African News Roundup: Trial of two Congolese warlords opens at the International Criminal Court (The Hague); and Zulu King sued over bull-killing thanksgiving ritual of Ukweshwama (South Africa)

1. Trial of two Congolese tribal warlords opens at the International Criminal Court (The Hague):

The trial of Germain Katanga, 31, and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, 39—two of the most heinous warlords in the DRC—opened this Tuesday November 24 at the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague, in the Netherlands. In his opening statement, the Argentine ICC Chief Prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo went through a narrative that detailed one incident in the string of horrendous war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the pair. The horrific incident took place on February 24, 2003 in the village of Bogoro, in the Ituri region of northern Congo.


According to Luis Moreno-Ocampo:

“The attack on Bogoro was carried out in successive waves of violence. At around 5.30 in the morning, hundreds of men, women and children, under the command of Katanga and Ngudjolo, armed with automatic weapons, machetes and spears, descended on the village centre.”

After killing more than 200 civilians, “Commanders were congratulated by their troops for a job well done. One witness will say, and I quote: 'The officers were set up there. They had put some chairs. They were drinking beer and then got drunk. And they were even congratulating the commander who had led the operation.'”

And:

“The next day, captured civilians were forced at gunpoint to lure out other community members who were hiding in the bushes. When they appeared, these survivors were brutally executed.

The joint attack achieved its goal. But horror was not over yet for the women of Bogoro. Once captured, some women hid their Hema [tribal] identity to save their lives. Those later revealed as Hema were killed, the others were raped and forced into marriage as combatants’ 'wives' or detained to serve as sexual slaves by Katanga or Ngudjolo’s soldiers. All these women were victimized on the basis of their gender: they were attacked in particular because they were women.”

People in the Ituri hope that at the end of this trial this pair of criminals will be put away for the remainder of their miserable lives. There is another Congolese warlord in jail at The Hague who is awaiting trial next year for crimes perpetrated in the Central African Republic (CAR) that also involved mass rapes: former Congolese transitional vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba. Another Congolese war criminal being sought by the ICC continues to elude Chief Prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo as he is being protected by the Congolese government: General Jean-Bosco Ntaganda, erstwhile associate of Laurent Nkunda.

UPDATE (November 25): The ICC finally posted today the English version of the excerpt of the Opening Statement by ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo:

Opening statement ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo/English
by aengw

2. Zulu King sued over bull-killing thanksgiving ritual of Ukweshwama (South Africa):

Zulu virgins at the Umkhosi Womhalanga, the Royal Reed Dance

Last year, Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini decided that henceforth virgins at the Umkhosi Womhalanga, the Royal Reed Dance, had to cover up because some “‘perverted’ Europeans keep taking pictures of their bare bottoms.” According to the Zulu monarch, “There are times when maidens have to sing and dance and we end up seeing certain private parts that we’re not supposed to see.” This tradition is “carried out to pay homage to the king, who chooses his wives from among the dancers.” King Goodwill Zwelithini is a polygamist who has a modest harem comprising five wives—a tiny harem for sure, that pales in comparison to that of his brother-in-law (brother of his third wife), King Mswati III, the absolute monarch of the landlocked Kingdom of Swaziland, who boasts 14 wives (this being an “incomplete list,” according to his Wikipedia entry), most of whom chosen during the Umhalanga, the Swazi equivalent of the Zulu Royal Reed Dance.

If King Zwelithini could change at will a centuries-old tradition, animal rights activists in South Africa and around the world (including PETA) don’t understand why the good king doesn’t stop the barbaric bull-killing ritual of Ukweshwama.

In a letter released on Thursday November 5 and addressed to South African President Jacob Zuma asking him to end the Ukweshwama, Indian animal rights activist Maneka Gandhi (PETA/Asia) pleads: ““Tradition is not an excuse for cruelty, and many societies have ended or are working to end 'traditional' practices -- such as slavery, cannibalism, infanticide, female circumcision, foot-binding, bullfighting and fox hunting -- that cause animals or humans to suffer.”

