Hero of a Million Faces

Last week one of the founder’s of CIYOTA, and my future boss, was able to come to america as a finalist for the Echoing Green Social Enterprise Fellowship. You can imagine how hard it is for a Congolese Citizen, living in Refuge in Uganda, to acquire a US Visa. His came through less than 24 hours before his flight was set to take off from Entebbe, Uganda. After interviews in New York for Echoing Green, Benson Wereje came to Boulder to meet many many people who have been enthralled with the work he and CIYOTA have done in the region. While Benson was in Boulder, Echoing Green selected him and CIYOTA as fellows for this next year! This will open many doors for organizational and financial partnerships that we could not be more excited for.

While Benson was in Boulder I had the privilege of accompanying him and Eric Glustrom (chairman of the CIYOTA board, founder of Educate! and Watson University, and my initial connection to CIYOTA) to many meetings and heard Benson’s and CIYOTA’s founding story about a dozen times, first hand. Here it is:

In 1998, as violence was escalating in Eastern DRC, Benson’s village was attacked. Rebels massacred everyone they could find and teenage Benson survived the raid, only to help bury the 100’s of members of his family and community, lost. He spent a two years surviving in the bush of eastern DRC, lost. He eventually made his way across the border into Uganda and the Kyangwali Refugee Settlement (my new home for the next year). This was a refugee camp set up and operated poorly by the UN in the middle of a dense forest. Orphaned, he was greeted with a machete, the same instrument used to slaughter everyone he knew, and told to go clear a patch of land and build a shelter for himself…and find food. Kyangwali was not a pleasant place back then; corruption and violence was rampant and the entire group fighting over what limited food they could find. Benson was telling us how he would see grass start to grow on the path to the front door of a shelter since no one had been entering or exiting. Sure enough, he’d open the door to find a famished corpse of a stranger, a friend, an orphan, having lost their homes, their families, and unable to survive in the only place that would accept their existence. Starved.

If there was one thing to look forward to, it was soccer. Benson and his friend’s would play every evening, and afterwards sit down and try to figure out what they could do. Sitting by and rotting away in Kyangwali was not an option for them, and the UN was providing a place to live but not much else. School? Jobs? Did they have a future? They had to figure something out.

They started farming the land of nearby land owners, and they farmed like their lives depended on it. 500 shillings (~33 cents at the time) a day was their wage, and nearby land owners started asking for these farmers to come and farm their land. Soon enough, business was growing and they founded COBURWAS, a farming business. Benson was elected as the first president and organized a leadership structure. “You’re in charge of getting contracts, you’re in charge of managing these farmers, you’re in charge of recruiting more employees, and do a good job, like your life depends on it.”

After founding COBURWAS, Benson was awarded a soccer scholarship to finish his high school in a nearby town, 14 miles away. He would alternate between working and school. Budgeting the money he’d save over three months of working to afford a meal every other, or every third day while he was in school. Once I asked him if he was hungry, he said he doesn’t get hungry anymore. I cajoled him into trying a hot dog from a stand on Pearl Street. We joked about eating a hot. dog.

Ugandan public school was no easy place for a Congolese refugee. Not fluent in english nor the local language, awarded a scholarship for tuition, but not supplies. Pens, papers, books, school uniforms, a place to sleep all were all luxuries. As the only student in no uniform, a refugee stands out like a sore thumb. Constantly asked why he doesn’t have anything, pitied, segregated against, he became invisible. He’d go to sleep after everyone else and wake up before them so he wouldn’t have to explain why he didn’t have a mattress and he’d ask to borrow friends’ books while they weren’t using them. “In some ways, school was worse than living in Kyangwali, not everyone who was awarded the scholarship stayed in school.”

One afternoon he collapsed from hunger – too weak to bring in firewood, too weak to walk any further. He surrendered. He had fallen into a bush that he was attempting to gather firewood from and could not for the life of him pick himself back up. “That’s it, I will die here” Benson thought. Exhausted, he lay there. Thinking. “Why am I dying now? Why is this my time? If I get up, if I survive, I will commit myself to solve these problems. This is not OK what is happening in the Congo, something must be done. I will educate the youth, the next generation will break this cycle of violence, I must do something. I couldn’t believe it when I heard thumping on the ground next to me, I thought I was going crazy but it was fruit falling from high up in the trees. I had food. The afternoon breeze saved me.” He graduated high school in 2005.

