Dr Mario Zarza Manresa
Founding member of the Spanish NGO “Asociación Africanista Manuel Iradier”
Abducted on the Congo River for his body parts
(Credits)
Founding member of the Spanish NGO “Asociación Africanista Manuel Iradier”
Abducted on the Congo River for his body parts
(Credits)
In the morning of April 4, as many city residents were attending the Easter Sunday offices at various churches, six dozen men armed with machetes and AK47s attacked Mbandaka, the provincial capital of the Equateur Province. In the initial attack, a Ghanaian peacekeeper and a South African MONUC pilot contractor were killed. The airport, the residence of the governor and other government buildings were seized by the assailants. Fortunately, Governor Jean-Claude Baende was on a business trip in Kinshasa. By Monday April 5, the Congolese army, with the backing of MONUC peacekeepers, had regained control of the city. Mbandaka residents also took matters into their own hands, lynching and burning three insurgents they had captured.
In a press conference, Lambert Mende Omelanga, the Congolese information minister, beside acknowledging the utter failure of the civilian and army intelligence services (the forgotten area in the country’s ongoing reform of the security sector), said that by the time the city was completely pacified, the death toll stood at around 4 dozen deaths, including 3 MONUC peacekeepers.
He also identified the terrorists as members of the ethnic group Enyele who now call themselves “Armée Nzobo ya Lombo” (Army of Village Bandits) or “Mouvement de Libération Indépendante des Alliés” (Independent Liberation Movement of Allied). A history of the “mystical” insurrection of the Enyele fishermen and a timeline of the intertribal conflict in that area of the Equateur were recently presented by Jason Stearns on his blog Congo Siasa.
The most disquieting elements about the terrorist assault on Mbandaka were that the Enyele terrorists have now spilled onto the River Congo, the major highway of the DRC, thus endangering the economy of vast swaths of the country; and that a Caucasian Westerner was abducted for the sole purpose of harvesting his hair and, possibly other body parts, to manufacture warfare fetishes.
According to Lambert Mende Omalanga, before attacking Mbandaka, the Enyele had first seized a boat 50 km upstream; a boat that served them as transport to the targeted city.
And aboard that boat was Dr Mario Zarza Manresa, the founding member of the Spanish NGO “Asociación Africanista Manuel Iradier” based in Vitoria-Gasteiz in the Basque country of Spain, who, in the true tradition of the explorer Manuel Iradier, was traveling by boat from Kisangani to Kinshasa. (The organization “Asociación Africanista Manuel Iradier” has many of its projects in Equatorial Guinea and is named after Manuel Iradier [1854-1911], a Vitoria-Gasteiz native who was an explorer of that African country. Incidentally, the other founding member of the Spanish NGO is Álvaro Iradier, the great-grandson of the famous explorer.)
In a Saturday April 10 piece titled “Spaniard Seized By Congo Rebels Seeking War Fetishes,” Reuters reported:
Well, let’s hope that Dr Mario Zarza Manresa is still alive. In the Equateur Province, rebels have proven to be cannibals. During Africa’s World War, Jean-Pierre Bemba’s militiamen barbecued and ate pygmies to reinforce their being-at-war.
This turning of bullets into water is why they call some armed groups in eastern Congo “Mai-Mai”—“mai” or “maji” being water in Swahili.
There’s nothing new in the Congo about this belief in “dawa” (Swahili) or “nkisi” (Lingala), the jujus that are supposed to render fighters invulnerable to bullets.
In 1965, Ernesto "Che" Guevara went to eastern Congo with a small contingent of black Cubans to prop up the rebellion of the young Laurent Kabila.
Che Guevara was struck by a pervasive reliance on “dawa,” even among the Marxist revolutionary cadres of Laurent Kabila:
The return to superstition is quite epidemic nowadays, not only in the Congo, but also in Africa. Strangely, this “back-to-the-future” trend to festering sorcery and shamanism goes hand in hand with rabid Christian evangelicalism.
In 2008, Radio Okapi reported that there was mass “psychosis” in the Kivu provinces caused by the serial murders of IDPs by strangulation. The strangulation rope, called “Kabanga,” was “a very sought-after [commodity] that fetched very high prices” as it was used to make highly-potent jujus for money and protection. There were also reports of penis snatching in Kinshasa.
While in the Congo there is no documented hunt for albinos for the purpose of harvesting their body parts, the epilation ritual to which was subjected Dr Mario Zarza Manresa is a very disturbing development in a country where superstitions are manufactured and disseminated by the day. The disquieting interrogation is the following: what if a sorcerer decided one day that a strong juju to turn bullets into bullets water required body parts Caucasians? This wouldn’t be laughing matter for sure… especially as Dr Mario Zarza Manresa is still missing!
UPDATE: CONGOLESE ARMY RESCUES DR MARIO ZARZA MANRESA
"Our special forces have liberated the doctor and he is now safe in army hands. Our commandos are bringing back the Spanish doctor now," Colonel Leon Kasonga told Reuters [on Tuesday April 13], adding he was in good health.
In a press conference, Lambert Mende Omelanga, the Congolese information minister, beside acknowledging the utter failure of the civilian and army intelligence services (the forgotten area in the country’s ongoing reform of the security sector), said that by the time the city was completely pacified, the death toll stood at around 4 dozen deaths, including 3 MONUC peacekeepers.
He also identified the terrorists as members of the ethnic group Enyele who now call themselves “Armée Nzobo ya Lombo” (Army of Village Bandits) or “Mouvement de Libération Indépendante des Alliés” (Independent Liberation Movement of Allied). A history of the “mystical” insurrection of the Enyele fishermen and a timeline of the intertribal conflict in that area of the Equateur were recently presented by Jason Stearns on his blog Congo Siasa.