The South African Animal Rights Africa (ARA), having “exhausted all other remedies to meet with and discuss the issue with the parties concerned,” went this Tuesday November 24 to the High Court in Pietermaritzburg in a bid to stop the “cruel Ukweshwama ritual, which is due to take place on the 5th December in Nongoma, KwaZulu-Natal, during the First Fruits Festival.”

The court adjourned till Tuesday “December 1 to allow [King] Zwelithini and other respondents to file their papers” though some “want to make sure that this matter is resolved amicably” through negotiations.

ARA claims that,

“The Ukweshwama ritual does nothing to strengthen nation building, social cohesion or peace. During this cruel ritual a group of men torture and kill a bull with their bare hands. The bull suffers tremendously. According to an eyewitness description of the killing, ‘For 40 minutes, dozens trampled the bellowing, groaning bull, wrenched its head around by the horns to try to break its neck, pulled its tongue out, stuffed sand in its mouth and even tried to tie its penis in a knot. Gleaming with sweat, they raised their arms in triumph and sang when the bull finally succumbed.’”

Amazingly there are people in South Africa who have accused ARA of "cultural intolerance" and even "racial chauvinism" for its assault on the Ukweshwama.

A few years back, I heard some similar rationale made by Native-Americans to dismiss those opposing ritual or commercial whaling as "eco-colonialism." 


ARA seems, however, unimpressed by these accusations and demands nothing short of dramatic cultural change:

"According to Ndela Ntshangase, an expert in African religious practices,Ukweshwama is performed to ensure that the Zulu nation has a strong army to defend the king's subjects. South Africa is not at war. There is no Zulu army only one national military force: all South Africans - Zulus and non-Zulus alike - are protected by the SANDF [South African National Defence Force] and the SAPS [South African Police Service], (the Zulu king himself is protected by VIP Bodyguards provided by the national government) via tax-payers money, and they have other, more legitimate ways, overseen by legislation, regulation and policy of ensuring that they are competent and effective."

Young Zulus at the annual Ukweshwama ritual

Fatwa by Talib Thomas J. Tobin of Rhode Island

A “recovering Catholic,” I’m amazed at times by the stupidity and obscurantism of a religion I once held as mine and for which I even dreamed, as a teen, to serve as a priest! Thank God that calling was just an adolescent’s whim quickly dissipated by my good education in… catholic schools—for which I’ll be forever grateful to the Roman Catholic Church, though I’m not thankful for the whippings I got more often than not on Mondays during school year, due to my serial non-attendance of Sunday mass…

Otherwise, I'd have been hard pressed today to justify to my own conscience what Pope Benedict said in March of this year before his trip to Africa: “HIV/Aids is a tragedy that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which can even increase the problem.” Or what just transpired in Rhode Island where a Monsignor is breaking the law of the land with total impunity…

Congressman Patrick Kennedy just revealed in a phone interview with the Providence Journal that Rhode Island Catholic Bishop Thomas J. Tobin “instructed me not to take Communion and said that he has instructed the diocesan priests not to give me Communion.” This fatwa was issued by the Monsignor because of the “positions… taken” by Kennedy as a “public official.” In fact, the only position Kennedy has taken to so infuriate the mullah of Rhode Island is abortion rights for women, which happen to be a law in the U.S. With the prevailing political hypocrisy in the U.S., someone has yet to tell this Catholic Taliban (or “talib,” to be grammatically correct) that his fatwa could be construed as criminal blackmail of a public official. Or to remind this bigot of JFK’s Address to Protestant Ministers of September 12, 1960:

“I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.
I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish; where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source; where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials; and where religious liberty is so indivisible that an act against one church is treated as an act against all.”

This being said, I’m baffled by the childish need of Congressman Kennedy to take communion on Sundays. Does this mean he still goes to confession (confession being the prerequisite for communion)? How stupid… And, BTW, with the H1N1 pandemic, wouldn’t it be rational to suspend the sacrament of the Eucharist altogether out of public health concerns?

