Honorary Ambassador Renier Nijskens, who served as Ambassador of Belgium to the Democratic Republic of Congo ( 2000-2004), ended his long diplomatic career in 2019 as Belgium’s special envoy to Central Africa( 2016-2019), looks back on 60 years of eventful relations between Brussels and Kinshasa, during which Belgium was often made the scapegoat for the poor relations between the Congolese government and its people.
Interview by François Janne d’Othée in the Belgian weekly “ Le Vif”.
Do Congo’s chaotic independence and the disastrous fate of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba remain in the background of 60 years of relations between Belgium and Congo?
No. Even Laurent-Désiré Kabila never mentioned Lumumba to me. During Mobutu’s time, Lumumba was never mentioned either, because Mobutu saw Lumumba as an obstacle to his personal power plans. During the Kabila era, father and son, his tragic end was commemorated, but this was a ritual that did not go beyond a certain circle. Lumumba is a person made great by his assassination. He was Congo’s first independent prime minister and he was a controversial figure who clashed with President Kasa-Vubu. Moreover, atrocities were committed in his name during the Simba uprising, in which tens of thousands of Congolese were killed and many expatriates were massacred.
Yet the figures of Lumumba and Leopold II have returned to fuel passions in the opposite direction in Belgium. So these are peripheral debates?
Absolutely. Historical disputes only arise when relations are strained. Otherwise, nobody brings them up. Except for certain historians who change according to the regime, such as Elikia M’Bokolo who, to please Joseph Kabila, even invented that the period of Leopold II corresponds to a genocide. Admittedly, in certain regions the abuses reached unacceptable proportions, which an international commission of enquiry, commissioned by Leopold II himself, documented in no uncertain terms, and which led to reforms. Still, if everything is due to colonisation, how can we explain that Belgians and Congolese managed to transform a country with no infrastructure into one of the world’s leading emerging economies, with a GDP higher than that of South Korea or Canada at the time?
The fact remains that in his famous speech to King Baudouin, Lumumba denounced the colonisers, pointing out “the ironies, the insults, the beatings we had to endure morning, noon and night because we were Negroes”…
This speech came as a violent shock. It confirmed those who had detected in Patrice Lumumba a sense of anti-Belgian resentment that contrasted with his benevolent words in favour of independence. The role of his adviser Jean Van Lierde should not be underestimated. He could have consulted King Baudouin’s speech beforehand and convinced Lumumba to question the positive view of the colonial period. He did not understand that his words would have disastrous consequences. His murder on 17 January 1961 had to do with American complicity and, as the Belgian parliamentary commission of enquiry concluded in 2003, Belgium’s moral responsibility. But no Belgian authority was directly involved in this liquidation, which was decided and carried out by the Katangese and Congolese authorities.
The reign of Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, who became Mobutu Sese Seko by the grace of “authenticity”, lasted thirty-two years. Because he could sell his motto “Me or Chaos”?
The 1965 coup was greeted with relief. Mobutu restored order and spoke of a prosperous future and stable relations with Belgium. Our country had succeeded in establishing a position of equality, from state to state. For example, when Mobutu decided to nationalise the Union minière du Haut-Katanga, Belgium agreed. If it had wanted to pursue paternalism and domination, it would have acted as France did with the financial union…. Relations were good, culminating in Baudouin and Fabiola’s famous trip in 1970. It was then that the first internal Congolese rift occurred. When our sovereigns accompanied Mobutu to mass one Sunday, Cardinal Malula spoke out against the growing poverty in the country. Mobutu, green with anger, attacked Malula and initiated the cultural revolution, abolishing Christmas, baptisms, etc. In Belgium, it was not immediately obvious that the man had changed.
Then came the thunderclap of Zairisation. A second blow for Belgians after decolonisation?
On 27 October 1971, Congo became Zaire in the name of authenticity. This was paradoxical as Mobutu had obliterated a local name and replaced it with a European name given to the Congo River by the Portuguese explorer Diego Cão. In 1973, companies were nationalized, ‘Zairizised’, ostensibly to distance themselves from Belgian influence. In reality, it was a raid to finance his insatiable need for money and power. It heralded the demise of private companies (breweries, oil mills, plantations, cattle farms, etc.) and even their dismantling. In fact, no one could see how the country could cope with corruption, arbitrariness and centralisation of all wealth, while the people, left to their own devices – the famous “Article 15”: “fend for yourself” – were kept in brigades singing and dancing to the glory of the leader. Mobutu tried to backtrack, but it was too late. The tools had been wasted and confidence had gone. All the more so as another hold-up began, that of the pensions Belgium awarded to Congolese war veterans.