The most disquieting elements about the terrorist assault on Mbandaka were that the Enyele terrorists have now spilled onto the River Congo, the major highway of the DRC, thus endangering the economy of vast swaths of the country; and that a Caucasian Westerner was abducted for the sole purpose of harvesting his hair and, possibly other body parts, to manufacture warfare fetishes.
According to Lambert Mende Omalanga, before attacking Mbandaka, the Enyele had first seized a boat 50 km upstream; a boat that served them as transport to the targeted city.
And aboard that boat was Dr Mario Zarza Manresa, the founding member of the Spanish NGO “Asociación Africanista Manuel Iradier” based in Vitoria-Gasteiz in the Basque country of Spain, who, in the true tradition of the explorer Manuel Iradier, was traveling by boat from Kisangani to Kinshasa. (The organization “Asociación Africanista Manuel Iradier” has many of its projects in Equatorial Guinea and is named after Manuel Iradier [1854-1911], a Vitoria-Gasteiz native who was an explorer of that African country. Incidentally, the other founding member of the Spanish NGO is Álvaro Iradier, the great-grandson of the famous explorer.)
In a Saturday April 10 piece titled “Spaniard Seized By Congo Rebels Seeking War Fetishes,” Reuters reported:
“Congolese Information Minister said late Friday that Zarza Manresa had been "shaved completely by Ibrahim [Mangbama] (a rebel leader) who believes in magical fetishes made with hair and body hair of whites."
Gunmen from Congo's plethora of rebel and pro-government armed groups often adorn themselves with trinkets or traditional garments before heading into battle, in the belief that they will protect them from the bullets of the enemy.
Some believe wearing fetishes will turn bullets into water.”
Well, let’s hope that Dr Mario Zarza Manresa is still alive. In the Equateur Province, rebels have proven to be cannibals. During Africa’s World War, Jean-Pierre Bemba’s militiamen barbecued and ate pygmies to reinforce their being-at-war.
This turning of bullets into water is why they call some armed groups in eastern Congo “Mai-Mai”—“mai” or “maji” being water in Swahili.
There’s nothing new in the Congo about this belief in “dawa” (Swahili) or “nkisi” (Lingala), the jujus that are supposed to render fighters invulnerable to bullets.
In 1965, Ernesto "Che" Guevara went to eastern Congo with a small contingent of black Cubans to prop up the rebellion of the young Laurent Kabila.
Che Guevara was struck by a pervasive reliance on “dawa,” even among the Marxist revolutionary cadres of Laurent Kabila:
“This dawa, which did quite a lot of damage to military preparations, operates according to the following principle. A liquid in which herb juices and other magical substances has been dissolved is thrown over the fighter, and certain occult signs—nearly always including a coal mark on the forehead—are administered to him. This protects him against all kinds of weapons (although the enemy too relies on magic), but he must not lay hands on anything that does not belong to him, or touch a woman, or feel fear, on pain of losing protection. The answer to any transgression is very simple: a dead man = a man who took fright, stole or slept with a woman; a man wounded = a man who was afraid. Since fear accompanies wartime operations, fighters found it quite natural to attribute wound to faintheartedness—that is, to lack of belief. And the dead do not speak; all three faults can be ascribed to them.
The belief is so strong that no one goes into battle without having the dawa performed. I was constantly afraid that this superstition would rebound against us, that we would be blamed for any military disaster involving many deaths. I tried several times to have a talk about the dawa with someone in a position of responsibility, so that an effort could be started to win people away from it—but it was impossible. The dawa is treated as an article of faith. The most politically advanced say that it is natural, material force, and that they, as dialectical materialists, recognize its power and the secrets held by the medicine men of the jungle (Ernesto “Che” Guevara, The African Dream: The Diaries of the Revolutionary War in the Congo, pp.14-15).Laughable superstition of the Congolese Marxist revolutionaries of the 1960s for sure, though there’s one aspect of their dawa that could have been much appreciated today in the rape fields of eastern Congo: the taboo against sleeping with women!
The return to superstition is quite epidemic nowadays, not only in the Congo, but also in Africa. Strangely, this “back-to-the-future” trend to festering sorcery and shamanism goes hand in hand with rabid Christian evangelicalism.
In 2008, Radio Okapi reported that there was mass “psychosis” in the Kivu provinces caused by the serial murders of IDPs by strangulation. The strangulation rope, called “Kabanga,” was “a very sought-after [commodity] that fetched very high prices” as it was used to make highly-potent jujus for money and protection. There were also reports of penis snatching in Kinshasa.
While in the Congo there is no documented hunt for albinos for the purpose of harvesting their body parts, the epilation ritual to which was subjected Dr Mario Zarza Manresa is a very disturbing development in a country where superstitions are manufactured and disseminated by the day. The disquieting interrogation is the following: what if a sorcerer decided one day that a strong juju to turn bullets into bullets water required body parts Caucasians? This wouldn’t be laughing matter for sure… especially as Dr Mario Zarza Manresa is still missing!
UPDATE: CONGOLESE ARMY RESCUES DR MARIO ZARZA MANRESA
"Our special forces have liberated the doctor and he is now safe in army hands. Our commandos are bringing back the Spanish doctor now," Colonel Leon Kasonga told Reuters [on Tuesday April 13], adding he was in good health.
1 comments:
Dear Alex,
congratulations for your blog post (and for you blog generally!)- I have used bits of this last entry , together with Congo Siasa's entry on the same topic to write about Spanish media and their coverage of news in DRC (http://onafrica.maneno.org/esp/articles/hlr1271269709/).
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