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Jason Stearns. Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa. New York: PublicAfairs, 2012. 417 pp. $16.99, paper, ISBN 978-1-61039-107-8.

Reviewed by Matthew G. Stanard

Published on H-Empire (June, 2012)

Commissioned by Charles V. Reed (Elizabeth City State University)

For many who grew up during the , the African National Congress on a path toward the competition between capitalism and commu‐ one-party dominance. Japanese economic growth nism seemed to determine the unfolding of histo‐ was followed by a crash and the so-called lost ry. Then 1989 happened, and communism col‐ decade. India and Pakistan both tested nuclear lapsed spectacularly. Francis Fukuyama famously weapons. Multiple terrorist strikes in and outside proclaimed the end of history, that is, the end of the presaged the 2001 attacks. ideological competition and the triumph of West‐ Considering all this, it is unsurprising that ern liberal democracy.[1] Of course history did anyone who lived through the had trouble not end, ideological battles continued, and the keeping track of the multitude of developments decade that followed witnessed a dizzying array also unfolding in and (later rebap‐ of complex developments. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq tized the Democratic Republic of the Congo). A invaded Kuwait and was expelled. Mengistu Haile century earlier, during the 1890s, news about Mariam’s regime collapsed in and Eritrea atrocities in the Congo were hard to come by and gained its independence, which led to an extraor‐ it took dedicated eforts by individuals like E. D. dinarily rare border change in postindependence Morel and to bring the violence Africa. Sierra Leone and Liberia plunged into civil afecting millions under Leopold II’s abusive colo‐ conficts without apparent end. Somalia failed nial regime to the attention of the wider world. By and Yugoslavia disintegrated. Russia both fulflled comparison, information was much easier to and dashed hopes in its transmogrifcation into a come by in the 1990s. Across the globe people political and economic system that defes catego‐ knew a genocide had begun in Rwanda within rization. The Maastricht Treaty created another days of its start. Diplomats at UN headquarters in sui generis entity, the European Union. South New York City, such as U.S. Secretary of State Africa held its frst democratic elections, setting Madeleine Albright, publicly debated the geno‐ H-Net Reviews cide, even if to their shame they refused to use the the leadership of the aged Congolese rebel Lau‐ term itself for fear that doing so would commit rent Kabila. The successful assault on them to actually do something about it. Scenes of was a campaign of distances rivaling those of immense refugee camps in central Africa hit the Napoleon’s 1812 march on , with diferent airwaves repeatedly, and journalists at the New results of course. York Times and elsewhere regularly informed the Just months in power, Kabila was at war world of the ongoing conficts in the area: child again. Although sparked by Rwandan military ac‐ soldiers, mass rapes, disease, humanitarian mis‐ tion, the ultimate causes of the second Congo con‐ sions, exploitation of natural resources, foreign fict are much less clear. Perhaps it was that incursions, and attempts at peace. Such reporting Kagame and his allies in Rwanda had become per‐ has continued. But with all the information came suaded that Kabila was no longer trustworthy, or little explanation. To redress this lack--to explain-- they simply had grown tired of him. Rwandan is the task that Jason Stearns sets for himself in hubris, which built up after the successes of 1994 Dancing in the Glory of Monsters, his captivating at home and 1997 in the Congo, also played a role. if dreadful account of the wars in central Africa Divisions among the Congolese undoubtedly con‐ since the 1994 . tributed to the renewed fghting, as did the stun‐ Stearns begins with the genocide, an event ning weaknesses of Kabila’s government, which similar to the Holocaust in the sense that we now had been left no choice but to establish itself on know quite a bit about its causes even if it ulti‐ the sometimes literally charred ruins of Mobutu’s mately defes comprehension. For decades, Rwan‐ failed . On the ropes, Kabila’s Demo‐ da had witnessed competition for both resources cratic Republic of the Congo fought back with sup‐ and control over the state with competing sides port from , Zimbabwe, and others. Al‐ divided along ethnic lines. As insurgents ad‐ though the initial threat to Kabila’s hold on power vanced on in 1994, people inside and out‐ receded, the fghting did not. The expansive can‐ side the Hutu-dominated government fought back vas Stearns paints of the second Congo confict, and also attacked civilians, both and Hutu where months of battles turned into years of moderates. Rebel leader ’s victory, fghting, is flled with portraits of all sorts of char‐ which also ended the genocide, thrust hundreds acters, from would-be revolutionary professor of thousands of refugees out of the country, most to the “millionaire- over the border into Zaire. In the months after‐ turned-rebel leader” Jean-Pierre Bemba, today on ward, Kagame and others came to see Rwanda’s trial before the International Criminal Court (p. security as dependent on the defeat of Hutu and 217). The war degenerated into smaller, some‐ other refugees in camps across the country’s west‐ times sporadic but vicious ofensives and counter‐ ern frontier. Some neighboring governments, attacks between proxy forces in various corners such as the one in , became involved to of the capacious Congo. A murky picture grew eliminate their own enemy rebel groups that had even darker following Kabila’s 2001 assassination, set up bases within Zaire during the late period of the causes of which remain unclear to this day. ’s rule. In Zaire itself, people The longer the war continued, the less sense struggled under Mobutu’s deteriorating rule. This it seemed to make. Stearns suggests a parallel led to the 1996-97 Congo war in which Congolese with the Thirty Years’ War: starting out as a local rebels took up arms against Mobutu’s dictator‐ confict, the war spiraled out of control as more ship, supported and at times led by Rwandan, and more outside powers got involved, each seek‐ Ugandan, and other armed powers. They fought ing to advance its own interests while the civilian across the country to Kinshasa, ostensibly under

