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

by Jason K. Stearns

Wamba’s arrival put a match to this powder keg. Much to the chagrin of the Rwandans, who had just ousted him from the RCD leadership, he began holding rallies in downtown Kisangani to large crowds riveted by his demand for an immediate end to hostilities and talks with Kinshasa. He created a rebellion, dubbed RCD–Movement of Liberation, which would be free of Rwanda’s meddlesome interference. He was ferried around town in a Toyota 4x4 with tinted windows, followed by a pickup bristling with Ugandan soldiers. Thousands of people flocked to his rallies, and the toleka bicycle taxis accompanied him, ringing their bells, as he paraded through town. “He was a poor speaker,” one Kisangani resident told me of Wamba. “He sounded like a university lecturer. But he had denounced the Rwandans! For us, that was very brave.”18