Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa

Several thoughts come to mind when reflecting on Jason K. Stearns' epic Dancing In The Glory of Monsters, The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa, but "dancing" doesn't figure into any of those thoughts, and monsters are writ large, center stage. And make no mistake; we're talking fiendishly horrific monsters, almost inhuman, as if drawn from a dictionary definition: "Anything horrible from...wickedness, cruelty or commission of extraordinary or horrible crimes; a vile creature..." So the reader should be advised, some of the stories are very disturbing.Indeed, Mr. Stearns paints a gut-wrenching portrait of a nation and region ravaged by colonial meddling, venal and brutish politician/military leaders, and centuries old ethic strife all culminating in "many wars in one" beginning in 1996 in Congo (the former Zaire) and including active participation of neighbors Rwanda and Uganda just to name a couple. In terms of geography, Congo straddles the equator and is the size of Western Europe, or slightly less than one fourth the size of the United States. According to the CIA World Fact Book, the literacy rate is 67% and the mortality rate a surprisingly "high" 54 years for men, and 57 for women; given the slaughter since 1996, my guess would have been a much lower number.The Congo Wars were largely a by-product of the epic 1994 genocide in Rwanda where in the space of 100 days an estimated 800,000 Rwandans (primarily Tutsis and moderate Hutus) were killed. The killing was "organized by the elite but executed by people." Stearns says, "...between 175,000 and 210,000 people took part in the butchery, using machetes, nail-studded clubs, hoes, and axes." The killing was done in public and almost no one was untouched either as "a perpetrator, a victim or witness." For internal political reasons, this resulted in over one million Hutu refugees/rebels fleeing over the border from Rwanda to Zaire. A massive tug-of-war across the border began with the ailing Zairian president Mobutu Sese Seku providing support to the rebels, and eventually a ten-year struggle within Zaire proper of both the Rwandan civil war and wars to control what became in 1997, Congo.Dancing With Monsters is divided into three parts. Part 1 ended with the collapse of Mobutu's government in May 1997. Following a brief respite in the fighting, Congo's new president Laurent Kabila "fell out with his Rwanda and Ugandan allies" resulting in the second Congo war in August 1998 which "lasted until a peace deal reunified the country in 2003." But the fighting in the eastern part of the country continues to this day and is considered the third Congo war.Stearns tells the Congo story based on first person interviews with both perpetrators and victims of extraordinary atrocities, although he focuses more on the perpetrators who "oscillate between these categories." A perpetrator one day becomes tomorrows victim and vice versa. Stearns has worked the better part of 10 years in the Congo, and is to be commended for the raw physical courage necessary to live, much less interview many of the "monsters" in his revealing book.Interestingly, Stearns chose to focus on a system "that brought the principal actors to power, limited the choices they could make, and produced chaos and suffering." That "system" is in a word, a mess. The chaos and suffering are of a kind with no contextual parallel in the modern Western experience. Stearns attempts to provide a context in an excellent introduction that offers insight into the violence, which more often than not, appears maddeningly senseless and consistently brutal. The culture of the region appears to be one where everyone is on the take, where everyone is corrupt simply to survive. To quote one of Stearns' sources: ""If you don't bribe a bit and play to people's prejudices, someone else who does will replace you." He winked and added, "Even you, if you were thrown into this system you would do the same. Or sink."" This tone of resignation and an "ends justifies the means" justification permeates the attitudes of the political/military types Stearns interviews; in fact this philosophy colors a good portion of the book, and therein points to a large part of the systemic problem. A quote attributed to another monster, Stalin kept coming to mind: "You can't make an omelet, without breaking a few eggs."From this attitude of resignation, my guess is that perhaps the "system" Stearns has documented is the extreme end result of Che Guevara-style of Soviet Marxist totalitarianism. Guevara himself spent 1965 fighting in the Congo but concluded, "they weren't ready for revolution." The Congolese may not have been ready for revolution, but it appears they bought the philosophy hook, line and sinker. This mentality reminded me of a passage from another book of horrors, The Whisperers, by Orlando Figes, where he writes: "she had subordinated her own personality and powers of reason to the collective." The subordination of reason is pandemic in Congo; a place where mostly ethnically based discrimination and killing is conducted without so much as an apology. Many of Stearns' political/military leaders spoke of "democracy," but in my reading I did not get the sense this was anything more than a rhetorical fig leaf to remain in the good graces of the UN and the West, for there has been little in the behaviors of these leaders to suggest a level of seriousness and understanding as to what democracy means; political accountability comes to mind. Meanwhile, the killing continues.Speaking of democracy, a good portion of the West was and continues to be indifferent to the Congo and the wars. Stearns points out, "the response, as so often in the region, was to throw money at the humanitarian crisis but not to address the political causes." This sounds accurate. Stearns believes the West should do more, comparing the response to Kosovo in 1999, where "NATO sent 50,000 troops...to Kosovo, a country one-fifth the size of South Kivu"(part of Congo). Many of those interviewed by Stearns agree, but with a twist. In the concluding chapter, Stearns quotes a Rwandan political advisor offering what he called a "typical view" of the US from the region:"When the United States was attacked on September 11, 2001, you decided to strike back against Afghanistan for harboring the people who carried out the attack. Many innocent civilians died as a result of U.S. military operations. Is that unfortunate? Of course. But how many Americans regret invading Afghanistan? Very few."Many Americans regret the extent of our operations in Afghanistan, more with each passing day. In my opinion, this seems to be offering an all-too-typical moral equivalence argument; since innocents die in American wars, our slaughter of innocents is justified. Stearns correctly follows this quote with extension of the Rwandan official's line of thought:"This point of view does not allow for moral nuance. Once we have established that the genocidaires are in the Congo, any means will justify the ends of getting rid of them, even if those means are not strictly related to getting rid of genocidaires."This official's argument is as dangerous as the wars he and his neighbors have endured. In delegitimizing any moral nuance his prescription is amoral, or worse, claims an exclusive role defining morality thereby justifying a continuation of the slaughter. I don't have a solution, but this prescription will yield only more of the same. Political accountability doesn't pass the buck, or hide behind a general truth that tragedies occur, but rather learns from mistakes made and steadfastly strives to avoid further bloodshed.In conclusion, I would offer one bit of advice to those who read this important book: use Google Earth or a good atlas; the book has maps, but the maps aren't sufficient to the level of detail provided in the book. This is a minor nit, but one that can be enhanced through an external source.Stearns concluded on a note of optimism and confidence in the Congolese people, whom he calls extremely resilient and energetic peoples. One could conclude nothing less from this excellent and truly frightening recounting of their story. Highly recommended.