2 H-Net Reviews population sufered all along. As Stearns heard who committed unspeakable acts against their fel‐ from people several times during his multiple low humans. stays in the region, “Where elephants fght the Many people today think of Africa as a back‐ grass is trampled.” The picture improved signif‐ ward place of ethnic hatred, violence, warfare, cantly after Kabila’s son succeeded and military coups d’état. The Rwandan genocide him. Following peace talks, direct foreign inter‐ and wars in the Congo only feed those stereo‐ vention drew to a close in 2003, although fghting types. But as I tell students in my modern African and atrocities continued, especially in the eastern history class, Africa compares favorably with part of the country where the wars had frst be‐ twentieth-century Europe when considering the gun. Balkan Wars, , the Russian Civil War, These conficts taken together have been the Polish-Soviet War, Italy’s conquest of Ethiopia, called Africa’s Great War, but Stearns is clear that Stalin’s Great Terror, the Spanish Civil War, World his book’s title is not an analogy to World War I (p. War II, ’s colonial wars from 1946 to 1962, 273). Consider one devastating Ugandan ofensive Hungary in 1956, Prague in 1968, European ter‐ on in June 2000 that dropped 6,000 rorism, and the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. Per‐ shells on the city over six days. By comparison, haps historians ought to concern themselves less the Battle of Verdun saw, on average, some with why people become killers and more with 125,000 artillery shells land every day for ten what drives people not to kill. Although an admit‐ months. Whereas the various armed forces in‐ tedly bleak starting point, some have adopted a volved in the two Congo wars could at times be similar approach when considering the root caus‐ counted in the thousands, the armies that faced es of such conficts as World War I: don’t explain of during World War I numbered in the millions. war, explain peace.[2] The efects of Spanish infuenza aside, most casu‐ One example of European cruelty not men‐ alties of Europe’s Great War were soldiers. The tioned above is the turn-of-the-century violence overwhelming majority of people who died as a caused by Leopoldian imperialism in central result of the Congo wars were civilians. Africa. Some might be surprised at the very small One comparison Stearns does make is be‐ role played either by the legacy of the Belgian Em‐ tween the killings of millions in central Africa and pire or itself in the Great War of Africa. the deaths of millions in central Europe little There were hangovers of the colonial era to be more than half a century earlier. By contrasting sure, and Stearns does look back to the colonial events in Africa with those of twentieth-century past, although not in any systematic way. He Europe, Stearns suggests that the Congo wars are points out more than once that the independent particularly hard to fgure out because no single Congo that emerged in 1960 was left wholly un‐ individual or group drove the killing; no Adolf prepared for a successful existence as an indepen‐ Hitler, no Joseph Stalin, not even a “select group” dent state, which of course fed into Mobutu’s rule who directed the carnage, as he suggests was the and its failures. Another colonial legacy is how case for the Holocaust (pp. 5, 15). The contrast is the postindependence copper giant Gécamines not as great as Stearns would like us to believe. was for so many years and in so many ways just Countless thousands of people actively participat‐ like its predecessor, the Union Minière du Haut- ed in the Holocaust and Stalin’s Great Terror. Katanga (UMHK) of the . Just as Christopher Browning’s Ordinary Men (1992) and UMHK provided workers with jobs and health‐ Jan Gross’s Neighbors (2001), among others, have care and the colonial state with revenue, so “Gé‐ shown how ordinary Europeans became killers camines remained the country’s [Zaire’s] largest

