Field notes

Fighting Intensifies around Bunagana The hills around Bunagana...

Sat, 19 May 2012 18:50:00 -0400

Fighting Intensifies around Bunagana

The hills around Bunagana have been sporadically echoing the sound of gunfire over the past week, with occasional shelling and shooting in the early morning and late afternoon. Today, following an apparent offensive by M23 rebels on a Congolese army position near the village of Kinyamahura in the Jomba parish, the air was thick with the sound of pounding shells.

Many of the villages in Jomba have already emptied, but driving down the road from Bunagana towards Rutshuru, an eerie quiet reigned along the road; the displaced had already fled.

Columns of exhausted FARDC soldiers trudged towards Bunagana this morning, enervated from the fighting that began at around 4am. They were angry and dejected, having lost one of their forward positions. In the opposite direction, dark green army trucks sped past, filling the conflict zone with new fighters, hoping to take back their base.

Edging towards the fighting, the sound of heavy gunfire flooded through the thick, green vegetation. The rebels had captured the hill of Bugasa, occupying an advantageous position over the better armed FARDC troops.

From the narrow, dirt road leading towards Kinyamahura, a jeep took aim and opened up deafening rounds of anti-aircraft fire, trained on the rebels in the facing hillside. Around them, bullets zipped overhead.

Back in Bunagana, United Nations peace-keepers have set up a new mobile operating base, as twitchy troops from the Fourth Indian Battalion patrolled the main road adjacent to it. Lieutenant General Chandar Prakash, the UN Force Commander in Congo, visited Bunagana today to meet with community representatives in an attempt to reassure civilians that the peacekeepers would protect them here. Below where he sat with them, the cacophony of the unfolding battle rumbled up the hill, just a few kilometres from where they were seated.

Just before he got back in his helicopter, he greeted a crowd of people congregating around the landing site. “You don’t have anything to worry about whilst we are here”, he told them, encouraging them not to panic. But as the fighting around Bunagana reaches a new level of intensity, and with only around fifty peacekeepers in town, it is hard to say how reassuring those words were.

Conflict in the borderlands From the town of Bunagana,...

Thu, 17 May 2012 18:00:00 -0400

Conflict in the borderlands

From the town of Bunagana, straddling the Congo-Uganda border in DRC’s restive North Kivu province, the sound of a bomb exploding can be heard from a distant hillside. It is in these lush green hills that ex-CNDP rebels, now organised under the name M23 — le Movement du 23 mars — are engaged in offensives and counter-offenses with the Congolese Armed Forces (FARDC).

Less than a week ago, the United Nations Stabilisation Mission for the Congo (MONUSCO) had established a temporary operating base manned by Indian peace-keepers in the town, under their mandate to protect civilians. But just a few hundred metres from their base, hundreds of people are crossing in and out of the porous border with Uganda, seeking refuge from the conflict whilst still returning to Bunagana for water, firewood and their belongings.

The previous week, the town had all but emptied and many doors still remain firmly padlocked shut, but some shops have reopened, and the main thoroughfare appears rather animated. The conflict, though, is disrupting people’s lives; a teacher in Bunagana says that she cannot afford to buy food - her income comes from pupils attending class, and right now, with shells and gunfire ripping through the landscape, there are none.

This afternoon, three hours after the bomb exploded on a hillside, heavy weapons fire ripped through the air in a village in Jomba, seemingly precipitating the heavy downpour that followed it. FARDC jeeps then burst out of the bush, carrying around sixty men as well as a large, truck-mounted automatic gun. The villages lining the route towards Bunagana have emptied, with clothes left unattended on washing lines and more padlocks sealing doors; the jeeps churned up the muddy road that drives straight through them, on their way to the next operation.

Less than a kilometre from where the jeeps emerged from the bush, a large contingent of foot soldiers march down the road, moving positions following the offensive. “Things are going well” said one, the morale of the whole detachment seemingly high.

A text-message partially received from the spokesman of the M23 rebels acknowledged an attack during the morning, but claimed that they had met the attack with a counter-offensive. Right now, it is impossible to assess the veracity of this message, nor their strength: isolated high in the hills, accessing them from Congo means crossing the front-line of the FARDC, something they are somewhat less than willing to allow.

In the meantime, the va-et-vient continues on the border, as people spend the night in neighbouring Uganda, ferrying their belongings in and out of the country. The chef du groupement says that people are living in deplorable conditions, often without food and shelter, and claims that three people have died since leaving their homes. As he sees it, either the army needs to chase out the rebels, or a peace needs to be negotiated. Until then, “it is my people that are the victims.”

