HOLIDAYS IN THE DANGER ZONE Rivers - Congo Tx Date: … 2005 This script was made from audio tape – any inaccuracies are due to voices being unclear or inaudible 10.00.00 Holidays in the Danger Zone Theme music 10.00.03 Title Page HOLIDAYS in the DANGER ZONE 10.00.12 Ben Anderson From the jungles of Latin America to the mountains of Asia, great rivers are lifelines for millions, they’re worshipped and they’re also battlegrounds. 10.00.21 Music 10.00.34 Title Page RIVERS 10.00.40 Graphic RIVER CONGO 10.00.44 Music 10.00.51 Ben Anderson The Democratic Republic of Congo; a country almost the size of Western Europe, has no major roads. 10.00.57 Music 10.00.58 Ben Anderson So the River Congo, over four thousand miles long and curving from one side of this vast country to the other, is a lifeline. 10.01.05 Music 10.01.07 Ben Anderson Is that the barge out there? 10.01.08 Emery Yeah, that’s it, moving very slowly. 10.01.13 Ben Anderson But even then, travelling along it is notoriously difficult. 10.01.16 Music 10.01.18 Ben Anderson I had planned to get on a barge in Kinshasa and travel all the way to Kisingani, where the river meets the Stanley Falls. 10.01.25 Emery Boats don’t leave every day so sometimes you have to wait for it here, for three weeks or six weeks. Takes many time. Sometimes you know what you keep for eating on the journey finishes while you are still at the port. 10.01.39 Ben Anderson You’ve got nothing left. 10.01.43 Ben Anderson Emery Makumeno Agalu grew up on these barges; his mother was a trader. He had agreed to travel with me. 10.01.53 Ben Anderson But the scene at Kinshasa’s main port did not look good. The people on this barge had already been waiting three months. 10.02.03 Man 1 Voice over We’re suffering like this. People have been here for three months and no-one helps us. There’s no government to come and free us. 10.02.11 Man 2 Voice over The captain lied to us; we’ve spent three months here. 10.02.15 Man 3 Voice over We’re not going anywhere. We’re stuck here. 10.02.19 Ben Anderson So you would have thought people would give up and go use a different service but the guys that own the boats have got the monopoly, the river is the only way you can get from here to other major cities, there are no roads. These guys are screwed. 10.02.33 Man This is the toilet. 10.02.36 Ben Anderson Two toilets for everybody. 10.02.37 Emery You have two toilets maybe for four hundred or three hundred people. So you have to queue up. 10.02.46 Ben Anderson And the food that people had got onto this barge to sell, was rotting or being eaten. 10.03.00 Woman Subtitles Look, my son, there is nothing to eat here. Nothing. 10.03.05 Ben Anderson So people are smiling and, you know, they’re pleased to see us but people are also saying they could starve to death here. 10.03.14 Ben Anderson There is a baby here who was one month old when they first arrived on the ship is now four months old so it’s spent three quarters of its life on this barge, it hasn’t moved. 10.03.30 Music 10.03.33 Ben Anderson We had to give up on the idea of travelling by barge. And instead took a canoe. 10.03.39 Music 10.03.40 Ben Anderson We were travelling to Lake Tumba; a hundred and twenty kilometres over the equator. 10.03.44 Music 10.03.49 Ben Anderson We want our Pimms. 10.03.50 Music 10.03.51 Ben Anderson Lake Tumba is home to the Bonobo chimps. Our closest relative in the animal kingdom, they only live in this remote corner of the world. Travelling with us was Dr Ndunda Mwanza; Congo’s foremost Bonobo expert from the organisation called the Bonobo Conservation Initiative. 10.04.08 Music 10.04.12 Dr Ndunda Mwanza We’re in the south now. Zero, fifty one degrees. 10.04.15 Ben Anderson So we just crossed the equator? 10.04.17 Dr Ndunda Mwanza Already. 10.04.18 Music 10.04.24 Ben Anderson We’ve just seen a boat go past dragging a corpse behind it. ...on the bank there with some villagers. 10.04.32 Music 10.04.39 Ben Anderson Look at the size of this, look how wide and vast it is and we’re not even on the Congo River anymore, we turned off the Congo River about an hour ago. This is just one of the twenty thousand tributaries that come into the Congo. 10.04.50 Music 10.04.55 Ben Anderson We’ve been travelling for about ten hours but we’ve still got about an hour and a half left to go and it’s about to get pitch black dark and the fishermen are all going home, the moon is starting to shine and I’ve got no idea how we’re supposed to find this place in the dark. 10.05.16 Emery So actually we are zigzagging from one shore to another in the middle of a huge lake. 10.05.29 Ben Anderson That’s definitely it, isn’t it? 10.05.31 Ben Anderson Our destination was a pygmy village. 