If

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

-- Rudyard Kipling

The aftermath

As I drove around town today, I kept having to shake the feeling that the shooting had all been a particularly vivid nightmare. Everything looks remarkably the same. With a few notable exceptions, there is so little destruction, it’s almost eerie. People said the same thing after the fighting in August, sparking speculation that soldiers on both sides had shot in the air.

The main difference with the August fighting, and proof that the fighting was real, is in the body count. The official verdict is 60 dead, but on Saturday the BBC was already claiming 150, and a police general told me today it was likely to be at least twice that. One of the most widely read Congolese newspapers, Le Potentiel, called Thursday and Friday the “craziest and most murderous days in [Kinshasa’s] history.”

The question now for many is how to interpret and respond to the events.

The government position is that Bemba committed treason in using the armed forces for his own ends, and they issued an arrest warrant for him on Friday. In an interview with Le Soir, Bemba denied plotting military action to overthrow the president and claimed he had been attacked. His supporters point to the fact that no effort has been made to disarm Ruberwa, another former Vice President with his own personal security force, as evidence that the last few days were a personal vendetta by Kabila against Bemba.

No one really knows for sure what sparked the actual fighting. Despite the increasingly explosive situation, both sides were still negotiating. Some say that, feeling encircled, Bemba ordered a pre-emptive attack. Others claim that Kabila was determined to rid himself of this problem once and for all and purposefully sent in the army to provoke Bemba’s guards.

MONUC issued a statement on Saturday reproduced by Extra Extra saying it “deeply regrets the fact that force was used in order to resolve a situation that could and should have been settled through dialogue,” and adding that “the Government will have to restore confidence in its judgement by the way in which it treats the defeated militia.”

Some diplomats take a tougher stance, believing these and the events in Matadi last February to be evidence that Kabila has no intention of allowing real political opposition. The EU certainly didn’t take kindly to the fact that the army shelled the BIAC building, which houses the Spanish and Greek Embassies and UNICEF.

For others yet, notably the French, this appears to be business as usual. The French Minister for Cooperation signed a €200 million partnership agreement with the Congolese government no later than Friday, in the midst of the fighting. I wonder how the French Parliament will react.
Bemba is now in the South African Embassy, we think, although I have also heard rumours that he had been moved to MONUC. His party, the MLC, is about to meet to analyse the situation and take a position. Some of its members have already fled. The party may choose to detach itself from its leader in an attempt to salvage its position in parliament.

And meanwhile, does anyone know where President Kabila is?

Close-up of the BIAC building from Dany Masson's blog

Good morning

9am, all okay. No soldiers came to visit us during the night. It turns out last night was pretty quiet on the looting front. Of course we still jumped at every noise outside, convinced that someone was prowling around.

After a few final bursts of heavy artillery near N’dolo Airport and the river at dawn, everything now seems to be over. The minivans and taxis are on the roads again, our landlady’s gardener came into work this morning, and the French Ambassador has given the green light for parents to go fetch their kids at the school where they have been stuck for 48 hours.

Meanwhile we have just received a phone call to confirm that the rescue convoy is on its way. The irony.

The snail reflex

For someone who claims she’s not really into this blogging business at all, I was remarkably pleased to find that Fred and I, along with a couple other addicted Kinshasa bloggers, made the headline on the Global Voices website.

Fred and I are now posting from the most inconspicuous room at the back of the house, behind locked doors and windows, curtains drawn, lights out, AC off (pretty hot, yes), ensconced in a single, stuffy room with our kettle, two sachets of powder soup, a couple of bottles of water, a bottle of champagne (style before reason) and our laptops. The aim of the game is to pretend we’re not home, lest our ‘friends’ who came a’knocking yesterday and took several thousand dollars’ worth of money and jewellery from our landlady and neighbours come back for more. This afternoon Fred spied FARDC soldiers helping themselves quite nonchalantly to some goodies across the street.

To be honest, there’s not much I would mind losing – my mother’s pendant, our Syrian carpet and the pictures on this laptop, basically. Even my wedding ring is replaceable – after all Fred lost his in the Bombolomeni rapids six months into our marriage. But I don’t particularly want to meet a Republican Guard or FARDC soldier face to face after dark, merci beaucoup.

Needless to say, the convoy never came. But I was relieved to hear about the 8pm curfew, and I like to think that MONUC APCs will be patrolling our area regularly throughout the night.

Some good pictures on the BBC site.

Final Act?

All is quiet. The last bursts of sporadic shooting are so distant that Fred optimistically questions whether they could be thunder. The first reports of friends escaping the office in which they spent the last 30 hours and making it home down the Boulevard have just come in. I am told the buildings still stand (except the Spanish Embassy); the main victims are the trees. Of course we don’t yet have any real idea of the body count.

The main concern now is looting. Meanwhile, we still await our elusive rescue convoy.