Bunagana empties to Uganda The road approaching Bunagana skirts...

Sat, 12 May 2012 20:00:00 -0400

Bunagana empties to Uganda

The road approaching Bunagana skirts at times just a few miles from the conflict between Congolese armed forces (FARDC) and mutinous rebels of the M23 movement. Yet populations along that road bustle around the outdoor market selling fruit and vegetables from the lush hillsides. Further up the hill, some are carrying mattresses and their belongings, rather than bowls of bananas.

The town of Bunagana on the Ugandan border is emptying into Uganda; the population has largely fled, locked doors line the main road. Army soldiers are gathering in the towns, and occupy the strategic hilltops above it.

For the residents of Bunagana, it is time to pack up the belongings once again. I was first here a month ago, a few days after clashes between the FARDC and army defectors. Then, according to residents, the battle lasted a few hours, during which the town had emptied into Uganda until things settled down.

The displacement this time seems to be somewhat more enduring and involving populations from neighbouring areas. There has been no fighting in Bunagana in the recent clashes, but the M23 rebels now occupy Runyiony, just a few miles from the border town.

Movement into Uganda ebbs and flows; some coming through the official border crossing, but many through the adjacent bush. Yet people continue to cross back into Congo, carrying the ubiquitous yellow jerry cans to fetch water — “there is no water for them there [in Uganda]” said a border official. And trucks continue to traverse the border from Uganda, ferrying goods through this important supply line. They were trundling over the border shortly after a reported airstrike on an M23 position.

The situation is far from clear.

A new wave of displaced in Congo Julien Paluku, the Governor of...

Tue, 08 May 2012 16:27:00 -0400

A new wave of displaced in Congo

Julien Paluku, the Governor of D. R. Congo’s North Kivu province, has been touring the Masisi region yesterday and today, to reassure local populations on the security of their towns. Yesterday in Kuraba and Mushaki, today in Kitshanga, he told people “I would like to fight so that everyone can return home and get back to school”. That fight was brought with a strong contingent of Congolese army, including a truck full of commandos, and heavily armed police, protecting the governor and his delegation.

But whilst Mr. Paluku addressed a large crowd in Kitshanga today, several hours west of Goma, thousands were fleeing the area around Kibumba on the road leading north from Goma towards Rutshuru. Those fleeing Kibumba told me that at around nine o’clock the previous evening, the CNDP had arrived in their town. “They started shooting around midnight” said eighteen year old Bahat Buguru, describing the moment the clashes with the Congolese army started. At seven the following morning, Mr. Buguru and his family started the long walk towards Goma, arriving at Kibati on the provincial capital’s outskirts, eight hours later. “It’s serious”, he says.

By six o’clock this evening, the local administration had registered some six hundred families at a small school in Kibati, and said that they still had many more to log. As dusk fell, people were still arriving in Kibati, with many more still on the road from Kabumba. In the dark on the road to Goma, a trickle of people were headed for the Rwandan border.

The ceasefire between the FARDC and army defectors is due to expire tomorrow, but these clashes appear to have already broken that. Defectors have formed under the banner of the M23 movement, a nod to the date of the 2009 agreement between the government and the CNDP; the infamous Bosco Ntaganda is no longer their head.

In the meantime, a new wave of displaced Congolese will add themselves to over 1.4 million in the Kivus, and some 2 million country-wide.

The Kibumba displaced in Kibati were appealing for help - they have no food, and said that they can’t get to anywhere to obtain it. As gunshots were heard in Goma tonight, the conflict that displaced them sounds far from over.

Congolese Refugees in Rwanda A week ago, this camp was all but...

Sat, 05 May 2012 20:00:00 -0400

Congolese Refugees in Rwanda

A week ago, this camp was all but empty. A transit centre for Rwandans returning from years of being refugees in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, around 450 Rwandans passed through here each month. But since April 28th, the Nkamira transit camp, 15km from Rwanda’s border town of Gisenyi, is now overflowing with more than 5000 Congolese refugees. With clashes between the Congolese army and mutinying soldiers, the UN estimates that around 20,000 people have been displaced.

