Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa

by Jason K. Stearns

Demagogues in Kinshasa bore a heavy responsibility in whipping up ethnic animosities in the capital. But they didn’t have to work too hard. Rwandan troops had humiliated and angered residents in the capital during their year-long stay. Kinois—as the inhabitants of the capital were known—had been working for years against Mobutu’s dictatorship. They had marched in the tens of thousands and had seen their brothers and sisters tortured and killed, only to see their victory snatched away by a bunch of foreigners. As Kinois often quip: “We put Mobutu in the ambulance. All Kabila did was drive the corpse to the cemetery.” Then the new rulers, who didn’t speak their language and didn’t look like them, began beating them and telling the women they dressed like prostitutes. They felt emasculated and abandoned to hunger and poverty.