After 6 months of prosperous work, COBURWAS had saved $400. They decided to use that money to send the most vulnerable kids to school, young orphaned girls, and to buy a plot of land so they could start selling and eating some of the food they farmed. After some more time they had the resources to build a primary school so that kids could have the pre-req’s to attend high school on a scholarship. Orphans study for free. Today this school is the best primary school in Kyangwali and educates 220 kids per year.

Next project, provide for the kids who COBURWAS was sponsoring to attend the nearby town’s high school. They built a hostel nearby the high school so that the students wouldn’t have to squat every night or walk the 14 miles back to Kyangwali. In this hostel, we provide additional classes in leadership, entrepreneurship, and non-violence to empower the teens to start their own organizations and businesses to improve their communities.

Nearby villages and refugee settlements have seen what CIYOTA (new name) has been doing and we’re now counseling them in how to replicate what’s happened in Kyangwali. This specifically will be my job, to travel to these CIYOTA satellite communities.

CIYOTA is now invited to the monthly coordination meetings between the UN, the German refugee settlement implementing agency, the Red Cross, and the Ugandan Government. These are the meetings where resources, programs, and future planning are discussed for the entire settlement of 25,000 people. Benson’s mentioned that most of CIYOTA’s input has been on what is actually needed, not what the elites think is needed.

What’s next for Benson and CIYOTA? “500 villages, 50 trainings, 10 kids per village” as Benson says. He wants to reach out to 500 villages in North Kivu, DRC and run seminars in leadership, entrepreneurship, and non-violence. Re-direct the attitude from one of revenge to one of peaceful cooperation. If these 5,000 youth can go back to their communities and affect 200 people. One million Congolese will be exposed to these ideals. there’s potential. One of our partner’s here in Boulder said “Benson! You could be the hero of a million faces.” Well doesn’t that have a nice ring to it.

I’ll leave you with this quote: “Refugee’s are not problems, refugee’s have problems. All they need is a little bit of love” Benson Wereje.

Connected by Passion

I’ve never liked the word Passion. What is it? Define it? Please, let me know what you say. Official definition sources say “a strong feeling about a person or thing.” Lame, because most of the time it’s used there’s a much stronger connotation. Many a time I’ve been asked “What are you passionate about?”  You’re asking me what I have strong feelings about? Have you met me? I can’t begin to list what I could rant about for at least a couple of minutes! I’ve described men I’ve despised as “passionate” just to sound politically correct. The word is just too wishy washy.

Tonight, I met one of my future bosses and founder’s of CIYOTA, Benson Wereje. Benson is Congolese and is one of the refugees who fled in the late 90’s to the Kyangwali Refugee Settlement in Uganda–my soon to be home for a year. He was granted a US Visa (no small feat for any citizen of the congo) since he, and CIYOTA are finalists for the Echoing Green fellowship. He’s in Boulder this week meeting many people who have been hearing about CIYOTA for years and years and are finally able to connect with a founder in real life. Along with one of my co-program director’s Catie Fowler, and Eric Glustrom (who hired us for the positions) we shared what ended up as a four hour dinner at the Dushanbe Tea house here in Boulder.

We shared stories, ideas, visions, and challenges. Since my job will be traveling between the different CIYOTA chapters supporting the work they’re doing, Benson ran us through what each of the chapters have accomplished, and what’s on their horizons. Benson mentioned that we’ll likely be the first westerners ever to visit one Ugandan village that a CIYOTA chapter is based in.

I asked Benson what his favorite news source was. “What I see” was his reply.