Straton Kamanzi, the manager of the centre nestled into Rwanda’s hills, said this morning that “there is not enough space for everyone”, as tents and make-shift shelters are assembled on the grass outside his office. “On Tuesday, we expected 5000 refugees would arrive here. But we’ve already passed that, and we could have a lot more.” For those that arrived the previous evening, room could not be found, and so they slept outside in the bitterly cold night. “We hope that we’ll have shelter for them tonight, but for those that arrive today, I don’t think so.”

The refugees here all tell tales of war, of attacks going on around their villages in Massisi district of Congo’s restive North Kivu province. News reports are focusing on the whereabouts of Bosco Ntaganda, a general in the Congolese army indicted by the International Criminal Court. He is held responsible for the defecting soldiers, and is now wanted by the Congolese state as well as the ICC; but he denies any involvement in the mutiny.

Everyone in the camp knows his name, but they are far from unanimous on his involvement in the clashes that have forced them from their homes. Many were fleeing due to looting and lawlessness that has erupted since the conflict.

But now, their more pressing needs are shelter. The Rwandan authorities here, as well as UNHCR, are erecting structures as fast they can, but this is not a refugee camp, and if the problems of North Kivu continue, a more permanent solution will need to be found for the swelling numbers of Congolese.

On Hornets and Health In the Congolese village of Kiliwa, along...

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 16:00:00 -0500

On Hornets and Health

In the Congolese village of Kiliwa, along the dusty road leading from Dungu, a lone healthcare outpost stands, scarred by fighting, with memories of the Congolese civil war, and of attacks by the Lord’s Resistance Army. To get here, one passes a Congolese army checkpoint. The driver remembers when, a year ago, two soldiers were killed here during an attack by the LRA.

Etched into crumbling walls is graffiti, mixing both supplications to God and images of AK-47s, with a red sort of honey oozing out of holes, left by the hornets that buzz around what constitute the wards.

Much of the local population has left Kiliwa, having fled the area due to attacks by the LRA. And for those that remain, there is a feeling that they have been forgotten. Chronic underdevelopment coupled with near-continuous conflict has degraded the state of health centres in most parts of Haut & Bas Uélé, says an NGO working in the area. “Most clinics lack essential equipments and majority of the health professionals are not properly trained.”

When working with NGOs in the region, one often sees the “successes”: the mosquito nets being handed out, immunisations being injected into the arms of young babies, free, primary health care. But here in Kiliwa, one has a brief glimpse of what it is like away from the fleets of white Land-Cruisers.

A nurse, alcohol on his breath, pricks the finger of an elderly lady to test for malaria. In the opposite room, a lady lies on a stained, bare mattress, a dressing on her leg from an infection brought on following treatment in the centre.

A sense of a people forgotten, or ignored, by their government. The ones who stayed behind.

Soon, the Land-Cruisers will be coming, to provide free health care to “the vulnerable”, and to train health professionals. But that can only ever be a short-term fix. It will help some, but the authorities running the country need to remember who they work for.

LRA Displaced A young boy stands with a panga, used for...

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 15:00:00 -0500

LRA Displaced

A young boy stands with a panga, used for chopping small trees for firewood and making homes, in the Nanzawa camp for internally displaced persons on the outskirts of Dungu in D. R. Congo’s Orientale Province.

Lord’s Resistance Army rebels, led by Joseph Kony, have been attacking civilian populations in Haut and Bas Uélé districts since 2008, resulting in the displacement of over 300,000 people, according to an international NGO working in the region.

I was surprised by the amount of iconography of Aung San Suu Kyi...

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 11:00:00 -0500

I was surprised by the amount of iconography of Aung San Suu Kyi that one could find on the street-side in Myanmar. I knew she was out from her house arrest, and could run for the up-coming elections, but didn’t expect the freedom of expression to result in pictures of her on many street-corners. Here, a portrait of her hangs in a gallery standing in the market named after her father, Bogyoke Aung San, a hero of independence.

No longer jaded Soe Soe walked up to me and just started...

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:00:00 -0500

No longer jaded

Soe Soe walked up to me and just started chatting, idling alongside me on his tri-shaw, the Burmese bicycle rickshaws. His English was good and he seemed amiable, so I hired his services for the day. I wanted to cover more distance than I could by walking, but without whizzing past everything by motorbike and not appreciating Mandalay’s busy streets.

He turned out to be the perfect guide to the city, having dabbled in and experienced many of the defining moments of changes in the country. He had returned to Myanmar from Thailand just a three months ago, having fled because of problems with his military service.

