Tim Butcher - Blood River A Journey to Africas Broken Heart

(reviewed by showhost june 2008)

Tim Butcher was a correspondent with the Daily Telegraph when he was sent to Africa in 2000, He became obsessed with the legendary HM Stanley’s famous expedition down the Congo River and decided that he wanted to re-create it. So against all advice through a country still ravaged by tribal was, civil war, violence & cannibalism and with as little to carry as possible he set out in 2004. He had a rucksack on his back and a few thousand dollars stashed in his boot. He traveled by dug out canoe, moped and cargo ferrying boat assisted by an assortment of characters from a campaigning pygmy to UN workers. Halfway through his journey he and his village friend Oggi found solace in a bottle of primus beer. Primus beer has been brewed in Kissangani since the colonial era, during the various wars & periods of turmoil just about the only thing that stayed open was the brewery. There were legendary stories about bottles being opened to reveal human nails or insects or other too gruesome to mention.
Excerpts from the book:
People remember the Belgian colonial rule as a time for cruelty but towards the end progress was being made across all of society. The health programme was successful in ending leprosy & much of the malaria. Vermond an energetic 82 yr old wearing a Scottish tweed hat, conveyed vivid picture of a country in decline,and undeveloping. ‘ I used to work for the big tropical hospital here in Kasongo back in the 60’s &70’s, I was responsible for buying equipment for the hospital , I would fly all over the world to buy xray machines, respirators etc. now look what has happened, where I live’. The author looked at a sickly child and tried to think of another country in the world where a baby born in 2004 was more at risk than one born in the same place a century earlier

Tom came from Kenya, where people die of starvation because of draught, there is never enough rain for the crops or animals. But here in the Congo, they have all the rain they need, rivers full of fish and soil that is unbelievable rich. If you stand still here in the bush you can actually see plants growing around you, the growth is that powerful, that strong. Yet somehow people still manage to go hungry here because of the chaos, the bad management. It breaks my heart to see all this agricultural potential going to waste

‘An aid group went to the towns power station recently. They found 3 out of 4 generators were broken so they raised the money and shipped replacements to the countrys main port. They flew in engineers to Kisangani ready to fit everything. So what happened? The customs the officials, the people down at the port, blocked the generators from coming in, the engineers got more and more frustrated until they eventually left, god knows where the generators went and the lights still go out here’

‘The failure of the Congo is so complete that its silent majority – tens of millions of people with no connections to the gangster government or the corrupt state machinery – are trapped in a fight to stay where they are and not become worse off. Thoughts of development, advancement or improvement are irrelevant when the fabric of your country is slipping backwards around you.’

The Congo river system is potentially one of the most valuable natural assets in all of Africa but in recent years it has been choked to a standstill by war and mismanagement. Ferries which used to be run by a national transport company stopped running as staff went unpaid, boats broke down and left to rot.

In 1960 UN peacekeepers tried to stop the chaotic aftermath of Belgium granting its colony independence, the UN’s first peacekeeping mission was a disaster, as they ended up fighting pitched battles with white mercenaries and Congolese rebels backed by Belgium. They lost more peacekeepers in combat there than on any other mission since. Best estimates suggest that since conflict began in 1998 around 4 million Congolese lives had been claimed & in spite of the 2002 peace treaty there has been no significant reduction. The world seems to view the Congo as a lost cause without hope of ever being put right.’

‘With white rule all aspects of sovereignty were stripped from the people of Africa & they have never fully got it back. At independence, colonial powers surrendered authority but it never ended in the right place, back in the hands of the people. Instead it was hijacked by elites who were only driven by self interest. Sovereignty is used by dictators and undemocratic regimes to fend off criticism of their rule and hide their own maladministration & corrupt pilfering.

John a business man said ’ I have seen with my own eyes that there has always been plenty of money in Africa, whether its for diamonds, cobalt, safari hunting, whatever. But the point is the money goes to only a few people not to the country in general. If you think you can solve Africas problems with money, then you are a fool;. You solve Africas problems by creating a system of justice that actually works & by making the leaders accountable for their actions.’

I really enjoyed this book. It is a travelogue but mixed with interesting information & facts of people & history of South Africa & specifically Congo, from 1482 when the Portuguese explorer first found the River Congo to present day political turmoil. Its his wit and passion that keep you reading and a hunger to learn more about what this part of Africa is really like, he talks and lives with the natives and observes what is going on. So the story comes from the people themselves.
I really believe that politicians who want to help solve the problems in Africa should read this book before they go out there. ‘What the Congo needs more than aid shipments or charitable donations is a sense of law and order’