African News Roundup: Xenophobic attacks (South Africa) and Ethnic cleansing (DRC)

1. Xenophobic Attacks against Zimbabwean Workers in South Africa:

A South African farmer talks to his Zimbabwean workers at the makeshift safety camp on a rugby field in De Dooms

Photo: David Harrison/Mail and Guardian

“We just want to work,” a Zimbabwean man told reporters in a municipal rugby field in South Africa where more than 3,000 farm workers are now living in tents after been driven out by black South Africans “from their homes in the Western Cape's De Doorns informal settlements.” Locals blame these Zimbabwean farm workers for “working for less than minimum wage on the wine farms that line the N1 in the lush Hex River Valley. But farmers, who arrived in vans to take their employees to safety, insisted this was not the case -- and their workers appeared to agree.” Zimbabweans blame instead South Africans for laziness.

Last year, similar xenophobic attacks against Sub-Saharan migrants flared up in South African slums.

2. Ethnic Cleansing in the northwestern DRC: Enyele tribesmen on rampage:

Monzaya refugees in Congo-Brazzaville

Photo: B.B. Diallo/UNHCR

According to Congolese authorities, in the night of October 29 to October 30, Enyele tribesmen gathered around their suspended chief, Edo Bokoto, and their shaman, Udjani, who told them they had to go to a fish pond for rituals to increase fish yield. After the ritual, the Enyeles then headed to the town of Dongo where they went “from house to house, pillaging, raping and killing mostly Monzaya civilians in Dongo and surrounding villages, which are now virtually empty.” Though the conflict started as “a dispute over farming and fishing rights,” attacks by Enyele tribesmen quickly spread against traders and other ethnic groups in Dongo, prompting authorities to call this conflict a full-blown “ethnic cleansing.”

Forty police officers were killed in the initial clashes alongside 100 Dongo inhabitants, some of whom drowned in the Ubangi River as they swam across into the neighboring Congo-Brazzaville, which has now to deal with tens of thousands of refugees from the DRC.

“Today we have 30,600 displaced persons. We have had a massive influx since yesterday [19 November] because of a resumption in fighting,” said Rufin Mafouta, head of the NGO Médecins d’Afrique in Impfondo, the main town in the Congo-Brazzaville northern Likouala department.

Congolese politicians being fiendish war profiteers, one Ambroise Lobala Mokobe has emerged as the self-proclaimed “spokesperson of patriots-resisters” and this buffoon claims to be sending his communiqué from Dongo where, strangely, according to the U.N. and local authorities, streets are empty and littered with rotting corpses. How could he have access to the internet in a village that has none? This stunt could have been laughable had it not been the scope of human tragedy on the ground.

French Légion d’honneur awarded to Dr Denis Mukwege, the Angel of Bukavu

Ms Rama Yade, then French Secretary of State for Human Rights (currently, for Sports), touring Panzi Hospital with Dr Denis Mukwege

Monday June 8, 2008

(Credits)

Pierre Jacquemot, French ambassador to the DRC, “gave Monday [November 16, 2009] the insignias of the French legion d’honneur to Dr Denis Mukwege, expert surgeon in fistula repair surgery in the Province of Southern Kivu.”

Dr Denis Mukwege, gynecologist and obstetrician surgeon, is the last line of defense of women victims of sexual terrorism he shelters and treats at Panzi Hospital, in Bukavu, the very city where he was born in 1955. This dedication and this commitment had earned him the moniker of “Angel of Bukavu.”


Mentioned for two consecutive years as a candidate for the Nobel Prize, Dr Mukwege is the laureate of the Olof Palme Prize, of the African of the Year by the Nigerian media group Daily Trust, and of the UN Human Rights Award—all awarded in 2008.

Ambassador Jacquemot “also signed on Monday, at the request of the Secretary for Sports Rama Yade, a financing convention of €100,000 for the equipment of Panzi Hospital.”

Rama Yade, then French Secretary of State for Human Rights, toured on Monday June 8, 2008 the Panzi Hospital where she was shocked by the extent of atrocities perpetrated against women, that strengthened her determination to find financings for the hospital that also trains doctors and nurses.

Trained in Burundi, France, and Ethiopia, Dr Mukwege is one of the world’s leading experts in fistula repair surgery.