How did Belgium react?
Mobutu knew better than anyone how to exploit the legacy of colonisation. At the time, it was considered normal for Zaire, like so many other countries, to take back control. From 1976 to 1978, I worked in the economic department of our embassy in Kinshasa and had to handle hundreds of claim files ( by Belgians who had lost everything). But in circles associated with Congo, there was a will to go over that. In 1977, I remember a visit by Paul-Emile Corbiau, governor of the Société Générale de Belgique, and Raymond Pulinckx, President of the Federation of Belgian Enterprises. I had prepared notes for them, but my hierarchy asked me to take out everything critical In particular, I had written a.o.that the country did not maintain infrastructure and that this would disappear in the foreseeable future. In the Belgian press, the tone was no longer one of understanding “Bantu peculiarities”, but of astuteness in the face of a country in decline.
That did not stop Wilfried Martens from uttering his famous cry of heart: “I love this country, its people and its leaders”, uttered in 1981 at the Inga dam
This heartfelt cry came as a shock ( to an increasingly critical Belgian public opinion).. I am told Martens was carried away by the incomparable charm of the welcome upon arrival, of the hundreds of dancers, the processions…. It eluded him and he will be blamed for it for a long time to come. To defend him, we must remember that at the time, Mobutu was still seen as a protector against chaos and a bulwark against the Soviet Union. To curb Moscow’s influence and the rise of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), Henry Kissinger declared as early as 1975, “Mobutu is a bloody bastard, but he is our only hope”.
The debt crisis will be another stumbling block. We recall Mobutu’s famous statement in 1988: “I waited for friends, I found accountants”
Mobutu, with a chronic shortage of fresh money, counted on Martens to obtain debt relief and present the case to donors. But Belgium, disillusioned, only agreed to scrap some annual tranches. Mobutu became angry. Tindemans, who had now become foreign minister, then made an impromptu visit to Kinshasa, unbeknownst to Martens, to try to bring the two countries back together. But Mobutu also turned him down, as Tindemans had nothing to offer
Although Belgium showed itself to be frugal at the time, it later proved that it could be generous and creative in its support: in 2002, when Congo needed to repay its arrears to the Bretton Woods institutions in order to get new loans, the National Bank of Belgium, at the instigation of ( its then Governor) Fons Verplaetse, carried out a discreet operation to the tune of $700 million, which allowed new repayments to be made to Congo.
At the end of the Cold War, Mobutu was destabilised. He lost his strategic role, his friend Ceausescu was executed, he got scared, announced a multiparty system and continued to attack Belgium. Was the 1990 Lubumbashi massacre the trigger for a complete breakdown in cooperation?
Bilateral relations had already deteriorated significantly. It has been a constant trend since 1960: when the Congolese regime is cornered by its own people, Belgium is the favourite weakling. (Belgian Foreign Minister) Mark Eyskens’ request to set up an international commission of enquiry in Lubumbashi only made the situation worse. Mobutu declared the end of cooperation and sacked all Belgian aid workers who were not dependent on the Zairean state. It took the mediation of the Moroccan King Hassan II to prevent diplomatic relations from being severed. Mark Eyskens and his counterpart Nguz-a-Karl I Bond met in Rabat. This enabled Mobutu and Martens to strike a deal that was long kept secret. From 1988, the cramps of the end of rule began. Mobutu lived either on his boat, the Kamanyola, or in his home village of Gbadolite, as he could not stand up to Kinshasa and the hostile marches, especially by Christians. In 1991 and 1993, riots and looting broke out in Kinshasa, forcing Belgium to organise evacuations. The break with Brussels was complete. Queen Fabiola even opposed Mobutu’s presence at King Baudouin’s funeral in 1993.
The genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994 would indirectly lead to the fall of a dying regime three years later. What role did Belgium play among the superpowers against Laurent-Désiré Kabila?
For Belgium, the aim was to help stabilise the region as soon as possible, as it had become a source of tension and disorder that threatened to repeat the Rwandan tragedy of 1994. There were constant consultations between Brussels, Washington and Paris. Belgium had decided to dump Mobutu, who supported the party driven from power in Rwanda. Paris did its utmost to keep him in power, but we knew it was a losing battle.