10.05.33 Ben Anderson Definitely hopefully it. 10.05.36 Singing 10.05.49 Ben Anderson The pygmies had been waiting for us all night. 10.05.52 Singing 10.05.57 Ben Anderson And they welcomed us with a traditional war dance. 10.05.59 Singing 10.06.25 Ben Anderson Along the shores of Lake Tumba, the pygmies live alongside the Bantu people. This is one of the few places where they co-exist peacefully. Although not everybody is happy about that. 10.06.36 Ben Anderson Oh, today you’re friendly? 10.06.38 Ben Anderson The pygmy chief used to be a terrifying fighter. 10.06.40 Ben Anderson Is this to protect us? 10.06.42 Emery It shows that there is no fight. 10.06.44 Ben Anderson So as soon as that comes off that means there’s real war. 10.06.59 Chief Voice over I’d throw my spear at him and pull it out. Then I jump again, as he comes towards me. I keep jumping and when he gets closer I spear him again, just like this. I can kill three or four people. 10.07.25 Ben Anderson But it’s the recent fighting in Congo that has driven the Bonobos deep into the forest, away from human contact. 10.07.36 Ben Anderson Although it’s still possible to see more common species like Mangabe, Wolfe and Red Tails. 10.07.52 Ben Anderson We’ll be very lucky if we see any Bonobos. They recently did a survey of an area the size of Holland and they didn’t see a single Bonobo. Though some people think there are so few left now that they won’t actually survive. 10.08.10 Ben Anderson The reserve was originally built by the Belgians in the nineteen forties. Their houses and laboratories still stand, although they’ve been slowly rotting since independence. 10.08.22 Ben Anderson They’ve got bow and arrow. 10.08.24 Dr Ndunda Mwanza Yeah, this is the keeper of the night so he has to get the protection for himself. 10.08.31 Ben Anderson Against robbers or animals? 10.08.33 Dr Ndunda Mwanza Against thieves. 10.08.34 Ben Anderson Is he a good shot? 10.08.35 Dr Ndunda Mwanza Yeah, yeah, yeah. 10.08.44 Dr Ndunda Mwanza This is the museum. A museum where we have to keep all specimen. 10.08.51 Ben Anderson What was this? 10.08.53 Dr Ndunda Mwanza These are fish. Local men they will call it Benga. 10.08.57 Ben Anderson Benga. Dr Ndunda Mwanza Yeah and it’s very dangerous. 10.08.59 Ben Anderson Yes it looks very dangerous. 10.09.00 Dr Ndunda Mwanza Yeah, in this place we have two, no three species of crocodiles. But this is the biggest. Yeah. 10.09.13 Ben Anderson The original Bonobo research papers still survive, going back over seventy years. 10.09.22 Ben Anderson It stinks. 10.09.24 Man It’s preserved. 10.09.26. Ben Anderson But that will rot, no, because it’s only partially preserved. Do you have more formaldehyde or? 10.09.32 Dr Ndunda Mwanza We’ll find some. 10.09.36 Ben Anderson But without funding, Mwanza and his colleagues are struggling to do anything here. 10.09.46 Man This is the skin of the Bonobo. The bones of Bonobo are believed to give certain powers to the children, so people are still hunting Bonobos and their bones and skins are used as magic. 10.10.08 Ben Anderson Mwanza hopes to restore Mbali to its former glory as the top research centre in Congo. In its hey day it even provided a refuge for Belgium’s King Leopold the Third during World War Two. His house remains untouched. 10.10.22 Ben Anderson And this is exactly the same as it was? So this is actually King Leopold the Third’s toilet and sink and… 10.10.27 Dr Ndunda Mwanza Yes. 10.10.30 Ben Anderson Mwanza hopes to welcome eco-tourists here one day. 10.10.33 Dr Ndunda Mwanza Aaaahhh! 10.10.36 Ben Anderson The reserve already has its own bar. 10.10.42 Dr Ndunda Mwanza Mmm, very good. 10.10.56 Ben Anderson Yes. 10.10.59 Music 10.11.03 Ben Anderson But Congo is still too dangerous and it seems a dream that tourists let alone monkeys will come back in the near future. 10.11.09 Music 10.11.16 Ben Anderson We travelled back to Mbandaka, the nearest town. 10.11.19 Music 10.11.23 Ben Anderson This is the only method of transport in Mbandaka. There are virtually no cars, any cars you really see are UN jeeps going from somewhere to somewhere else, no one really knows. So for two hundred francs you can get this. 10.11.38 Music 10.11.40 Ben Anderson Whenever Mwanza is here, he checks the local market for illegal Bonobo meat. 10.11.44 Music 10.11.46 Ben Anderson Frank! Lung fish! 10.11.47 Music 10.11.54 Ben Anderson Most species can still be legally sold as bush meat. 10.11.57 Music 10.12.04 Ben Anderson What kind of monkeys are these? 