3 H-Net Reviews source of employment and income, providing ue in Kinshasa, a seemingly bizarre and acrimo‐ over 37,000 jobs at its peak, running thirteen hos‐ nious move, appears less odd. Culture Minister pitals and clinics, and contributing to between 20 Christophe Muzungu said the statue went up be‐ and 30 percent of state revenues” (p. 289). A paral‐ cause the Congo needed to remember its history. lel with the colonial epoch can also be seen in Perhaps it was a way to symbolically claim lands how the inspiration behind Leopold II’s and the that Leopold II had staked out as the borders of Belgian Congo’s armed forces, the , the Congo, since it was Leopold’s reign, however foreshadowed Mobutu and Kabila’s fears of do‐ dreadful, that had carved out the borders that had mestic instability as opposed to external threats been violated by Congo’s neighbors after 1998.[4] (p. 330). Although the Force publique saw limited The motivations behind the brief return of fghting outside the Congo during World Wars I Leopold’s statue in 2004 remain unclear to this and II, it was in essence a domestic policing force. day, and Stearns does not mention the episode. Neither Leopold II nor the Belgians were afraid of His enviably level-headed accounting of the wars neighboring colonial powers. What they feared does, however, raise other useful questions in was rebellion, just as Mobutu and Kabila did after need of further investigation. Some of these in‐ them. clude who assassinated Kabila; what his son While the relics of empire remained, what the Joseph’s role in government has been since 2001; book suggests is that the history of the colonial pe‐ and what the exact roles were of the Rwandan, riod mattered little to people caught up in a war. Ugandan, Zimbabwean, Angolan, and other neigh‐ Unsurprisingly, people do not debate the past boring governments in the Congo, especially after much when they are just trying to survive. Com‐ 1998. Stearns is less strong when it comes to ad‐ parisons to contemporaneous developments in dressing several critical issues, such as the avail‐ Belgium are telling on this point. The year that the ability of medicines, the medical infrastructure started, 1998, also witnessed (or lack thereof) in the Congo, the international the publication of one of the best-known books on trade in weapons, and the efects of the Cold the Congo, Adam Hochschild’s King Leopold’s War’s end on that trade. There is some discussion Ghost. Hochschild’s book created controversy in of mineral production and urban life, especially Belgium and contributed to an outpouring of re‐ in Kinshasa, Kisangani, and Kigali, but virtually search on Belgium’s colonial past, what two schol‐ nothing is made of agricultural production and ars recently called “Congomania in Academia.”[3] competition for land, an important issue consider‐ Among the most contentious of Hochschild’s ing that most people in central Africa remain agri‐ points was his reference to ten million deaths in culturalists (in Rwanda as much as 90 percent of the Congo during Leopold II’s rule as well as an the population). oblique likening of Congo atrocities under Another bigger picture issue about which Leopold to the Holocaust. This all fed into an on‐ Stearns says hardly anything is Western involve‐ going debate in the Western press and academia ment or its absence. Of course it is unfair to criti‐ over the number and nature of deaths in the Con‐ cize a book for not doing what its author did not go under Leopold II. While accusations few in set out to do, but it is nonetheless surprising to see newsprint and teeth gnashed at university confer‐ so little about international passivity in the face of ences because of Belgium’s horrifc colonial past, the Rwandan genocide and the killings in the Con‐ literally millions of human lives were being lost in go. It is not clear how international support bol‐ central Africa. Why care about millions killed a stered or sapped Laurent Kabila’s hold on power century ago when millions were dying today? In or how nongovernmental or other interventions this light the 2004 re-erection of Leopold II’s stat‐

4 H-Net Reviews furthered or hindered life-saving measures on the Glory of Monsters plumbs the secondary litera‐ ground during the two wars. The author does ac‐ ture, from Alison Des Forges on the Rwandan cuse the North Atlantic Treaty Organization genocide to key works by Gérard Prunier, Isidore (NATO) of hypocrisy for deploying ffty thousand Ndaywel è Nziem, Gauthier de Villers, Piero Glei‐ troops in the comparatively tiny area of Kosovo in jeses, and many others. He relies extensively on 1999 while UN peacekeepers numbered at most British papers and as well as twenty thousand in central Africa (p. 334). Yet by newspapers in Uganda, Rwanda, and elsewhere. 1999, NATO already had been involved for years Other important sets of sources are government, in the conficts in the former Yugoslavia, and the UN, and nongovernmental organization reports. organization had by then expanded to include The real wonder of the book, however, are the in‐ Hungary, which borders Serbia and lies just a few terviews. He conducted dozens of interviews with hundred kilometers from Kosovo. Moreover the players big and small in the Congo, Rwanda, and accession of southeastern European states to beyond. Many of the interviews are recent, some NATO already was being discussed by 1999. Was it having taken place as late as 2010. His many dia‐ hypocritical for NATO to be deeply engaged in an logues allow him to put a human face on the ongoing area of confict within Europe while si‐ broader confict. In short, Dancing in the Glory of multaneously debating a course of action in cen‐ Monsters is a fresh, impartial, well-researched, tral Africa? and highly engaging look at the confict by some‐ To question Stearns’s accusation of hypocrisy one who has spent considerable time in central and to highlight areas needing further study is not Africa. to pass a negative judgment on his book. The Although the book ranges across the sec‐ book’s strengths far outweigh any weaknesses. ondary literature in such a way as to make it The book is richly rewarding because it provides much more than merely a frsthand account of a broad overview that ties together many com‐ the wars, it bears noting that some sources could plex strands of the 1990s and early 2000s. Here have been used more carefully. Stearns claims we discover connections among the Rwanda that the CIA wrote in the 1990s that Mobutu was genocide; refugee camps in the Congo; interna‐ sufering from AIDS (p. 153). As evidence, he cites tional aid; Mobutu’s kleptocratic rule; individual ’s In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz leaders; everyday people; and the politics of near‐ (2001), which is a journalistic account containing by countries, including Angola, Rwanda, Uganda, no citations. To help explain the economics be‐ and Zimbabwe. Even better, this wide-ranging hind the Congo wars, Stearns draws on Ludo de history is splendidly well written and supremely Witte’s The Assassination of Lumumba for fgures accessible. In short, this is a page turner that on the Société Générale’s land concessions in ought to engage a broad audience. Katanga in 1906, which set the stage for copper Stearns is marvelously evenhanded in his mining to dominate the colony and the indepen‐ general approach and in how he handles his dent Congo later on (p. 288). Although important, sources, which brings up what is perhaps his de Witte’s narrowly focused work on Lumumba’s book’s greatest strength: the incorporation of nu‐ death is far from an ideal source on the history merous interviews that he conducted, on the and the economics of copper in the Congo. ground, over the course of many years. Stearns is Stearns’s reliance on de Witte’s book is more than not a professional historian. He worked for vari‐ a quibble because in this specifc case, the fgures ous organizations in Africa before embarking on he cites from The Assassination of Lumumba are a PhD in political science at Yale. Dancing in the