The Americans were following all this from the point of view of the communist connections of Laurent Désiré Kabila, spokesman for the Alliance des forces démocratiques pour la libération du Congo (AFDL, rebellion). We chose not to contact him from the start. When his troops arrived in Kisangani, my colleague Christian Monnoyer went to meet him. At that time, I was stationed in Uganda and I knew that Kampala was planning to discreetly support the AFDL. In short, we had a double feeling : relief when Mobutu was deposed and dismay when Kabila named Libya, North Korea and Cuba as his preferred partners.
Laurent-Désiré Kabila was assassinated in 2001 and his son Joseph came to power. Initially, he received the warm support of Louis Michel. But in 2008, Karel De Gucht, who succeeded him, denounced the “corruption of the Congolese elites”. Is this another case of the Mobutu syndrome afflicting our relations?
Like Mobutu, Joseph Kabila did not accept criticism, claiming that the country was “sovereign” in an attempt to evade criticism. However, no one was fooled by the kleptocratic orientation of the Kabila regime, which sought to consolidate its own power and make a fortune in reconstruction. International partners were heavily involved in reforming the security sector and integrating ex-rebels. But the regime paid very little attention to this, while allowing disorder to persist in the Kivus. It was also a time of opaque deals on mining resources, the famous “Chinese contracts” and the rise of Dan Gertler, an expert in juicy schemes, especially for himself. The Panama Papers later lifted a tip of the veil, but in Congo it soon fell away, where the judiciary was asked to turn a blind eye. A recent World Bank study also revealed a fairly direct correlation between Bank funds and capital exports to tax havens….
Belgian foreign ministers have approached Congo in different ways. How would you classify them?
Of those who really committed themselves, I would mention ministers Leo Tindemans (CDV), Mark Eyskens (CDV), Willy Claes (SP-A), Louis Michel (MR), Karel De Gucht (OpenVLD) and, of course, Didier Reynders (MR). Others had initiated policy but their mandate was too short, like Frank Vandenbroucke (SP-A) and Steven Vanackere (CDV), to fully implement it. And let’s not forget the ministers of Defence, Cooperation and other portfolios who were and still are close to each other. The least involved seems to me to be Eric De Rycke (SP-A), who became foreign minister due to circumstances, after the forced resignation of Frank Vandenbroucke. However, Belgium’s policy in Congo has always been the subject of parliamentary debate and could count on majority support. This was the case for the policy of reset advocated by Louis Michel from the moment he became minister in 1999, for Karel De Gucht’s restrained policy and for the pragmatic but principled policy of ministers Vanackere and Reynders. Parliament was almost unanimous in its support for him in the face of Joseph Kabila’s ruthless attempts to stay in power after his second term.
Are we back on track with Félix Tshisekedi?
The normalisation of relations with President Tshisekedi after his inauguration is a matter of realpolitik. On the one hand, in his inauguration speech, the new president immediately expressed his appreciation for Belgium and his intention to end sanctions and the cycle of up-and-down relations. Hence our policy of benevolent neutrality from the start.
On the other hand, the Congolese people did not react to the bypassing of the election results, which identified Martin Fayulu as the winner. Moreover, Africa supported the new government. Didier Reynders’ first meeting with President Tshisekedi took place on 4 April 2019 in Washington. I was then sent to Kinshasa in early May 2019, accompanied by Major General Philippe Boucke, who had been King Philip’s aide-de-camp, to seal the normalisation and prepare for the official visit that took place in September 2019. I note here that the Congolese head of state was keen to reserve Belgium for his first official visit to Europe.
Should we continue to maintain close relations with Congo?
Today, some, especially in Flanders, want Belgium to review its immediate priority interests in Africa. Why? Because of the impact of the crisis in the Sahel, in terms of terrorism and migration. If Belgium were to engage more in the Sahel, to the detriment of continued engagement in Central Africa, we would lose valuable assets at the international level. In the Sahel, we would follow in the footsteps of the French, meanwhile losing our unique expertise in Central Africa. Volatility aside, our country enjoys a unique capital of sympathy among the Congolese people. No other region in the world, not even Rwanda and Burundi, has so many ties with the Belgians, even in the remotest villages. The emergence of an increasingly active diaspora is helping to maintain and develop this connection.
Source:
Renier Nijskens “We must preserve our unique expertise”, François Janne d’Othée, Le Vif (30/09/20). Accessed on 30/09/2020 via: https://www.levif.be/actualite/histoire/renier-nijskens-nous-devons-garder-notre-expertise-unique/article-normal-1300283.html?cookie_check=1602079206