Dr Denis Mukwege with CNN Anderson Cooper:

[download]

Watch CBS News Videos Online

No tears for the Butcher of Kisangani: Obituary of Ugandan General James Kazini

General James Bananukye Kazini aka Afande-Kazini

(Credits)

Last Friday the 13th, General James Bananukye Kazini aka Afande-Kazini, 51, former commander-in-chief of the Uganda People’s Defence Force (UPDF) fired in 2003, was buried in his home village of Ssasa. General Kazini was out of prison while his appeal was still pending for a 3-year sentence he got last year for defrauding the Ugandan treasury of millions of dollars in salaries of “ghost soldiers” who only existed on the pay lists he and his associates had concocted.

The instances of corruption and embezzlement of General Kazini knew no bounds, even crippling his country’s army in the process:

“[While in the Congo in 1996] General Kazini admitted that he had only 6,000 men under his command and not 10,000, as shown in his books. When the auditor general James Kahooza produced a report on UPDF finances it read like a catalogue of horrors: a $1.5 swindle in military equipment customs clearance in Dar-es-Salaam harbor; $1 million vanished from a ‘special account” opened by Brigadier Kazini; two Mi-24 combat helicopters bought in Belarus for $1.5 million apiece that could never fly; over 30 percent of the T-54 tanks bought in Bulgaria that could not run (Gérard Prunier, Africa’s World War, p. 197).

Despite these thieveries, this known swindler kept on being promoted by President Museveni, up to being appointed UPDF commander-in-chief, a position he used to continue with his Congo cons of “ghost soldiers”—though he was already a multimillionaire.

And in spite of this dishonorable stain, General Kazini was laid to rest with full military honors and in the presence of delegations of high-ranking military officers from Rwanda and the Congo. But according to Prunier, General Kazini was by no means an outlier in this army of swindlers: “UDPF officers had found ways of quickly enriching themselves in the Congo that were not unique but rather were part of the multifaceted swindle operations the Ugandan army staff had deftly developed” (Africa’s World War, p. 197).

What was most appalling about this war-hero funeral was the presence of the military delegation of the DRC. In Uganda, General Kazini was given the moniker of “the Lion of Ruwenzori” for crushing the Muslim-inspired insurgency of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) that operated in the Ruwenzori mountain range straddling Uganda and Congo. But the nickname General Kazini got when he and his troops left the Congo was that of the “Butcher of Kisangani” for him and of “rapists” for them (same labels for their Rwandan counterparts)…

During the Rwandan and Ugandan occupation of the Congo, General Kazini was President Museveni’s “proconsul” (Africa’s World War, p. 230). It’s therefore clear that in the Congo, both occupying forces used army units as racketeering outfits to engage in various criminal activities—involving the plunder of natural resources, for which they were singled out in the 2001 UN Report of the Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a “mass-scale looting” reminiscent of medieval wars of sieges and pillages. According to Prunier, the only difference between the two pillaging armies was that “the Rwandese officers were under a strong obligation to surrender a share of their gains to the Ministry of Defense, which had a special Congo Desk to deal with such matters, not so in Uganda, where the loot remained in the private hands of perhaps up to two hundred well-connected officers, their civilian friends, and their families. As the darling of the IMF, Uganda lived up to its entrepreneurial reputation” (Africa’s World War, p. 198).

No wonder then that General Kazini died a very wealthy man who leaves behind a multimillion-dollar estate that includes the luxurious Kasese Hotel in the area of the Ruwenzori mountain range.

But the two occupying armies were bound to come at loggerheads in the diamond-hub of the city of Kisangani they had divided into separate and competing turfs. After small skirmishes in 1999 and May 2000, the confrontation between the two armies happened for six consecutive days, starting June 5, in what has since been dubbed by Kisangani residents as “The Six-day War of the Destruction of Kisangani.”


Contemporaneous reports of those six days chronicle horrifying “clashes that began on Monday [June 5, 2000] with the two occupying armies destroying a city they both claim to be liberating”:

"They are committing a genocide against the city," said Lieutenant-Colonel Danilo Paiva, force commander for an unarmed, 20-man UN military team based here. "They are destroying the city and they must be held responsible for their actions."

"There's no military purpose to it," Paiva said as Ugandan shells whistled over the city cathedral compound sheltering the UN headquarters and around 60 civilians, including some wounded.

"This war could be fought in the jungle. The soldiers are very safe in their trenches. The ones who are dying are the civilian population," Paiva said.