Of the too many hellholes on this planet, perhaps the worst is the Congo. Starting in the sixteenth century it became the center for the European and Arab harvesting of slaves. Not only were millions of Africans hauled away as slaves, the slave trade devastated what previously had been a relatively stable system of government. Then, beginning in the late nineteenth century, the Congo was ravaged by colonialism, led by the monstrous King Leopold II of Belgium. Millions of severed hands; millions of unnatural deaths. When colonial territories in Africa became untenable, Belgium abandoned the Congo in 1960, leaving it without any meaningful political traditions or infrastructure. Military dictators filled the void. They became the new "monsters" of the Congo.The first was Mobutu, who ruled from 1965 to 1997. He was succeeded by Laurent Kabila (1997 to 2001), who was succeeded by his son Joseph Kabila (2001 to the present). The title of this book comes from Laurent Kabila, who once berated the Congolese for supporting Mobutu: "We saw you all dancing in the glory of the monster." But Kabila père et fils did not reverse the model of big-man politician presiding over a corrupt state so ineffective and inefficient that it scarcely warrants the status of "state". Meanwhile, from 1996 to 2013 the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) was the scene of savage wars in which well over five million people were killed, most of them civilians.Compounding the tragedy of the Congo is that we in the West know little about it and seem to care even less. DANCING IN THE GLORY OF MONSTERS helps fill the gap. From 2001 to 2009 Jason K. Stearns worked in the Congo as a journalist and analyst, including a stint with the United Nations peacekeeping force. In DANCING IN THE GLORY OF MONSTERS, published in 2011, he provides an account of the seemingly endless wars and the hellish mayhem of the modern-day Congo. It probably is the best book in English on the subject.Considered simplistically, the Congo Wars were triggered by the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. When the incumbent Hutu regime crumbled, over a million Hutu fled across the border into the DRC (then named Zaire), along with the soldiers and militiamen who had carried out the massacres. In 1996, they were attacked by vengeful Rwandan forces, accompanied by Ugandan soldiers. These events became the flashpoint for various pre-existing ethnic and tribal antagonisms to erupt. Angola intervened. Mobutu was overthrown. Political objectives gradually gave way to economic ones -- raiding the rich natural resources of the eastern Congo.Ultimately, however, the mayhem in the Congo defies simple, straightforward explanation. Stearns summarizes the complexity in the following way: "Like layers of an onion, the Congo war contains wars within wars. There was not one Congo war, or even two, but at least forty or fifty different, interlocking wars. Local conflicts fed into regional and international conflicts and vice versa. Teasing out origins can be a tail-chasing exercise."And the natives suffered . . . horrifically. The book recounts numerous stomach-turning atrocities. Here is just one of them, involving soldiers seeking to punish a local chief who they mistakenly thought had lied to them: "At least fourteen people were in the chief's house when the soldiers arrived. The rebels killed all of them. * * * [T]he chief's pregnant wife [was] eviscerated, her dead fetus on the ground next to her. The infants of the chief's younger brother had been beaten to death against the brick walls of the house. * * * [T]he chief's heart had been cut out and his wife's genitals were gone. The soldiers had taken them. * * * They disemboweled one woman by cutting her open between her anus and vagina, then propped up the body on all fours and left her with her buttocks facing upwards. Another corpse was given two slits on either side of his belly, where his hands were inserted." In this instance, the perpetrators were Congolese rebels supported by Rwandan army forces, but similar atrocities were committed by seemingly every faction involved in the wars.Stearns's prognosis for the Congo is not a rosy one: "It will take generations to rebuild institutions or social organizations that can challenge the current predatory state without resorting to ethnicity."It is a tortuous history, with many strands snaking and twisting around one another. Telling the story in an organized, coherent fashion would have been a very daunting challenge. Stearns was not quite up to that challenge. For one thing, the book is too journalistic; it sometimes resembles a series of separate dispatches strung together. Points or facts are occasionally repeated, seemingly without recognition that they had been made previously. There are too many details, too many quotes from the author's extensive interviews. There is not enough structure and analysis. When I first tried reading the book five years ago, it was too difficult for me to follow and persist. Now, after a more concerted effort, I am glad I finally read it.

