Corona Crisis, Nature Strikes Back, Coltan, Congo's Curse, Chapter 3
Aldabi
Alombong picked up the phone. ‘Oui,’ he said, ‘who is this?’
‘It
is your old mate Erik. How are you my brother? It‘s been a while. I only seem
to deal with your subordinates now that you are the big boss.’ I had sounded a
bit cynical but intended none.
‘Yes,
I am good. And yes, quite a while. We used to deal directly, but now my agents
and office staff do all the legwork.’
‘But
tell me, are you OK?’
‘I
am quite well. You know how it is here in conflict zone one. It is not getting any
better, but worse. Great to hear your voice. What can I do for you?’
I
told him that I was coming to town and wanted to set up a meeting or dinner
with him.
He
agreed, and we set up a date, place and time.
‘Looking
forward to seeing you again, old friend. We have to talk.’
‘True,
we should talk more, but since you’re in Geneva and only coming here occasionally,
it is difficult to keep up the relationship. You know how it goes; out of sight,
out of mind.’
‘I
know, I ‘m sorry, I got sloppy. you know, perhaps now we ‘re a bit older, we’ll
have other priorities rather than just work and business.’
‘Sorry,
I can’t talk right now, I ‘m quite busy at the moment, got to go, Erik. See you
next week. We’ll speak then!’
He
hung up and I looked at my phone for a few seconds, wondering what he was doing.
He had sounded a lot more distant than ever before. Something must have
happened there, in Africa. I just knew he was not his usual self, hearty,
spontaneous, even comical sometimes. His usual jokes were possibly just bygones.
I was eager to go and see him now, to understand. Yes, that was my task, I
needed to comprehend what was happening there. And that could only be achieved
by going there and seeing for myself.
The
usual office murmur took over. I knew I needed some time to think and decided
to go for a walk along the shores of Lake Geneva. It was almost noon, so I
would not be missed for a long lunch.
Reflecting
during a walk was always a way to deal with matters that needed in-depth
contemplation and this matter certainly was one. Although I had tried to hide
the memories somewhere deep down, because they were just too atrocious, they
came back to me without delay. Twenty-two years had passed since I came back
from Rwanda where I served with UNAMIR, the United Nations Assistance Mission
for Rwanda, protecting the Prime Minister of Rwanda, Madame Uwilingiyimana, as
a Belgian para commando. My dad was Belgian, my mother American. Although I was
born in the United States, I grew up in Antwerp and had joined the Belgian Army
at the age of nineteen. As I excelled both physically and mentally, I was
selected to be trained as a commando and eventually ended up in Africa where I
was involved in several bloody disputes and civil wars until I was chosen, with
others, to guard the Rwandan government as a UN Blue Helmet. My most vivid and
mentally disturbing memory was when the Belgians were accused of assassinating
the Rwandan President Juvénal
Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira, the President of Burundi. After their
airplane was shot down, the infamous RTLM*
radio station used by Interahamwe – which meant, those who attack together – started spreading the message that all
Belgians had better leave Rwanda immediately. An uncontrollable anger was the
result and led to the arrest of ten of my fellow Belgian colleagues who were
tortured to death. I had been able to survive. No, I have never told anyone outside
the army about these experiences. I did not mention my commando years on my CV
either. Pauline did not know; Didier and John did not know either. I preferred
it to be that way. On my CV, it said that I sailed on cargo ships for a couple
of years after high school and did my MBA in Rotterdam after that. No one asked
questions. No one had checked my past…yet. But living alone with such terrible
memories became harder every day. I had wanted to tell Pauline so many times,
but I just couldn’t. All she knew was that I somehow managed to establish
worthwhile contacts in Congo, Zambia and Rwanda as a trader, but in fact the deals
I was able to make were a kind of IOUs from the past that were repaid without too much trouble. But that trouble,
I felt, was starting to catch up with me, as, I’m afraid, everyone finds out
for himself one day. One cannot escape one’s past, not even I. I walked on and saw
one of the small ferry boats full of passengers sail to Pâquis on the other side of the lake.
The weather was quite good, fairly sunny,
but still a bit cool for the time of the year. Summer was approaching. I walked on and decided to turn
back to the office. There was still a
lot to be done before I was in the air.