10.12.05 Dr Ndunda Mwanza Red Tail. 10.12.06 Ben Anderson Oh, Red Tail. Like the ones we saw on the lake? 10.12.07 Dr Ndunda Mwanza Yes. Yeah, yeah. 10.12.10 Ben Anderson And is that illegal or legal? 10.12.12 Dr Ndunda Mwanza Legal. 10.12.13 Ben Anderson Legal. 10.12.13 Dr Ndunda Mwanza Yeah. Only great apes are, they can’t sell. But small apes, small primates they can sell it. 10.12.29 Ben Anderson Research has ground to a halt, so nobody knows just how endangered the Bonobos are. But some scientists think there could be as few as five thousand left. 10.12.41 Ben Anderson A boat out of Mbandaka would take weeks so we took any way out we could. 10.12.50 Ben Anderson The locals who joined us are considered privileged. 10.12.55 Ben Anderson Our UN flight was cancelled so we had to get the only other mode of transport out of Mbandaka for, for non-UN people, which is a cargo plane. And the only reason we got this plane was because it’s late. It was supposed to be here at half eleven this morning; it’s now gone four o’clock. We’re at the back end of the plane, at the front of the plane there’s about forty goats and most of this and this is smoked fish which stinks and this bag here is covered in maggots. 10.13.30 Ben Anderson But tickets for this journey are still fifteen times the average monthly wage. 10.13.48 Ben Anderson Our next stop was Kisingani; the last port along the Congo River. 10.13.54 Boatman Oi. Ok. You, you, come, you must… 10.13.57 Ben Anderson Sit here? 10.14.01 Man So many times this boat sinks? 10.14.03 Boatman Yes. 10.14.03 Man Many? 10.14.04 Boatman Yes. 10.14.04 Man Do people die? 10.14.05 Boatman Yes, many people, some people but here, it’s very deep. Dangerous for swimming. 10.14.11 Ben Anderson Have you seen Emery? Emery’s hanging on for dear life look. 10.14.15 Boatman No, no problem. 10.14.17 Ben Anderson We’ve nearly gone over twice already. 10.14.23 Ben Anderson The port was founded in eighteen eighty-three by the explorer Henry Morton Stanley. Today, the method of fishing that he observed and wrote about remains unchanged. 10.14.37 Ben Anderson No fish? 10.14.37 Man I don’t know; someone must go down to check if there is some fish. 10.14.43 Ben Anderson He’s getting in to check. 10.14.44 Man Yes. 10.14.46 Ben Anderson It looks dangerous; no? 10.14.48 Man Yes, it’s dangerous. People die, yes, people die. But not often. Not often. Yeah. 10.14.55 Ben Anderson Every fisherman has his own place for each basket and I was told that everybody keeps to that rule and everybody gets to eat. 10.15.11 Ben Anderson This is as far as you can get up the river from the journey that starts in Kinshasa. Kisingani was the last trading post of the Belgians, so that’s why it’s grown into the second biggest city in the Congo. 10.15.26 Ben Anderson The UN has had a peacekeeping force in Congo since nineteen ninety-nine at a cost of nearly one billion dollars a year but peace has been slow to come even though former rebels have now been incorporated into the Congolese Army and government. 10.15.41 Ben Anderson The UN peacekeepers are mandated to protect the civilian population. They are often accused of failing to do that and elsewhere in Congo they’ve even been accused of sexual abuse and gun running. 10.15.52 Music 10.15.53 Ben Anderson There are reportedly people get raped and burgled every night by government troops, former rebels but there’s not much sense of urgency amongst the soldiers we’re with and although they’ve got helmets and bullet proof jackets they’ve got one pistol between the whole group of them. 10.16.11 Ben Anderson The main complaint while we were there was the existence of police checkpoints, staffed by former rebels, who still behaved like rebels. 10.16.22 Ben Anderson But there are people in Kisingani who have said that the main problem on the river is the police and the military checkpoints where they’re demanding money from people who are trying to trade on the river. 10.16.34 River policeman Voice over It’s got nothing to do with us asking for taxes, we are the river police, we protect people. We just make sure there’s no smuggling or robbing people on the river. 10.16.50 Ben Anderson Nothing to say about that? 10.16.52 UN soldier This is what he’s saying. So… 10.16.52 Ben Anderson Yeah. But he’s bound to say that isn’t he? 10.16.56 UN soldier Yeah. 10.16.58 Ben Anderson So when was the last time you were paid? 10.17.00 River policeman November. 10.17.04 Ben Anderson Just metres away, local traders confirmed what we had already been told repeatedly. 10.17.14 River policeman Subtitles Have they any problems along the river? 