Dancing in the Glory of Monsters is an exceptionally well written set of accounts of the actions in and around the Congo Wars. This is not a history of the wars themselves but a series of expertly interwoven narratives charting some of the actions of the people involved. It is the story of politicians, perpetrators, and victims. The logic and reasoning behind some of the myriad different actors in the Wars is touched on and offers a great introduction to understanding Africa's World War.The book rightly starts at the genesis of the Wars - the Rwanda massacres of Tutsis by Hutus. Strange that so much suffering in Congo can have been caused by this bout of outrageous violence in small, neighbouring Rwanda. Jason Stearns takes an holistic view, not just looking at the actions within Congo but the motivations of those around. Of course Rwanda is the most important because it was the Government of Paul Kagame who toppled Mobutu Sese Seko.The thinking behind the Rwandan intervention is fascinating. Impressive to see such access to some of those in the inner circle that Kagame put together. Of course the Rwandans made a terrible mistake in installing Laurent Kabila and there is not really enough here to explain how come they made that error. Kabila does not seem to be such an obvious leader that the Rwandans had to choose him given the comments of those who were around him in the early going.The capability of the Rwandan forces compared to the impoverished Congolese ones is well laid out. The depredations of Mobutu and his systematic dismantling of the Congolese forces is described as the ultimate cause of their futility. It was only foreign intervention that held the Rwandans in check at all.The international element is not fully explored. There is description of the Angolan and Zimbabwean intervention gains some coverage but this is not really their story. It is mostly the story of the Congolese themselves and in many cases the proxies used by others for purposes both moral and self-interested.Some of the savagery carried out in the DRC was utterly heartbreaking. Stearns tells some of those stories like the worshippers burned in a church or villagers being wiped out. The tales told by survivors are devastating to read and there is a lot of human tragedy in this work. Stearns tells victims stories sympathetically without being overly sentimental. It is fascinating that different sides see things so differently and that each side only really knows about atrocities carried out by the other.Stearns also engages with perpetrators. He meets with some of those who led factions or militias and tells their story or retells the descriptions of those who were close to leadership. These are classic stories of Big Men. Many of them seem to be out to enrich themselves and in a few instances they seem to be utterly incompetent. The tales of people who emerged from the jungle to glorify themselves and then fade away when their facade falls are a level of detail that those without more than a passing interest in the subject will not necessarily have. It is understanding these factions that leads to understanding the overall tragedy.The reason this book works so well though is because it is structured and written so effectively. The narrative spreads over so many different angles because there are so many different aspects to the conflict. Stearns does not take a strictly chronological order but it is roughly a guide from the Rwanda massacre to the time of Joseph Kabila.Dancing in the Glory of Monsters is not a military history but is an important analysis of the politics and people. It is a seminal work on a conflict that has had a devastating effect in Central Africa. Stearns shines a light on dark corners of the violence and does so with a dispassionate sympathy which makes it so easy to identify with all of those involved.