…and I think my opinion on passion may be changing. Benson told us a story from a CIYOTA annual meeting a couple of years ago. Sukisa Ndayamabaje, a general from the DRC army came in hopes of finding some money from an Muzungu (white/rich man). Sukisa had perpetuated violence, rape, pillaging, and murders. Instead of an Muzungu, he found a bold and snappy CIYOTA high schooler named Angelique filling his ear with criticism. She’d never met this most powerful man, but that didn’t stop her.

“How much does your shirt cost? Your shoes are shiny! Why! How much did you spend on them? We’re here busting our butts to return to the DRC, to solve this problem, to find peace, and what have you done for us!? You’re sitting there with over $1,000 of clothes on your back for what? Do you think we’re impressed? Go and do something so we can all go back home. Make your community a better place.” According to Benson, she continued for so long, any anger he felt passed. And after some thought he announced that he would sleep on the floor that night as a transformation. It’s time he whips himself into Shape.

Sukisa returned to Goma and created a Boda Boda cooperative. Boda Boda’s are the taxi-motorcycles throughout Sub-Saharan Africa and they are notoriously dangerous to ride on. They are also plentiful and Boda Boda drivers are a major demographic of any sub-saharan metropolitan population. Sukisa’s cooperative now has managed money to take care of Boda Boda’s widows if their husband dies in an accident, loan Boda Boda’s out to drivers, and organize political strikes to strong-arm the government and make sure their voice is heard.

Now, those are some strong feelings…

What I Know Now: Bare Bones Political History of the Congo Part 1

The current unstable political situation in the DRC all started back during colonial times…surprise! From slave trade, to resource exploitation, you bet the Belgians were the humanitarians King Leopold claimed they were. The first time history sees the phrase “crimes against humanity” was in reference to King Leopold’s colonizing of the Congo. Written by an american, George Washington Williams Open Letter to Leopold is truly one of humanitarianism’s birthing documents. G.W.W. contracted tuberculosis after his visit the Congo “free state” and died shortly thereafter in 1891. There goes the PR schmear campaign that potentially could have saved millions of lives… (1)

One of the twentieth centuries most infamous literary villains, Mr. Kurtz from Heart of Darkness, is based off of one of Belgian’s swashbuckling captains of the Force Publique–their colonial army to uplift the natives, bring civilization, and serve a “noble cause”. Captain Leon Rom was an especially savory character. He lined the planters in his garden with the heads from dismembered Africans. Can someone tell this man about garden gnomes? Google his name, and “Butcher of the Congo” is one of the top results. Ok, enough about him. (1)

In the 1950’s the Belgian government came under increasing pressure to allow Belgian Congo to become a self governing state. In 1955, a Belgian professor A.J. Van Bilsen published a document called the Thirty Year Plan for the Political Emancipation of Belgian Africa. This was the attempt at separating intentionally and peacefully. The Belgian government rejected it since it meant eventually separating entirely from their natural resource goldmine, and those wanting the separation didn’t like that Belgium would still be ruling the Congo for another three decades (2).  A.J. Van Bilsen wasn’t the Belgian Government’s most popular expert on “Congonese Government” so they started censoring his articles. He came to Boston as a research associate at Harvard in 1961 (3)

During the 50’s, Congolese tribes were starting to mobilize as political groups, the most powerful of which was ABAKO (Association des Bakongo). ABAKO was gathering steam and by the late ’50’s, Belgium really didn’t control the lower Congo to Leopoldville (the Capital, today’s Kinshasa) anymore. Leopoldville and Stanleyville saw large, violent, riots in 1959, and in January 1960  Belgium held a roundtable conference in Brussels with Belgian political & business leaders, and Congolese political representatives & Chiefs.  Belgian agreed to independence but wanted to form a transitional government to ensure the independence would be on their terms. The Congolese didn’t have any reason to believe this transitional government would do anyone any good so they demanded independence immediately. Belgium saw what France was dealing with in Algeria and their war for independence and said OK to just buying a Ben and Jerry’s pint of ice cream and watching The Notebook. (2)

Elections were held in the Congo on the 22nd of May 1960, enter Patrice Lumumba. The Congo’s first democratically elected Prime Minister. Every story needs a good guy, and Lumumba is him. He was the leader of an underdog political party, he won the election fair and square. He even looks like the kinda guy you’d want to baby sit your kids and marry your daughter, yet with Malcom-X’s “eye on the prize” look that let’s you know he will get shit done.