As a teenager, he had worked in the city’s jade market—where he insisted on taking me—buying rocks of the unpolished gems, and then with a friend, selling them in China where the buying prices were higher.

As we walked around the market, boys stuffed jade into sections of bamboo, grinding them on grind-stones, and then polishing them on bamboo. The rock and the wood seemed intertwined.

“One day”, he told me, “my friend didn’t come back from China”. He had disappeared over the border with Soe-Soe’s share of the profits, and left him without the money to buy more jade.

So he became a broker in the market, putting sellers in touch with buyers, and earning a small commission. But newly married, he needed a more regular income, so took to peddling a tri-shaw.

“At first, I didn’t understand why some people earned a lot of money” he tells me, observing other drivers who earned several times what he did. “And then I realised why.” Smiling, he revealed the secret: “because they spoke English”.

The Colonial language used to be well spoken in Burma, but banned by the military junta, the youth did not learn it in school. Soe-Soe picked up enough to begin with, and then, with increasing numbers of foreign customers—English being the regional lingua franca—he practiced and improved. His desire to learn was putting him ahead of many native speakers I know. “Could you explain to me the difference between ‘to borrow’ and ‘to lend’?” he asked me as we cycled along.

Whilst in Thailand, Soe Soe had worked as a porter, a waiter, a teacher, and a library manager, working his way up the employment ladder.

“Why did you come back?” I asked. “It’s my home. Three months ago I heard that things had improved, so I came back to see”. His family are still in Thailand, “to see what happens” he says, adding stoically that if something happened to him, his wife could still take care of their children.

He holds out hope for the upcoming elections, saying many people believe in them. “Three years ago, it was a vote by the bullet”. “We all want Aung San Suu Kyi” and feels confident that she will win.

As we walk around, he tells me another story. It wasn’t until the end that I realised that it was a joke, his dead-pan humour evident when delivering the punch-line with a huge grin.

A Thai friend asked me one day “why is the first thing you Burmese do in Thailand is find a dentist?”, so I told him: “to get our teeth fixed.”
“Don’t you have dentists in Myanmar?”, he continued.
“Sure we have dentists, lots of them”
“So are they no good?” he asked, searching for the reason.
“No, we have very good dentists in Myanmar.”
“So are they very expensive?” he persisted.
“No, not at all. They are cheaper than here” I told him.
“So why do you wait until you come to Thailand to get your teeth fixed?” he asked, very confused.
“Because in Myanmar, we cannot open our mouths freely!”

Ghost train to Mandalay It’s not the first time...

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 10:00:00 -0500

Ghost train to Mandalay

It’s not the first time I’ve entitled a post with one of Paul Theroux’s books or chapters, nor is it the first time I’ve followed in his tracks. In August of 2008, I traveled from Paris to Tehran by train, and a few months later was given the book of the original *Ghost Train to the Eastern Star * journey - The Great Railway Bazaar, chronicling Theroux’s similar journey of which I had just completed a small leg. Then, when I read it, so much of what he described seemed exactly as I had experienced, thirty years on.

I don’t have my copy of Railway Bazaar with me, so can’t compare his 1970s trip from Yangon (then Rangoon) to Mandalay. But not much has changed since he repeated his trip in 2006.

I noticed that the ticket-seller was looking at the wrong day when he said “no space” for the following evening’s night-train to Mandalay. When I pointed it out to him, “you, very lucky” came the reply. There was not only seats, but for $3 extra, the option to take a bed in a couchette, rather than the reclining seats of “Upper Class”.

At the station the next evening, the train was bathed in the orange glow of the late afternoon soon. Yangon’s station seems like a pretty quiet affair, with no shops or the usual outlets catering to those about to embark on a fifteen hour journey. Once in the train, though, all that changes. Children run alongside the other side of the train, sandwiched in-between the carriages and a wire fence, selling snacks, water, and most importantly for any long-distance, over-night journey, beer.

As the decrepit carriages of the train pulled out, the stations got smaller as the city became distant, and soon we were drifting through vast stretches of seemingly untouched countryside. Every now and then, bamboo houses on bamboo stilts rose out of the wet grassland around paddy fields.

Night drew in, and in the blackness outside ghostly shadows emerged from the fields, returning to their homes. The silhouette of an old, bamboo watchtower stood out from a woody thicket.

The influx of more pedlars announced our arrival at a pitch black station; a man with a shortwave radio, hissing in the dark, illuminated by the grilled light from the carriage.

