Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
By then Albert was living in Kinshasa, though he had been forced to move frequently during the
early years of the Second Congo War. He had helped the Japanese researchers, making sure their
trackers were paid and bringing their reports back to Kinshasa. And he'd founded the Fondation
pour la Protection de la Vie Sauvage et de l'Environment, an organization that existed largely in
name and through which he envisioned carrying out his future conservation projects once he had
funding. His most recent return to Kinshasa, shortly after the second war began, had been on two
dugout canoes lashed together, both with motors.
He had brought his mother with him, thinking that she would be safer in the capital. But several
days into the trip, the boat passed the port of a village where two armed soldiers stood on the shore.
The men shouted for the pirogues to stop, and when the captain ignored them, they hurled grenades
into the river. Everyone on board ducked as jets of water detonated from the surface. The captain
turned the boats to the land, and the soldiers made the passengers get out and pushed the men into
a line.
Albert stood in the sun alongside the others as more soldiers came from the village a little
less than a mile away. They were members of Jean-Pierre Bemba's rebel force, the Mouvement de
Libération du Congo (MLC). The officer in charge commanded the men to take off their shirts and
inspected their shoulders to see if they had marks from wearing weapon belts or any other telltale
signs of soldiery. Seeing that Albert was heftier, he asked if he was a colonel, shouting in his face.
The officer decided that the passengers and crew would have to stay in the village until the war
was over. They spent a month there, the boats remaining in port. One night, some of the passengers
escaped, but Albert, having his mother to take care of, couldn't.
Though the rebel soldiers became more vigilant, Albert and the crew decided to corrupt several
of them, since they didn't appear to enjoy their jobs. Their officer had gone on a day trip to another
camp and left the village guarded by six soldiers. Albert and the others gave them what money they
had and promised them further rewards in return for help escaping.
The soldiers refused, saying that they would be executed, but Albert had a gift with words that
would serve him in the years to follow, when he worked to consolidate Kokolopori into a reserve,
and again later, when he ran for parliament. He explained that it was wrong to hold innocent people,
that the soldiers should come with them and escape as well, that they would be happier not living
under the heel of their officer.
One by one, the men and conspiring soldiers walked the mile between the village and the boats
so as not to draw attention. The officer was supposed to return by dark. There were two boats, but
only one of the engines fired. As they tried to get the other to start, they saw figures running from
the village and realized that the officer and his men had returned earlier than expected.
Lashed together to travel in tandem, the boats pulled out unevenly with just one engine. The
soldiers began firing from a distance, and Albert and his mother hid with the other men in the live-
stock hold.
The second motor finally started. Just beyond the port was the confluence of a smaller water-
course and a little farther past it, the main body of the river turned. As the soldiers fired and ran, the
boats passed the embouchure and rounded the curve. Unable to cross the water, their pursuers were
soon out of sight.
When Albert arrived at Baringa, a government-controlled town in Équateur, troops from the
FAC, the Forces Armées Congolaises, gathered on the shore. He and the others tore a white shirt