More work, more orders to put on hold. The visas, both for Rwanda and for Congo, wouldn’t
be ready until Friday. I would be travelling
using my Belgian passport. Having parents from Belgium and US allowed me to
have two nationalities, so I held a Belgian and a US passport, which was
convenient and guaranteed me some kind of security during travels. My flight
was booked so I would arrive at my destination on Monday. I was going back to
where it had all begun. The approximate 800,000 killed Tutsi and moderate Hutus
were engraved in my brain. Ten of my best mates too, but what about the
millions of people who died in that area since colonial and neo-colonial
policies started to enforce control over vast natural resources? What about the
bloodshed of today? Innocent people caught in a permanent crossfire over
natural resources and territorial control? Nothing had improved. It was worse
than ever. And do you know what? Nobody seemed to care. The reason why Aldabi
and I were old friends and doing business together was that I helped his Tutsi
family to flee from the Interahamwe Hutu killers. That’s how they ended up in
Goma DRC. We, the Belgians, were the only army that assisted with the Tutsi
evacuation. The rest of the world, the US, the UN, did not intervene when they
could have, not even during the more than a hundred days when the atrocities
continued. The world turned a blind eye because their commercial and
geopolitical interests were deemed more important. They left everyone to die in
the streets. My job of protecting Madame Agathe Uwilingiymana became
impossible, so she too was assassinated to prevent her helping to reunite the
Rwandese people and stop her from encouraging Interahamwe to calm down and end
the massacre. The genocide was part of a larger political central planning, not
just concocted by the Rwandese Hutu but instigated by Western pressure. The
first killings were done by the Presidential Guards. About three months before
the start of the genocide, the UNAMIR Brigadier-General, Romeo Dallaire, sent a
fax to his superiors at the UN headquarters in New York about an informant who had
trained 1,700 Hutu men in military camps outside the capital. The 1,700 were
scattered in groups of 40 throughout Kigali. Since the UNAMIR mandate, he had
been ordered to register all Tutsi in Kigali; the informant suspected it was
for their extermination. An example he gave was that pre-planning estimations were
projected based on calculations that well-trained personnel would be able to
kill up to 1,000 Tutsi in 20 minutes. In fact, it meant that each member of a
group of 40 killers would be able to murder 25 people within 20 minutes. Such a
ferociously effective planning almost seemed Nazi inspired.
After
her death, a new government was formed consisting of the Hutu killing machines
or so-called Hutu Power who controlled the genocide, like Jean Kambanda who later
pleaded guilty to the International Criminal Tribune for Rwanda. In the end, it
all was about ideological and financial control, but way back, it had been historically
caused by the discrimination of the Hutu by the Tutsi minority which was
instigated by the Belgian rulers who had started the separatism between the two
cultures.
I
sighed deeply, remembering all this was kind of positive to ease the pain. At
least it came out of me, although I did not want to speak about it with anyone.
I kept it inside, but the reflection brought me some relief and the uneasy
feeling of that morning started to fade. Suddenly, I remembered that I hadn’t
eaten breakfast and felt quite hungry, so I walked into a McDonald’s and ate a
hamburger and French fries, which, by the way, were not even French but
Belgian.
It
was just after two o’clock when I sat down in front of my three screens and
decided to do some more research on the trading methods of the Chinese in
Africa, because my Colonel in the Belgian Army used to quote Horace: ‘Like a wise man in time of peace prepares for
war’.
Later
that afternoon, I called Pauline to see when she was expecting to be home. ‘Not
before seven, darling,’ she said. ‘We have this emergency meeting on the attack
on our hospital in Afghanistan. Some expert from Holland flew in today to do
the security briefing.’
‘Right,
I remember. Terrible.’
‘Yes,
but what is worse, we can’t take the perpetrators to court, they are protected
by impunity.’
‘I
know, it is time someone paid.’
‘Okay,
I ‘ll see you at home then, around eight.’
‘Love
you.’
‘Love
you, too.’