Wer sich mit der jüngsten Geschichte der Demokratischen Republik Kongo beschäftigt, gerät schnell in die große Ratlosigkeit, wo jede auch nur annähernde Übersicht verloren zu gehen droht. Zu viele Beteiligte, zu viele Parteien, zu viele bewaffnete Gruppen, von denen jeder dann auch noch - je nach Lage und Gewinnaussicht - kurzfristig die Seiten wechseln kann. Stearns Buch hat das ambitionierte Ziel, ein bisschen "Ordnung" in das Chaos zu bringen - ich weiß, das ist ein Widerspruch in sich, erst recht im Kongo! - oder zumindest, dem Leser zu helfen, das Gesamtbild nicht ganz aus den Augen zu verlieren. Und das ist ihm gelungen.Er beschreibt und analysiert die Jahre von 1994 bis 2010 mit dem Völkermord in Ruanda als Ausgangspunkt und den zwei darauf folgenden "afrikanischen Weltkriegen" und ihren Konsequenzen. Das gelingt ihm deshalb besonders gut, weil er nicht nur chronologisch Abläufe nachzeichnet und bewertet, sondern beteiligte Personen - Entscheidungsträger wie die sogenannten "einfachen Leute" - zu Wort kommen lässt.Das Erschreckendste ist, dass ein historischer Fortschritt nicht zu erkennen ist, anscheinend wiederholt sich der immer gleiche Kreis von Gewalt, Brutalität, schneller Gewinnmaximierung und dem allzu bereitwilligen Löcherstopfen durch die Gebergemeinschaft ewig aufs Neue. Dieselben "Techniken" der Tortur, die es im Völkermord in Ruanda gab, wurden von den verschiedenen Lagern auch im Kongo angewandt. Die als Demokraten, Befreier und Menschenrechtskämpfer angetretenen jungen Politiker, Militärführer oder Staatsbeamte, verfallen - einmal an der Macht - in dieselben für viele ihrer Opfer tödlichen Handlungsschemata wie ihre Vorgänger, die sie so entschieden bekämpft haben. Und die Gebergemeinschaft veranstaltet weiter fleißig Seminare über Transparenz und Rechenschaftslegung und sorgt sich, ihr Geld loszuwerden. Einen gangbaren Ausweg aus diesem sich unendlich reproduzierenden Deaster kann der Autor uns auch nicht weisen. Wie sollte er auch?

This is a highly readable book, which I found difficult to put down. The author went through great lengths collecting first hand evidence. The book is full of vivid descriptions of what actually has been going on in the Congo, so that after reading it, it is hard not to appreciate all the horrors experienced by the people.However, I found major problems for it to be considered a serious history book.1. At the outset Mr. Stearns warns the reader that the conflict in the Congo has been complex and confusing. Intentionally or not, but the author does not help to disengangle the confusion, but rather adds to it. The story is full of breaks in the chronology and a non-linear timeline, so often it is difficult to follow the author's narrative, let alone the moves of the protagonists. What works for "Pulp Fiction" is less helpful here.2. Interviews with real participants of the events do illuminate the story, but I often found the book too much focused on interviews themselves rather than drawing connections between the described events and the larger story. It felt at times as if I was reading "World War Z".3. I would hate to imply that the author is one-sided in his presentation of the events, but you do get a feeling that there is an immense share of attention given to atrocities committed by the side supported by Rwandan forces. At the same time, of the million refugees who crossed into the Congo a good half were shepharded by Rwandan troops back to Rwanda. Not a single page in the book is dedicated to this, how it happened, what was the result. At the same time there are description upon description of sufferings of the other half of the refugees.In my opinion, if you already know the story of the war, this book can help with detailed insight into the events. For a new reader it may fail to provide a coherent understanding.

Having worked on and off in the Congo since 2002, when I met the author at the beginning of his experience of the country, and just recently returned after a year in Kinshasa, when I again had the good fortune to talk to him (from Goma, January 2016), I found Jason Stearns' book both extremely comprehensive and insightful. To have pulled together the myriad strands that make up the history in such a way that can be understood and readable at the same time represents a challenge that he has risen to magnificently. The DRC is in the news today as much as ever with the political contortions just as challenging and confusing. The book gives a detailed explanation on what, why and how events have reached this pass. Two things especially stay with me; the thread illustrated throughout the book getting first hand accounts, in particular the devastating impact of the mindless brutality and, secondly, Jason’s explanation of the psyche which, as he puts it, is not due to a missing “virtue gene” but owes its origins to a much deeper and darker history of abuse going back hundreds of years. This is an account delivered both factually but also with an obvious personal compassion. If you want to understand the place this book will help. If you know a bit about it already then it will make you ponder further.

This is a book I would recommend to any who are interested in the recent history of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the deadly wars of the 1990s and early 2000s. While it was written a few years ago, and many things have developed in the DRC, this still remains a great reference. The style is highly informative while being written in a certain narrative, thematic way that makes it accessible for those who don't read history or political science often. In all, highly recommended.