10.17.19 River policeman Yes by each checkpoint we are giving two hundred francs. Two hundred francs and also, we have also to give them also some donations, apart from money we also to give them food. 10.17.32 Ben Anderson They’ve been travelling for three days. 10.17.37 River policeman Three days so far. 10.17.39 Ben Anderson A hundred and twenty-five kilometres. 10.17.40 River policeman Yeah. 10.17.40 Ben Anderson So is it possible for them to make money at the checkpoints? 10.17.47 River policeman They lose money, they lose money. 10.17.48 Music 10.17.50 Ben Anderson The peacekeepers promised to make a report to the local authorities. 10.17.53 Music 10.18.00 Ben Anderson Back in town, frustration with the UN had boiled over. An argument started after locals had asked to borrow a UN jeep for a funeral and were refused. 10.18.14 Ben Anderson Not only have they set fire to it but there’s hundreds of rocks have been thrown at it and they’ve smashed the windows with big sticks. It does feel like there’s excess anger or frustration has boiled over. 10.18.25 Emery In general people don’t like MONUC. They expect jobs from them, they think that MONUC is here to improve their lives so they see how MONUC workers, international staff are, standard of living they have in Congo and they see the difference with the local population, so whenever there is a way of telling them their presence is useless they take advantage of destroying everything. 10.18.50 Car alarm 10.18.59 Ben Anderson Four months after we left Congo was supposed to hold their first ever elections and there was widespread rioting when they were delayed by over a year. 10.19.11 Ben Anderson Kisingani, like every large town in Congo, has a palace that used to belong to the dictator Mobutu. Most of them were looted when he was kicked out in nineteen ninety- six. 10.19.22 Ben Anderson He was here for what almost four decades, had palaces in every province, had his picture everywhere, statues of himself everywhere and yet now, there’s almost no trace of him. 10.19.37 Ben Anderson We found a local police commander squatting there and his family washing clothes in what used to be Mobutu’s fountain. 10.19.47 Ben Anderson I asked if he took money from the local people and got a very honest answer. 10.19.57 Police commander Voice over What we get now isn’t enough to live on. I get ten dollars a month. In Kabila’s time I got a hundred and twenty-five. We didn’t have to harass people; I could take care of myself. Under Mobutu we didn’t get paid much but we could make money in other ways. Now we work but just don’t get anything. 10.20.25 Ben Anderson People were being left to fend for themselves when most in authority were simply taking from whoever was below them. 10.20.39 Ben Anderson Our final destination was Eastern Congo, on the border with Rwanda. This is where the worst fighting has been. 10.20.48 Ben Anderson The Interhamwe who are responsible for the Rwandan genocide are still hiding here. And Rwanda has invaded at least twice, attacking them and their supporters. But they are just one of many militias here and local civilians say there are all as bad as each other. 10.21.07 Ben Anderson And few know this better than Congo’s women, who according to Human Rights Watch, have been raped in their tens of thousands. 10.21.17 Ben Anderson The Synergy rape crisis centre looks after those lucky enough to make it here from the countryside. 10.21.26 Woman Voice over When they finished raping her they burned the house down and her little brothers and sisters died. They tried using natural medicines, which didn’t work and nobody could give her any food, so she arrived in a shocking state. 10.21.48 Ben Anderson So we’re hearing what we’ve heard everywhere but to a much larger extent here and that’s that there is no government here, no police, no authority, it doesn’t matter what agreements they come up with in Kinshasa or wherever it is, it makes no difference and as a result there is total impunity 10.22.05 Ben Anderson The women in this centre, many of whom have children by their rapists, tell stories of brutality that are impossible to imagine. It’s far easier to understand, although no less sickening, that so far only thirty-one soldiers have been convicted of rape. 10.22.21 Ben Anderson When they first started the centre they were expecting forty cases a month and they’re now getting fifty cases per week. The oldest victim was eighty years old and the youngest was just ten months. 10.22.36 Music 10.22.41 Ben Anderson Not far away is the Virunga National Park; a World Heritage Site, it’s been home to over a million refugees and is now home to a number of rebel groups. It’s also home to an incredible mix of wildlife and once attracted hordes of tourists. 