286 lines
7.7 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
286 lines
7.7 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
culture
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books
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bookreviews
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8509568
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# Dancing in the Glory of Monsters by Jason K Stearns
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## Tim Butcher hails Dancing in the Glory of Monsters by Jason K Stearns, a
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brave account of the web of wars in the Congo.
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By Tim Butcher 3:26PM BST 13 May 2011
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[Comments][1]
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[The Congo][2] is one of the toughest places for outsiders to live, but that
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is what the American author Jason Stearns has done for much of the past 10
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years.
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![][3]
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Not for him the lavish life of the diamond smuggler or arms dealer; he has
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occupied a different place among the country's tiny expat community, starting
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out as a human rights researcher before joining the United Nations, and
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recently being appointed the Secretary General's point man for war crimes
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investigations.
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It has been a slog of language training (he communicates in an array of local
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dialects), meticulous research (peeling away what he calls "the layers of an
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onion") and hard graft (reaching atrocity sites can be both dangerous and
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difficult in a country with few roads).
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His challenge was not just to unravel the web of wars in the region but to
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come up with an analysis that rises above the cliches born of Joseph Conrad.
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The result is _Dancing in the Glory of Monsters_, a brave and accessible take
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on the leviathan at the heart of so many of Africa's problems.
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The complexity of his subject is daunting. The name alone needs attention:
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Stearns's Congo is the former Belgian Congo, once Zaire and now the Democratic
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Republic of Congo.
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Named after Africa's mightiest river, it is the most failed state in the
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world's most failed continent and has been in turmoil for decades. As the
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author puts it, there is "not one Congo war, or even two, but at least 40 or
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50 different, interlocking wars".
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Stearns breaks this down into three conflict episodes: the first starting in
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1996 with the Rwandan-led invasion that would replace a dictator Rwanda did
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not like, Mobutu Sese Seko, with one it did, Laurent Kabila; the second from
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1998 when Rwanda changed its mind about Kabila and wanted him gone; and the
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third when a peace deal was signed in 2002 that dampened fighting but has
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failed to bring full peace even today.
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The book's title comes from Kabila's denunciation of his countrymen who had
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blindly followed Mobutu down a wormhole of corruption and decay during 32
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years in power. He accused them of "dancing in the glory of the monster" but,
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as Stearns makes clear, Mobutu was not the only monster at work in the Congo.
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The most staggering detail in the book is kept until the end. Supporting notes
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drily present the best estimate for the death toll: 5.4 million killed by war
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in the Congo between 1998 and 2007, a daily loss of more than 1,500.
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That is one of those "pinch yourself to see if it's real" facts: 1,500 a day,
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month after month, year after year.
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Stearns does not set out to find culprits, but from his measured, crisp
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writing the villainy of opportunists is laid bare. Read his account of the
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Kasika massacre and you will never view the Tutsi-dominated regime in Rwanda
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in quite the same way.
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Tiny in comparison to the Congo (a "peanut of a country" says one of the
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interviewees), time and again Rwanda has destabilised the entire Great Lakes
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region.
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Stearns's eye for detail, culled from countless interviews, brings this book
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alive. He writes of a Rwandan military incursion where the commander was not
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able to report back to base because he did not know the security PIN for his
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satellite phone.
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Many western leaders (David Cameron and Tony Blair among them) have cosied up
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to Rwanda, in part through guilt for international inaction during the
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genocide of Tutsis in 1994, swallowing the canard that Rwandan attacks on the
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Congo are solely about hunting down genocidaires.
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Stearns shows otherwise, writing that shortly after its troops reached the
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Congo, Rwanda started declaring diamond exports. The country has no diamond
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deposits and all were pillaged from its neighbour.
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I once wrote that the Congo suffers from "a lack of institutional memory",
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meaning that its atrocities well so inexorably that nobody bothers to keep an
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account of them. Stearns's book goes a long way to putting that right.
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* Tim Butcher's [Chasing the Devil: On Foot Through Africa's Killing
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Fields][4] is published by Vintage at £8.99
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Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: the Collapse of the Congo and the Great War
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of Africa
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by Jason K Stearns
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400pp, Public Affairs, £18.99
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Buy now for £16.99 (PLUS £1.25 p&p) from [Telegraph Books][5]
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[X][6] Share & bookmark
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[What are these?][7]
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* Share: [Share][6] [ ][8] [ ][9]
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[Tweet][10]
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/8509568/Dancing-in-the-
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Glory-of-Monsters-by-Jason-K-Stearns.html
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Telegraph
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## [Book Reviews][11]
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* ### [Culture »][12]
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* ### [Books »][13]
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* ### [Non-Fiction Reviews »][14]
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[![telegraph book shop][15]][16]
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### [Telegraph Book Shop][16]
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In culture
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[![Join the Telegraph's Book Club][17]][18]
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### [Telegraph Book Club][18]
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[![][19] ][20]
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### [Herman Melville: Storms of the heart][20]
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[![Darcy, who is a source of comfort - and mischief - in the novel A Surrey
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State of Affairs][21]][22]
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### [A Surrey State of Affairs: blog to book][22]
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[![][23] ][24]
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### [Genre: Crime][24]
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[X][6] Share & bookmark
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Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter
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[What are these?][7]
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Share:
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* [ ][6]
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* [ ][8]
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* [ ][9]
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* [Tweet][10]
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* Advertisement
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![][25]
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telegraphuk
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Please enable JavaScript to view the [comments powered by Disqus.][26] [blog
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comments powered by Disqus][27]
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