5 H-Net Reviews not backed up by any references of their own in vading it. Ourselves for letting them do so. None de Witte’s book.[5] of that will help bring my children back” (p. 248). Despite Stearns’s elegant history, by the end Notes of the book the reader is left with an unclear ac‐ [1]. Francis Fukuyama, “The End of History?” count of what caused the wars, especially the sec‐ The National Interest (Summer 1989): 3-18. ond one, and who is to blame for them. What the [2]. Paul W. Schroeder, “International Politics, reader is left with is deep heartache because it is Peace, and War, 1815-1914,” in The Nineteenth clear that the Congo wars were horrifcally de‐ Century: Europe 1789-1914, ed. T. C. W. Blanning structive of human life. We still await a full ac‐ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 158-209. counting, both of how the wars’ victims died and of how many. Population fgures for the Congo are [3]. Idesbald Goddeeris and Sindani E. Kian‐ difcult to pin down, let alone war casualties. Re‐ gu, “Congomania in Academia: Recent Historical cently revised casualty fgures from the U.S. Civil Research on the Belgian Colonial Past,” BMGN War show that demographics for even the most Low Countries Historical Review 126, no. 4 (2011): studied of wars are tricky.[6] In the case of central 54-74. Africa, for now the best we have are estimates. [4]. “DR Congo’s Leopold Statue Removed,” The second confict alone, starting in 1998, left BBC News, February 4, 2005, http:// some 3.8 million dead, which when added to the news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4235237.stm (accessed dead from the 1996-97 war totals 5 million. Most May 10, 2012). died not in combat strictly speaking but because [5]. Ludo de Witte, The Assassination of Lu‐ of hunger, disease, other illness, exposure, or mumba, trans. by Ann Wright and Renée Fenby smaller-scale attacks and killings. Such numbers (London: Verso, 2001), 31. are impossible to understand, although we can [6]. J. David Hacker, “A Census-Based Count of follow Timothy Snyder, who, when writing about the Civil War Dead,” Civil War History 57, no. 4 an equally incomprehensibly vast number of (2011): 307-348. dead, that of the 5.7 million victims of the Holo‐ caust, proposed that “this number, like all of the [7]. Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe be‐ others, must be seen not as 5.7 million, which is tween Hitler and Stalin (New York: Basic Books, an abstraction few of us can grasp, but as 5.7 mil‐ 2010), 407. lion times one.”[7] Stearns’s book edges us closer toward under‐ standing 5 million times one. But in the end com‐ prehension eludes us. It is ftting to conclude with one of Stearns’s interviewees, Pastor Philippe of Kisangani. As a father Philippe sufered what is perhaps a parent’s most dreaded fate: having to live on after the death of one’s own young child. Pastor Philippe lost three. When Stearns asked Philippe who was to blame for his children’s deaths, the father’s response summed up the caus‐ es and agonizing consequences of the Congo wars: “There are too many people to blame. Mobutu for ruining our country. Rwanda and Uganda for in‐

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Citation: Matthew G. Stanard. Review of Stearns, Jason. Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa. H-Empire, H-Net Reviews. June, 2012.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=36185

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

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