Later, the only sign of another darkened town was the silhouetted rooftops, illuminated by a glowing, golden stupa. The Buddhist shrines seemingly the only buildings to receive artificial light in these villages.

Laying on my bunk, I bounced up and down as the train rattled along the tracks; a near feeling of sea-sickness brought back memories of a boat to a Thai island two weeks previously. These tracks were old, and badly maintained.

It was time to brave the restaurant car. Theroux had written of not risking “the fried rice being jogged and swilled in a blackened wok by the churning wooden paddle of the chef in his sweat-soaked undershirt, a cigarette dangling from his lips” and “the plates being dunked in the sludgy water of the washbasin”. The scene was no different - was this indeed the same chef, the same, stained, undershirt? Perhaps. But the rice and noodles that came out of that blackened wok were good.

My arm rest against the side of the plate as I stuck a fork into a plate of noodles. My other hand gripped a bottle of Myanmar beer. If one let go for a second, the rocking carriage would whip the meal out of the window and onto the sides of the tracks. Behind me, a man sucked on a cigarette in the near darkness.

An unfortunate policeman had seemingly been seconded to our carriage due to the presence of foreigners on the train; not many come this way it seems - all the hotels recommend taking the bus to Mandalay - it is faster and cheaper. He appeared as I sat down to eat.

His English was about as strong as my Burmese, but with the help of the waiter (who himself had less than a nominal grasp of the former colonial language) I understood what he wanted. It wasn’t tickets, and it wasn’t a spare seat (as I had first believed), but it was the security of the foreigner - and that of his bags. Having waved around copies of the train manifest showing my reservation, he disappeared off towards the now empty couchette - one of only five or six in the only sleeping coach on the train.

After a couple more wine-bottle sized Myanmars, it was time for bed, and as I stepped through the doorway of the carriage, I find him horizontal, sleeping diagonal across the floor in the corridor. He opened up the stubborn door to the couchette, pointed towards the sheets laying in a pile on one of the four beds, and motioned to lay them out, lock the door and go to sleep. These last two instructions repeated a second time to ensure there was no confusion. The sooner I lay down my head to rest, the sooner he can too.

Come morning, the paddy fields were dotted with water buffalo, mist rising off the sodden green as the sun crept up into the sky.

Three hours after the stated arrival time, the train pulled into Mandalay’s station, and the tri-shaw drivers waited outside to whip away the drowsy passengers in their bicycle side-cars.

Shwedagon Pagoda, Myanmar.

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 21:00:00 -0500

2col:

Shwedagon Pagoda, Myanmar.

A year on, a year older Today I turned thirty. I spent most of...

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 17:00:00 -0500

A year on, a year older

Today I turned thirty. I spent most of it wandering the streets of central Bangkok. A new decade, a new part of the world for me.

The day of my previous birthday, I was pulling into Juba—the soon-to-be-independent capital of South Sudan—on the bus from Kampala.

Juba to Bangkok. Of what I saw today, the two cities couldn’t be more different. Only the lean-to houses lining a railway track resembled something similar.

A year ago, I was expecting a struggle to begin a career in the world of the news photographer. A year later, I had lived that struggle through some of the biggest stories of 2011: South Sudan’s referendum and subsequent independence; the war in Libya; drought in the Horn of Africa, seen from Kenya and Somalia; and finishing up with the elections in DR Congo.

Now, I can’t help but wonder what I’m doing here, a world away from all that. It’s become hard to take a holiday.

I was taking the “cheap” route to Thailand from...

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 23:00:00 -0500

I was taking the “cheap” route to Thailand from Kenya, leaving on New Year’s Day, with more than a little hangover and sleep deprivation.

Nairobi - Dubai - Hong Kong - Bangkok. Two days of traveling, four airports, three planes, and a world of difference.

Hong Kong International. “No sitting” said the sign on the travelator. I was ready to drop. This was first time I had been so far east, and was eager to explore what was the other side of the glass. The round hills rising up. The harbour. But that would have to wait for another trip.

Only a third of the city of Goma has access to running water....

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 17:00:00 -0500

Only a third of the city of Goma has access to running water. The remaining two-thirds of the city rely on private water trucks selling water, or, for the majority, walking to the shores of Lake Kivu to fill jerry-cans. Right next to where these people collect their water, cars and motorcycles are washed in the lake water, the oily run-off draining back into the lake. Not far from here, the boats chug in and out of the port, leaving residue in the water.

In the cross-fire Elizabeth* sits next to her two year old...