10.22.56 Music 10.22.59 Park Director Voice over We used to have Belgians, Americans, French, Australians. 10.23.05 Ben Anderson What was the park itself like then? 10.23.09 Park Director Voice over There were many animals here then; hippos, elephants, lions, leopards, wild boars, we used to have everything here. 10.23.22 Music 10.23.33 Ben Anderson So these guys are the gamekeepers who are getting paid a dollar a day by, by the NGOs, not by the government to protect the animals in the park but behind us there are five or six soldiers, the oldest one of whom is sixteen, seventeen, the youngest looks about eleven, twelve years old. 10.23.51 Ben Anderson The park director doesn’t walk without armed guards. 10.23.56 Ben Anderson Have they always had to move with such good security? 10.24.02 Ben Anderson The director told me that most of the park is now a no-go area. 10.24.09 Ben Anderson He also made it clear that anybody venturing into the park without a gun was easy pickings for the competing armed groups out there. Managing the game park was more like fighting a war. 10.24.25 Park Director Voice over One was killed on patrol, another over there near the house under construction. One night they came and killed a guard and stole everything he had. Two others died near the lake at Tiondu, one through sickness. You see we live in very dangerous conditions in this area. 10.24.53 Ben Anderson They’ve brought us down to the riverside because they thought there might be some hippos here and I can’t even see the river yet but I can hear hippos. 10.25.03 Ben Anderson See these footprints this is actually the way the hippos come. I thought we were going some private little way that the hippos couldn’t come so we were safe but this is, this is the hippo route to the river. 10.25.18 Ben Anderson And then, just when it would be so easy to give up on Congo, I saw why this is a World Heritage Site. 10.25.32 Ben Anderson There’s not like one or two hippos, there’s a dozen hippos there, about thirty feet away from some children playing in the river. 10.25.43 Music 10.25.47 Emery Fantastic! 10.25.48 Music 10.26.03 Ben Anderson Before flying home from Kinshasa, we stopped at the one place you can still see Bonobo chimps. 10.26.08 Music 10.26.16 Ben Anderson Just outside of Congo’s capital there is a sanctuary for Bonobo orphans run by an Italian woman called Claudine Andre, who has collected the chimps from bars, private zoos and markets. 10.26.27 Music 10.26.29 Ben Anderson And we had arrived on a special day. 10.26.32 Ben Anderson This is one enclosure and this is another and they’re going to try and introduce a male from this enclosure into this one, all the other Bonobos are down in the far corner with Claudine. So I think we’re going to let the male in and walk him down and see if he’s accepted. 10.26.49 Ben Anderson Claudine says she’s very confident he will be accepted because in the past when they’ve introduced strangers to each other they just have a big sex party. 10.27.02 Ben Anderson The Bonobos, unlike their aggressive cousins the chimpanzees, are peaceful animals who settle everything through sex. 10.27.13 Ben Anderson So the women are chasing him because they want sex to reduce the tension. 10.27.16 Claudine Yes but you have to understand it is the role of the alliance of the female, they have to surrender and have sex first with them to show them, ok, it’s a new group but we are no war here. 10.27.31 Ben Anderson But he’s, he’s, he’s walking away. 10.27.33 Claudine Yeah, he’s very curious of this new place. 10.27.40 Ben Anderson They’re getting together without any problem at all; they just had their first Bonobo hug. 10.27.52 Claudine Did you have some meetings? 10.27.53 Ben Anderson Yes, two or three already. 10.27.56 Music 10.28.01 Ben Anderson Seeing wild hippos and a few dozen rescued Bonobo orphans was a welcome end to a tough trip along the Congo River. 10.28.08 Music 10.28.09 Ben Anderson But it’s not enough to allow you to leave the Congo with much sense of optimism. Almost four million people have died from the war here, more than in any war since World War Two and nobody seems to have noticed. 10.28.22 End music Credits bbc.co.uk/thisworld 10.28.24 Reporter BEN ANDERSON Dubbing Mixer SCOTT MARSHALL Online Editor BOYD NAGLE Graphic Design LYNN WILSON Production Team JULIA DANNENBERG LADONNA HALL Production Manager JANE WILLEY Unit Manager SUSAN CRIGHTON Film Researcher NICK DODD Series Researcher TOM WATSON Picture Editor RYSHARD OPYRCHAL Execution Producer KAREN O’CONNOR 10.28.41 Filmed & Produced by FRANCIS SMITH BBC © BBC MMV 10.28.44 End BBC Holidays in the Danger Zone: River Congo 1 1