanda. The locals looked at him with disdain, but he didn’t give a damn. He was Mr Big Shot and no one would be able to burst his bubble.
There were huge petrol depots for vehicle and aircraft fuel. The explosion I’d heard a few nights previously at the Izuba Hotel happened at one of the depots. Apparently someone tried to steal fuel and the soldiers shot at him. The thief and the soldiers all died in the explosion. The thief’s burnt body was still lying there, his arms outstretched as if in a final plea to God. Nobody seemed terribly bothered by the corpse and the security chief regarded its presence as a very public warning to others not to steal. “These people …” he said, while he waved his arm with loathing over the town. He definitely wasn’t there to win friends and influence people.
The official reason for the presence of Rwandan troops in the eastern part of the Congo was to prevent another attack by the Interahamwe, whose members had fled to those parts. In theory they were safeguarding the entire area against them. In reality Rwanda was a poor country and the eastern part of the Congo was every capitalist’s dream. Its natural resources were a big draw card for all kinds of entrepreneurs. There were diamonds in abundance and their most important mineral was used to manufacture tin. While the Rwandan troops were busy “safeguarding” that area, they were also busy with large-scale theft to fill their own and their government’s coffers. You could see the signs of prosperity everywhere: gold watches, new cars and shiny shoes that were wiped clean every so often.
A few beers later the security chief decided it was time to move on for lunch. He did his fellow boozers proud –