I
pushed the end call button and continued my work. I knew that the Chinese were
on an asset buying spree all over Africa. They were buying oil and mineral
producers, such as Addax petroleum, or mines such as the Djoubissi gold mine in
the Central African Republic. They were taking over shops, logistics facilities,
even building shoe factories or making deals with several not-too-ethical
governments to obtain access to natural resources. In Algiers, Chinese
contractors were building one of the largest mosques in Africa. One couldn’t
blame them. The only reason that the West had become wealthy was because of the
focus on interior policy of the Chinese for many years. The industrial and
societal implosion of the country due to Mao’s Long March and his ascent to
power resulted in communism and great poverty, killing millions of civilians
and soldiers who starved to death. It was only in the beginning of the ’90s that
China was discovered as a cheap labour provider for lazy and greedy
international corporations. Large corporations, searching for cheaper ways to
produce their products, first exhausted Japan and then South Korea, until their
labour costs went up too and they became
technologically advanced competitors. But what happens when you teach an ape
how to climb? China, almost overnight, copied Western scientific and
technological advantage and became a fierce competitor as well. That was not
intended, but blinded by overnight success, short-term profit incentives and
related bonuses, the West had given away its industrial superiority. The US and
Europe had exported manufacturing and now faced unemployment of millions of
people who just had earned the right to receive benefits. The results were
quite noticeable in Western countries and drove geo-political agendas. The only
reason the US and Europe still survived
was because of their ability to create dollars and euros out of thin air which
was stealthily disguised as quantitative easing. I saw right through the
scheme.
I
was now looking at a list of the top ten Chinese coltan buyers who I traded with,
at fifty to six hundred dollars per pound. We, Aldabi and I, had supplied
hundreds of tons the previous year, but now, as I was calculating, I noticed
that we were falling behind quite a bit. Our regular buyers had last ordered almost
a year ago, which had a negative effect
on our margins. Our prices had to go up because supply was interrupted on one
side, whilst on the other side, our usual buyers were starting to deal directly
with our suppliers, cutting out the middleman; us.
I
was wondering what happened to Aldabi. Did he turn sides, or had he been
persuaded or pressured? This was Africa; there were no rules, no conditions, no
trust nor confidence in anything. If you wanted to trade, you’d be relying on
many uncontrollable factors of which perpetual armed conflict was the principal
concern. After the Alombong family had fled from Rwanda and ended up in Congo,
they changed their names, and Aldabi’s dad had found work as a border patrol officer
working for Congo. But in fact, he was working for all sides because if he
hadn’t played that game, he wouldn’t have survived all that time. He taught
Aldabi the ropes of acting as a mediator between powerful people and parties,
and just siphoned the spoils with which he was able to build a decent life for
his family. Only later, after his dad died, and Aldabi’s dream to be selected
to play for an international football club did not come true, he decided to go
into business and build himself a distribution network worth millions. In fact,
he became a millionaire with important connections within the Congolese army
and the government, who were involved controlling the mining areas. But even
more importantly, he also became good friends with the old Interahamwe Hutu rebel
militants, who viciously exploited a large chunk of the mining activity after
having fled from but never returning to
Rwanda. It was his money and his connections that kept him alive. After fleeing
from Rwanda, these rebels set themselves up as mining protectors, in charge of
the coltan, cobalt and cassiterite
deposits, of course in cahoots with everyone else who had an interest in
financial gain. But they subjected local people as their property and had them
do the digging and transport from the mines to distribution centres, which were
now mostly owned and operated by Aldabi’s company with offices in Goma and Bukavu.
He never dared to reveal his identity or his background. That had to be kept
hidden somewhere deep. Maybe I was the only one, except for his mother, who
knew exactly what had happened. His sisters were born in Congo and so if they
were told that they were Congolese they would not have reason to doubt that.
One
thing was true: anyone involved in dealing, distributing, transporting and
ultimately using these minerals had blood on their hands, because millions had
paid their price in death and agony.
‘And
nobody cares,’ I whispered to myself, ‘nobody gives a damn.’