“Dead, living, free, or in prison on the orders of the colonialists, it is not I who counts. It is the Congo, it is our people for whom independence has been transformed into a cage where we are regarded from the outside… History will one day have its say, but it will not be the history that Brussels, Paris, Washington, or the United Nations will teach, but that which they will teach in the countries emancipated from colonialism and its puppets… a history of glory and dignity.” — Patrice Lumumba.

Don’t get too attached though…this quote was in October of 1960, three months before he was assassinated by 3 Belgian firing squads. A United States CIA agent then took Lumumba’s body, schleped it into the trunk of his (or her) car, and drove around Elizabethville in search of a suitable place to dispose of it. Lumumba lays in an unmarked grave, like so many Congolese before him (2). At least his head isn’t lining a flower box in some guy’s garden.

For the next five-ish years, the Congo became a military state, known as the Congo Crisis. during this time, the Congo experienced a UN Peacekeeping Operation, a Proxy battle of the US and the Soviet Union’s cold war, and a secessionist war with the province of Katanga, the Texas of the Congo (I wouldn’t make the comparison if it wasn’t warranted, look at a map).
Cost: 100,000 lives.

Enter Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu wa Za Banga: Lumumba’s personal aid, possible mole to the Belgians, Kennedy’s African fixer (we gave Mobutu a plane in ’63 before he had even taken the presidency), and the Ex-Head of the Congolese Army. He wasn’t communist, and that was all it took for the CIA to sponsor his military coup, not much of a hassle since he was the head of the military. Can you guess what was the first thing he did once he was in power? Weaken the military. He created a single party government with all power centralized on him. His four decade long presidency created the mold of the archetypal African dictator (4).  He was the Saddam of Sub Saharan Africa, but worse.

There was no separation between Mobutu’s wealth and the Congo’s wealth. It was all his. The mining corporations that operated there? He was a significant shareholder in all of them. For forty years, he printed more money as he needed it, lived on his Yachts, enjoyed Concord flight shopping trips to Paris, lavish invitations from US Presidents; “a voice of good sense and good will” according to Reagan (2). Wanna change the name of the country to Zaire? sure! why not! we’ll call it “national authenticity”. This national authenticity movement changed all colonial or christian names, public or private, to Congoan ones. i.e.. Leopoldville to Kinshasa. Mobutu tried to create a nationalism based on loyalty to the state (that he dearly led) rather than tribal or regional loyalties (6). Pure motivations? I’m not holding my breath.

In the 1970’s, Zaire (The Congo) experienced a massive influx of refugees fleeing massacres in Burundi after a failed Hutu rebellion against the Burundian government. Mobutu granted them all citizenship. Later in the ’80’s he stripped the Tutsi’s in the eastern DRC (Kivu region) of their citizenship if they couldn’t trace their Congolese ancestry back to 1885. Tutsi’s were gaining too much economic power, and I guess they weren’t in his pocket deep enough. Then in 1993 the governor of the Kivu province (eastern border on Uganda and Rwanda) ordered all tutsi’s removed from the region and called for their extermination. Violence breaks out and 14,000 people are killed in 2 months. (5)

Phew! Well that’s enough for tonight. Next up, the Rwandan Genocide and how the DRC’s current president, Joseph Kabila inherited the throne (of democratic presidency) 10 days after his father, Laurant Kabila was assasinated.

1: King Leopold’s Ghost, by Adam Hochschild
2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Crisis
3: http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1961/12/16/van-bilsen-opposes-split-congo-pthe/
4: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobutu_Sese_Seko
5: http://www.standnow.org/learn/aoe/drc/events
6: http://www.refworld.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/rwmain?page=country&category=&publisher=&type=CHRON&coi=COD&rid=&docid=469f388115&skip=0

(defer all Wikipedia citations to the citations in the Wikipedia article.)