Biology Reference
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the people respected. The Congolese, however, had been starved of opportunity, and some leaders
were quick to undercut him each time he lacked financing or had a small failure.
184
“
What makes humans
. . .”
Parker, “Swingers,”
New Yorker
. I confirmed this quotation with
Hohmann by email, and he said that he stood by his words.
184-185
The forest's value beyond
In an article authored by five Japanese researchers and to which Dr.
Mwanza contributed data, the discontent of the Congolese villagers in Wamba, near Kokolopori,
is a central theme, how they constantly complain and want more. Sally and Michael once told me
that BCI's conservation work has made Kokolopori's neighbors realize that they could be getting
more and thus has, unintentionally, created some discord. But there is no voice of the local people
in either of the articles, Parker's or the one by the Japanese researchers (Mwanza contributed only
scientific calculations and isn't from Wamba or Équateur). In both cases, the people's discontent
is shown only as an impediment to research, and there is no examination of the villagers' point of
view or context, with the goal of understanding why they are complaining. While in Kokolopori,
I heard from the local Bongandu that Wamba's villagers felt that the Japanese had been very slow
to make good on their promises to invest in the community and had done so only when there was
enough social pressure. Might this conflict never have come about had conservation and research
worked in a more unified way and had the concern for territorial control not been so strong?
Gen'ichi Idani et al., “Changes in the Status of Bonobos, Their Habitat, and the Situation of
Humans at Wamba in the Luo Scientific Reserve, Democratic Republic of Congo,” in Furuichi and
Thompson,
The Bonobos: Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation
.
185
NGOs and researchers may
As John Scherlis, who studied elephants for years in Tanzania, and
was involved in early efforts to reconcile conservation and development, pointed out to me, as a
general rule, scientific research and conservation have better circumstances and outcomes when
there is a commitment to stewardship and partnership with local people.
186
If we are cursed
Wrangham and Peterson,
Demonic Males
, 258.
André Tusumba
192
Already in his first year
As Mobutu once said, “
Ondimi, ondimi te, ozali MPR
”—“You agree,
you disagree, you are MPR anyway.” Alden Almquist gave me this information in an interview in
Washington, DC, in October 2012.
196
Whereas Kabila followed
Prunier,
Africa's World War
, 124.
196
Some accounts state that
Prunier,
Africa's World War
, 130-31. Prunier writes:
Four days later the AFDL military leader Kisase was killed by the RPA. He had always been
a thorn in the side of the Rwandese because of his openly nationalistic attitude, which often
brought him into conflict with his RPA minders. There was a famous occasion when he stopped
the RPA from taking a large electric generator from Goma Airport to Rwanda, saying that it
belonged to the Congolese state and that he was accountable to that state and not to Kigali. And
there were numerous occurrences of public speeches when he had voiced his defiance of the
overbearing Rwandese. The RPA had never managed to keep him under control, while Kabila
accepted the nonstop day-and-night presence of six to ten Tutsi “guardian angels” around him.
After the AFDL “consolidation” everything went very quickly: since he was “a nationalist” the
Rwandese asked him with some irony to go and take care of this newly developing Mayi Mayi
problem. At the last moment, as he was heading to Butembo, his bodyguards were removed
and replaced by some of Kabila's. Kisase was careless enough to go anyway, and they killed
him.
197
But the decay of
In
The Congo from Leopold to Kabila
, Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja writes: “For
it is this decay that made it possible for Lilliputian states the size of Congo's smallest province,