***
Aldabi
remembered his past vividly. His father’s portrait was given a prominent place
on his desk. His old man had been right. He did not survive for long after they
moved the coltan to a safe place. They found him slaughtered, using machetes – Interahamwe’s
favourite weapon of mass destruction. But he didn’t reveal what had happened to the product. They
had come to the house and shed but hadn’t found any trace of hidden minerals. Aldabi
had the place cleaned thoroughly. He had been quite young when Erik and a team
of UN soldiers managed to help his family escape from Rwandan or Hutu “butchers”
as the Interahamwe were often called. He owed his life to Erik. They had become
good friends. Erik was about ten years older. Aldabi was about twelve years old
in 1994. Now, more than twenty years later, voices from the past were starting
to catch up with them because circumstances had changed. The simplicity of
trading with Erik’s company directly could no longer be sustained because other
parties like the Chinese claimed their access, driven by companies like Motorola
or Apple that outsourced their manufacturing to China. Demand for cassiterite
and coltan skyrocketed. Suddenly, he was approached by sinister people working
for obscure trading firms based in Beijing or Hong Kong. They promised him
great wealth if he assisted them logistically. He reluctantly agreed to cooperate,
merely because the Congolese army officers insisted that they would only
provide continued protection if he would collaborate. Obviously, they had been
bribed from deeper pockets than he had. So he found himself between a rock and
a hard place. Erik was the one who helped him create a booming business as he
was the first one who directly bought the product he distributed. The first
load, the one stashed by his father in that shack, was purchased by Erik. He
felt he owed him his life and his business, but on the other hand, his father’s
words, “Survive any way you can,” kept popping up inside his head. He was
looking forward to seeing Erik after such a long time, so he called his favourite
restaurant to make a dinner reservation.
He
remembered that Erik loved to eat crocodile. In his mind, Erik was a guy that
fitted in anywhere, always able to adjust, adapt and overcome. Aldabi knew he
loved Africa, because he told him many times about his experiences being
stationed in Africa as a soldier. He knew him as a man who could never wash off
the African red dust, as he had become connected to this original earth, which
he considered to be the mother of everyone. That was a passion they both shared
intensely. He was the only one Erik was able to share his horrific memories
with, and vice versa. It was their bond.
***
Before
I went home, I called Didier. ‘Do you have a minute
for me?’ I asked.
‘Mmm,
can it wait? I’m really busy and in a meeting now until at least six o’clock.
After that, I ‘m expected at a function with the city mayor.’
‘In
that case, I ‘ll talk to you tomorrow morning. I’d like to go home now. Pauline
‘s expecting dinner when she gets home.’
‘Okay,
we’ll talk later. I have to hang up now.’
I
wanted to tell him what my plans were to solve the matter once and for all. But
in retrospect, I was somehow relieved that he didn’t have time for me, because
when I thought about this plan a bit longer, it truly sounded ludicrous, crazy
or worse. I’d better rethink or at least think it through more thoroughly. Deep
down inside, I knew that my strategy could and would work -exactly because it was
crazy. No one would expect such a manoeuvre, no one! ‘And that is exactly why
it will work,’ I mumbled, sitting in a tram back to the train station. I even
felt excited and could hardly wait for the remaining days to pass until I’d be
back in Congo. Yes, it had all started in Africa and therefore, finally, it was
time to end it.
Pauline
came home around eight-thirty that evening. I had prepared a light dinner of cod
with tartar sauce, green peas and white rice. She looked very tired. That
evening we spoke about the Congo conflict and watched two documentaries on the
subject on YouTube. We both agreed; the devastation, the bloodshed, the rapes
and killings were going on without interruption. No one stood up to try to stop
it. Europe, the US, China and everyone else demanded its share of the loot
without considering human life, non-human life, the environment or social
cohesion, which would be minimal conditions to achieve enduring peace. Without
regarding life a priority, man, beast and the environment would keep being
sacrificed for a number of diverse interests such a money, geopolitical power,
the supply of arms or stealing minerals from a sovereign nation, which obviously
Congo never had been. Congo had never stopped being a colony. It just changed
into a politically correct expression, a resource neo-colony. It had always
been the preferred place for robbers, thieves and murderers which commenced with
King Leopold II of Belgium, who initiated the trend of unscrupulous
exploitation a century ago. Leaders who
were against the looting were assassinated, whilst puppets like Mobutu reigned with
an iron fist to please his Western lords. Pauline had tears in her eyes from
watching a young girl explaining what had happened to her and I felt her pain
as if it was my own. The tears I felt when my mates were mutilated were small
pieces in a giant puzzle.