According to Prunier, “The battle lasted for a full week and killed about 120 soldiers on both sides, with an estimated 640 Congolese civilian deaths and 1,668 wounded” (Africa’s World War, p. 242).

In the end, the UPDF units under the command of General Kazini were soundly defeated by the Rwandans and fled the city, leaving behind tens of rotting corpses of young Ugandan soldiers scattered in the streets of a city largely destroyed…

And yet, the obituaries of Ugandan newspapers of this mass-murderer were all full of praise for the deceased. Topping my list of those obituaries is the one penned by Joshua Kato and Hellen Mukiibi of the state-owned New Vision:

“He enjoyed smoking and preferred the Rex brand manufactured in Uganda. Guinness beer was his bedfellow.

The soft-spoken officer loved live band music and was a regular at Club Obligatto, former base of Afrigo Jazz Band. He owned a brass band called Umoja (unity), which had its home in Nateete, a city suburb. He liked dancing to Congolese Lingala music. Whenever he visited a bar, patrons had their ‘full’ on his account.”

So, this killer of Congolese civilians “liked dancing to Congolese Lingala music.” How cool!... Too bad that while this mass murderer was in the Congo, the Soukouss music held no charms to soothe his savage breast.

BTW, Joshua Kato and Hellen Mukiibi forgot to mention that this brute didn’t dance alone to Congolese music. Kazini had 18 wives and concubines spread across the African continent: Uganda, Nigeria (where he was in training after being fired in 2003) and in the Congo.

On Saturday March 1, 2008, one of Kazini’s concubines, Winnie Kente, went out to a nightclub till the wee hours of the morning, thinking the general wouldn’t show up at her place that night. But Kazini did show up and was seen frantically looking for his lover all over Kampala. On Sunday, when told that Kazini had been looking for her all night long, Winnie Kente knew she was in big trouble and, fearing for her life, went to seek shelter at the clinic of Dr. Robert Kagado, a courageous neighbor of the general. Tipped of the whereabouts of Winnie Kente, Kazini showed up at the clinic where he savagely pistol-whipped Dr. Kagado. Confronted by reporters about the incident, Kazini told them: “Winnie is mine and I suspected that there could have been some foul play when the doctor told her to hide in his clinic.”

This past Monday night—November 9, 2009—Kazini went bar-hopping with yet another concubine, 28-year-old Lydia Atim Draru aka Munene [the chubby one], a former sex worker he’d taken fancy to and whom, “early this year,” he summarily and “customarily married […] during a function in Arua where he reportedly gave her father six cows. She became his second wife after Phoebe [Birungi], with whom he has five children.” Edris Kiggundu who filed this report for The Observer didn’t seem to have his facts straight: Kazini was also married to Mary Eupheniya Katushabe.

Paul Mugabi and Rodney Muhumuza of The Daily Monitor report that, “At the bar where they had been drinking [Monday night], according to a source who was there, Gen. Kazini had been ridiculing the woman, at some point referring to her cries as ‘the sniveling of a prostitute.’”

Things seem to have spiraled out of control from that point on. And by the time the couple arrived at Lydia Draru’s residence at around 5 a.m., “noises were first heard emanating from the house and after that, Kazini was heard calling for help. After carrying out the horrendous act, a confused Draru reportedly ran out of the house, shouting: ‘I have killed him, I have killed him.’” When cops arrived on the scene, Lydia Draru “confessed having hit [Kazini] with an iron bar during a scuffle at her residence. His body was found lying in a pool of blood with multiple cuts on the head” and Lydia Draru claimed it was in “self-defense” that she hit him.

Crime scene, with body and murder weapon

Photo: Joseph Kiggundu/Daily Monitor

(Credits)

In 1956, South African women demonstrated against the extension of apartheid pass laws to black women with the slogan “When you strike a woman, you strike a rock.” Ms. Lydia Draru seemed to have appropriated that slogan in the early hours of last Tuesday and spun it in a literal way as, “You hit a woman, she hits you with an iron bar.” 