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:00:00 -0500

In the cross-fire

Elizabeth* sits next to her two year old daughter in the Bethesda hospital in Goma. Elizabeth was collecting firewood in the forest surrounding her home last April, when she was caught between two armed groups; a stray bullet hit her in the leg. She scrambled through the forest to the place where she had left her one-month old baby. For the past eight months, Elizabeth has been in this hospital, while her leg heals. She will never be able to walk properly again, and worries about the future of her children.

* Name changed

At a transit centre in Goma, children formally associated with...

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 16:00:00 -0500

At a transit centre in Goma, children formally associated with armed groups play football during recreation time.

Children arrive here following demobilisation from armed groups, giving them basic schooling until they can either rejoin their families or be placed with host families in Goma. The International Committee of the Red Cross help these children trace their family, acting as mediators to try and negotiate their return home.

An ex-child soldier arrives at Goma airport on an International...

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 13:00:00 -0500

An ex-child soldier arrives at Goma airport on an International Committee of the Red Cross aeroplane following his demobilisation.

UDPS Protest For Fabien Mutomb, provincial vice-president of...

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 13:00:00 -0500

UDPS Protest

For Fabien Mutomb, provincial vice-president of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS - Union pour la Democratie et le Progrès Sociale), the morning started in Lubumbashi’s courthouse, pressing charges with the district prosecutor against the closure of the UDPS provincial headquarters in Lubumbashi. Their offices—like, ostensibly, other party offices in the city centre, although rather more forcibly, and strictly, than others—have been closed for over a week on the orders of Katanga’s governor.

The core members of the party then marched in protest through neighbouring streets, against this closure, and against their allegations of “fraud and cheating” in the November 28th elections, where incumbent president Joseph Kabila had been recently named the winner.

It wasn’t long before the police and army intervened, stopping the group of party heads. When faced with the army, the group sat down in the road. This would be a peaceful protest, and had decided to limit it to just the party heads to prevent things from getting out of hand.

Soldiers surrounded them, with Mr. Mutomb on the wrong end of a soldier’s boot as he refused to get up. For several minutes, the group lay in the road leading to the central square where the statue of Moise Tshombe stands, a reminder of Katanga’s independence.

The group was then raised, lined up, and marched towards the courthouse. By this point, a large group of people had gathered: some bystanders, others UDPS supporters, jeering the soldiers whenever they shoved one of the protestors. As the group was marched off, Mutomb raised his arms to calm the supporters; he seemed intent that this would not degenerate.

The narrow street leading to the courthouse was, by this point, lined with UDPS supporters, who flanked the column of protestors and soldiers. As they reached the end of the road, the protestors were suddenly released, under the orders of a police chief. Jubilation ensued, and Mutomb was raised onto his supporters’ shoulders and carried back up the road.

After a brief discussion with the police, and a speech to his followers, the crowd was dispersed and Mutomb led off to a car.

This would be my last day of covering events in Lubumbashi.

News coverage of DR Congo is focused on the clashes in Kinshasa,...

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 08:00:00 -0500

News coverage of DR Congo is focused on the clashes in Kinshasa, perhaps somewhat exaggerated. But reports from elsewhere in the country suggest a much calmer scene. Certainly in Lubumbashi, life is returning to normal following the announcement of Kabila’s win in the presidential elections.

Kabila wins Driving through the streets of Lubumbashi’s...

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 11:00:00 -0500

Kabila wins

Driving through the streets of Lubumbashi’s Kenya district, the radio announced Joseph Kabila the provisional winner of the Congo’s presidential elections. Immediately, people ran out into the street, celebrating.

Just minutes before, with people huddled around a television in a cramped hairdressing salon in the Katubua district, air was sucked through teeth as Tshesekedi was declared to have won just 7.07% of Katanga’s vote.

Katuba is home to many Kassaïns, strong supporters of Tshesekedi. But in the neighbouring Kenya district, it is the Katangais who live, and despite some disgruntlement by undelivered promises, were happy to see him win today.

In the city centre, people celebrated around the central square, clutching flags and umbrellas and posters of Kabila. A strong force of police and army watched.

Driving out to other districts of Lubumbashi, where Kabila reigned people were in the streets celebrating. In the pro-Tshesekedi neighbourhoods, things were quiet, people stood around on the roadside, their arms folded. Some feared that it could descend into violence, as had happened several weeks previously when Tshesekedi supporters clashed with Kabila supporters. But not today.