Around
ten o’clock, my phone rang. I whispered to Pauline that I was going to take the
call in my home office, so I walked in and closed the door. I was standing in
front of my desk, looking out of the window at a rainy night.
‘Bonsoir, it’s Didier.’
I
was kind of surprised that he was calling at that hour.
‘Sorry,
Erik, but after you called this afternoon, I was getting a bit curious. What
did you want to tell me?’
I
took a few seconds to answer. During the train trip home, I had anticipated
this question, but I did not tell him what I was planning and neither did I tell
Pauline. I just said, ‘This morning you asked me to solve the issues for
whatever price necessary, is that still your position?’
‘Yes,
certainly, why?’
‘Are
you prepared to give me carte blanche, I mean financially?’
‘Depends
on how much.’
‘How
much did we earn in the mineral trade last year?’ I asked.
‘I
don’t know, maybe about a hundred million or so, why?’
‘Well,
then I suppose you won’t mind using some of that money to grease some hands
left and right?’
‘How
much are you talking about?’
‘For
starters, ten million dollars, maybe more.’
‘Are
you crazy? Ten?’
‘Yes,
perhaps even more, but I won’t waste your money. It is only ten million. I have
seen paintings hanging in your hallway that are worth a lot more. So perhaps
you should see our African project as a work of art.’ I added ironically, ‘An
artistic investment, perhaps?’
He
did not laugh. He was a very serious man when it concerned money.
‘How
can I give you that money without me knowing what you ‘re going to do with it?’
Didier asked impatiently.
I
sighed. ‘Look, I just need to know that you trust me to go there and do my job.
I need this money to organise things in a certain manner. It’s best that you don’t know, because then
you can always deny knowledge, I mean, you can play dumb.’
A
pause followed. He heard him grind his brain. ‘Ten million? Cash?’
‘One
million dollars and one hundred thousand Euros in cash and the remainder in a
special, untraceable bank account, and a no limit credit card in my name would
be a good start.’
‘But,’
was all I heard, another pause followed. Didier was a smart man, smarter than
me; he made himself billions from being smarter than the rest. He intuitively
knew when not to ask questions, which was perhaps an even more important skill.
‘Very
well, you shall have what you asked for. Come by my office tomorrow morning and
I ‘ll ask my personal lawyer to set it up. This will be an agreement between you and me and
not between the firm and us, understood?’
‘Loud
and clear, sir. Thanks for your understanding. Goodnight.’
He
ended the conversation without returning the greeting. I heard “click”.
I
remembered an old saying reminding me that this talk was held twice; the first
and the last time.
I
went back to the living room where Pauline was yawning. ‘I don’t know what you ‘re
going to do, but I ‘m tired and want to go to bed. Perhaps I ‘ll read for a
while.’
‘Sure,
love, go and get ready, I’ll be right up too.’
I
kissed her on her cheek. She stood up from the couch and I caressed her back
when she passed in front of me. The TV was still on, but the sound was down. I
caught a glimpse of the weatherman, temperatures, rain clouds and parts of
sunshine. “Just like life,” I thought.
Just
before she left the living room, she turned around and said, ‘I do love you,
Erik, you are the love of my life. I worry about you, especially now I know
that you ‘re leaving for Africa soon. Please be careful.’
Before
I could reply, she had walked out, and I heard her climbing up the stairs. I
decided to sit for a little while longer and switched off the lights so I could
see the shades and lights of other buildings reflecting in the moonlight over
the black water of Lake Geneva. How quiet
this place is, I thought, how safe,
how nice, how secure… I decided to have one last drink before I made a
promise not to touch alcohol anymore until the end of my project. At the
kitchen sink, I poured a glass of Johnnie Walker Blue Label and added one ice
cube to cool it down a bit. I remembered well who had given me that bottle;
Aldabi.
I
lifted my glass and toasted him, us and the moon we shared. Me looking from the
north; him, looking from the equator. That moon was everybody’s, but not for
long, because some mind, some person, somewhere would eventually claim it for himself,
to exploit, ransack and scavenge, and eventually destroy it for power and
wealth, just like our planet Earth. Such was the state of modern man…
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