It’d sound too cliché if I were to add, “What goes around comes around.” I don’t believe in retributions, though I'm against impunity. But people in Kisangani, who pray in tongues, believe in Biblical retributions. Even they would exclaim, upon learning about the uncanny and early demise of the butcher and rapist of Kisangani: “May God bless his soul… for the Lord of Hosts said: ‘Avenge not yourselves, beloved, but give place unto the wrath of God: for it is written, Vengeance belongeth unto me; I will recompense, saith the Lord.’” While stating this, they’d also hold Lydia Atim Draru aka Munene as a hero, the very hand of the Lord. And they won’t shed a tear for the butcher of Kisangani. But they'd say ardent prayers for Miss Lydia Atim Draru aka Munene...

Lydia Atim Draru aka Munene in handcuffs on the bed of a police pickup

A hero in the Congo

Photo: Joseph Kiggundu/Daily Monitor

(Credits)

Barly Baruti: HIV/AIDS prevention with graphic novels

Page 17 of Barly Baruti's project on HIV/AIDS prevention graphic novel

(From his Facebook page)

The prolific Congolese graphic novelist Barly Baruti was twice featured this year in Algiers. First in July at the 2nd Panafrican Cultural Festival as a musician (he’s also a guitarist, songwriter and singer of soukouss) and in October at the 2nd Algiers International Comics Festival (FIBDA), which by and large is a Francophone affair, though this year American cartoonists Daryl Cagle and Jan Eliot also participated as jury members.

I don’t like this English word “comics,” as it somehow tends to conflate with children’s books what in Francophone culture has literary standing of its own and is even universally called the “9th art”—after painting, sculpture/installation, theater, architecture, music, dance, literature, and cinema/TV/video/etc).

Anyway, putting on hold for a while his action-packed political thrillers (see below image), Barly is working these days on a graphic novel project on HIV/AIDS prevention whose action is set in the city of Kisangani. Barly is really committed to this fight against HIV/AIDS. And this project will be his third on the subject. He’d previously published two graphic novels on HIV/AIDS prevention: 1) Tchounkoussouma (2004), used in public campaigns in the West-African country of Niger, and 2) Linga Kasi Keba (Lingala language = Love but watch out), used the same year in the DRC.

Eva K-Tome 2 (1997)--a 3-part political thriller by Barly Baruti

(Credits)

I chatted with Barly on Google on Monday afternoon. And I told him about my misgivings about the whole concept of HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns in Africa and in the DRC. What do these campaigns realistically accomplish? Nothing! The price of one condom in Kinshasa is equivalent to that of a meal. And the price of two packs of three condoms could feed a family for three days.

In a documentary I recently watched about sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers in the Congo, the Canadian detective sergeant Julie Filteau of Lévis Police in Quebec, who participated in the investigation, voiced a novel idea: she thinks that prostitution in the DRC should be put in the category of sexual abuse as sexual workers are all in the streets to get money in order to buy something to eat.

And I’m only talking about urban centers. In the countryside, where there are enough agricultural products, the problem is different. There are no condoms. The jungle has reclaimed most of the roads. And when hawkers from cities get to remote areas in the countryside by motorcycles, bicycles and on foot, condoms are not on their lists of priorities, but basic necessities like salt, sugar, batteries, cigarettes (unfortunately), soaps, etc. Even if condoms were available, none of these villagers would waste hard-earned money to buy them.

The prospect for HIV/AIDS prevention is thus bleak in the DRC. And my comment to the graphic novel project amounted to cold shower for Barly who, ever the optimist, brushed aside my misgivings and exclaimed: “What do you suggest? That we just give up?”

Barly Baruti on a recent trip to Brussels

(From his Facebook page)

Caught between murderous rebels, two volcanoes and a Killer Lake of Evil Wind

November 2008: IDPs against the backdrop of Nyiragongo Volcano

Photo: Walter Astrada/Getty Images

This Thursday November 5, Josh Kron of The New Times filed from Goma, DRC, an article ominously titled “Goma Journal: Deadly Gas Flow Add to a Lake’s List of Perils.”

Kron writes:

“The city of Goma and the surrounding area of eastern Congo hold many dangers, including armed rebellions, famine and volcanic explosions.

But there is another, more mysterious threat as well: large reservoirs of methane and carbon dioxide lying deep beneath Lake Kivu’s surface and along its shores. While the gases can be tapped for energy, they can also kill.

[…]

The eruption of Mount Nyiragongo near the lake’s northern shore in 2002 stimulated new interest in the gas fields beneath Lake Kivu’s surface: 392 billion cubic yards of carbon dioxide and 78 billion cubic yards of methane slowly building toward a saturation point, or potential release. It could take centuries, scientists say, but some experts argue that another eruption of Mount Nyiragongo or nearby Mount Nyamulagira — Africa’s most active volcano — could set off a devastating gas release.”

Lava rushing into Lake Kivu during the 2002 eruption of the Nyiragongo

Photo: J. Naegelen/Reuters/Scampix

The article also mentions such a catastrophic gas explosion that occurred on a much smaller scale on Lake Nyos in Cameroon in 1986, killing 1,700 people in villages on the shores of the lake; an event, if duplicated on Lake Kivu, could be far more devastating as this lake “is many hundreds of times bigger, and scientists say the amount of gases trapped underwater is larger.”

But “invisible bubble[s] of carbon dioxide, known as a mazuku, or ‘evil wind’ in Swahili” are already killing unsuspecting swimmers and people nearby: “the mazukus are a chilling and constant reminder of the power within the earth… [N]early 100 people […] die each year from the carbon dioxide vents along Lake Kivu’s northern shore. Stories of people feeling breathless and lightheaded when swimming in the lake are common, which could contribute to the many drownings there. In the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide in 1994, many died from mazukus that sent clouds of gas into jam-packed refugee camps along the lake.”

Scientists have posited that extracting the methane from the lake would prevent such catastrophe. And when Rwanda opened the bids for mining the dissolved methane in Lake Kivu and building a methane-powered plant for electricity, at least 60 companies stampeded to get contracts—with the American ContourGlobal securing the initial $325 million for the project in partnership with Rwanda and other multinationals.

So far so good…although some in the Congo objected to the fact that the DRC was sidelined in this deal, with belated promises from Rwanda and these multinationals when Kigali and Kinshasa finally made peace recently. But the most urgent thing right now is removing this menace and preserving the surrounding forest, as fuelwood is the only source of energy in the area. The gruesome execution-style killing of a family of mountain gorillas in the Virunga National Park in the Congo in 2007 was carried out by a mafia of “charcoal burners” that threatens that area with deforestation.

Pilot extraction of methane has begun on the Rwandan side of the lake and a power-plant that produces electricity from the extracted methane is already online.

But a recent article in NewScientist reports that “a group of biochemists warns that if unregulated extraction continues unabated [in the Lake Kivu], it could trigger a catastrophic outgassing of carbon dioxide - another dissolved gas abundant in the lake's depths,” causing a 300-fold Lake Nycos-like catastrophe.

A crime against humanity in the making, according to one of these scientists, as “up to 2 million people could be in the path of lethal outgassing from Lake Kivu” (see map of Danger Zone):

“Perhaps the most dangerous practice is pumping waste water into the lake's shallows. ‘If degassed water is dumped at the surface, it sinks, mixing water and salts between the lake's layers,’ says George Kling, an expert on the Lake Nyos disaster at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor […] Enough mixing would disrupt the density stratification of the lake, and could bring huge volumes of CO2-rich water to the surface. The pressure reduction would cause the CO2 to bubble out of solution. Instead, waste water must be re-injected where it came from, [a] report recommends, at a depth greater than 270 metres.

Unfortunately, there's an economic incentive for companies to pump waste water into the shallows, says Finn Hirslund of COWI, a Danish environmental and engineering consultancy. This nutrient-rich water triggers algal blooms that then die and sink, helping to form even more methane. ‘If companies mess around with the lake's density structures and accidentally trigger an entirely avoidable and deadly gas outburst, it will be a crime against humanity,’ he says.

Contrast this chilling warning with the spiel Philip Morkel, who participated in the feasibility project of methane extraction in the Lake Kivu, gave in South Africa last year where it’s only question of “resource,” “recovery mechanism,” “efficiency,” and “capital cost” (video below).

The plight seems boundless for the people in the Kivu provinces, who are thus caught between murderous rebels, two volcanoes and a killer lake of evil wind.