Just past those trees is Congo, and somewhere out there is Joseph Kony.
On Thursday, April 10, about 150 people gathered at a clearing on the border of Sudan and DRC. All of us were waiting for a glimpse of the elusive warlord Joseph Kony.
We waited. And waited.
I sprinted to the helicopter landing strip every time a new chopper of dignitaries arrived from Juba, hoping for a good picture. I sprinted to the edge of the clearing every time the bush rustled, hoping for someone, anyone, to emerge, hoping for a great picture.
The view from inside the helicopter.
One of the first choppers to land.
By mid-morning, I was caked in dirt and sweat. When the choppers landed, they uprooted every loose piece of grass or straw, every unencumbered speck of dirt, flew into our faces, and more worryingly, our camera lenses.
Everyone gathered, the waiting commenced – or rather, continued.
A few young soldiers of the LRA emerged from the bush to scope out the scene. They weren’t the 12 year olds of child soldier photo campaigns, but they weren’t much past puberty. One of them wore a UNICEF cap and a Rambo button down shirt. He wore them without irony because there’s no irony in the bush, just necessity.
COPYRIGHT Glenna Gordon/Associated Press
Another LRA soldier had his nails painted with dark blue lacquer. A language barrier prevented inquiry into the source of the nail polish, but if I correctly interpreted hand gestures, he was offering to paint my bare nails. I splayed my fingers in front of him, as if I were in a nail salon in the suburbs rather than somewhere in the jungle. He motioned back to the bush from which he had emerged, as if a spa chair waited me if only I were willing to cross onto the Congo side.
I asked if I could take his photo by motioning towards my camera. He shook his head no. Usually, I’m undeterred by an initial “no” and find asking again will evoke an affirmative answer. But you just don’t push it when it comes to an armed teenager.
Eventually, around four or five o’clock, Riek Machar held a little presser where he announced that David Matsanga had resigned (was fired? Either way a better fate than previous deputy Vincent Otti) and that Kony would not emerge from the bush today. Kony, it seemed, need more information on Mato Oput and local justice mechanisms that presented an alternative to the ICC. He also wanted assurances of his personal and financial security.
The official meeting before they announce JoKo won’t show. Notice the highly official SECURITY tags. Mine was an equally official one that said PRESS.
(Do warlords deserve financial security?)
By this time, it was too late for the choppers to return to Juba with the dignitaries. Chaos ensued for a bit, when many a person gathered at Ri-Kwangba wondered what would happen to the likes of Machar, Tim Shortely, Minister Rugunda, etc.
A major news network broadcasts from the field. Said broadcaster brought a hair flattening iron with her. Said broadcast team had their own generator to ensure operation of equipment, including said flattening iron.
A decision was made by forces unknown and unnamed that the dignitaries would, along with the rest of us, be shuttled back to Nabanga. The camp site, about eight kilometers away, was run by Afex, a Kenyan Safari company with a distinct colonial feel. Who else but colonials would ensure all of its staff wore white chef’s hats, even in the bush?
The previous night, Nabanga had been home to just the journos and a few UN staffers. It was crowded – about five or six to a tent meant for one or two, but nice enough. We had treated water (though a bit yellow – and little did I then know just how murky it would later be), hot meals, and instant coffee aplenty. There was even wine in the evening making the rocky ground slightly more acceptable.
But that was when we were 40. Suddenly our ranks had swelled and included VIPs. We were all evacuated from our tents to make room. The journos were relegated to a communal tent, used during the day as a dining tent with tables and chairs, and at night, a dining tent without tables and chairs.
That night, I somehow managed (in a very Darwinian survival model) to secure a spot in one of the less populous tents – a patch of floor to myself! And six or seven other male journos.
Matsanga, who deserved all the blame for our situation since he was the one who was supposed to produce Kony and later admitted they hadn’t spoken since December, got his own tent.
The quiet camp before the influx.
The night was long. One official observer slept wrapped in tinfoil, and awoke to complaints about his rustling every time he shifted positions. I awoke to snoring. Lots of it. Particularly from a friend who was sleeping on the patch of ground next to me.
(Frank, Frank, roll over! Frank, wake up and role over! Finally, in exasperation, Frank, your office in Nairobi is calling! He jolted up, I laughed a bit, he rolled over and stopped snoring. Well, he still snored, but not as much.)
This is Frank on the chopper. Pre-snoring, when I still wanted to take flattering pictures.
Machar had a tent to himself, with his first wife Angelina, where they seemed to be holding a warped kind of “court,” surrounded by SPLA.
The rest of the time, the SPLA sat around staring at us, only interrupted by stealing our cigarettes and potato chips. They literally walked over to the table we were sitting at, picked up a pack of cigarettes, and walked away. The first time it happened we were so flabbergasted that we didn’t say anything, mainly because we didn’t know what to say. The second time, a chorus of complaints shooed him away sans smokes.
The next morning Matsanga had a presser in which he announced his official resignation and complained about Kony’s lies. He said he’d go on to do other public relations work. But with past clients like Robert Mugabe and now Joseph Kony, I wonder how many people will be ringing him in search of some good press?
You may only see the shot of Matsanga on the wire, but this is what the presser looks like.
Here are a few choice quotes from Matsanga’s interview with the New Vision:
Q: Some people say you are on the negotiation team to make money and get a UN job. What is your take on this?
A: I want to tell you frankly that I had money when I was in London. The life I lead in London is great. I have my own house with everything. I donít need anything or money from anybody. In any case, anybody in the LRA will tell you that I have been spending much money buying clothes and essential items for Kony. I have helped him survive.I bought clothes for the women and children in his camps. Now that I have resigned, I will continue to stay in the same Intercontinental Hotel I have been staying in. I only stay in five star hotels no matter what part of the world Iím in, because I also talk with presidents on the continent.
Q: Then where is the money and UN job rumour from?
A: They are making allegations because Kony liked me very much in appreciation of what I did for him and how I treated him. Obita has never bought Kony anything, not even a needle. He only takes his stomach to the camps. Obita has nothing to offer the people of Acholi. Itís a shame that he should pretend to be working.
After Matsanga’s presser, nothing much happened. We sat around waiting. All day. Choppers were heading back to Juba and we weighed the newsworthiness of staying in Nabanga longer over the prospect of flush toilets in Juba.
We stayed another night.
Though no news emerged, there was a drinking opportunity with James “I think it would be wrong not to expect Kony to want assurance about his financial future” Obita. We were all crowded around a table with a bottle of whiskey one of the UN guys managed to get choppered into the camp, and Obita could smell it from the camp’s opposite end. He left his envoy of tracksuit wearing adorers in search of booze, the only reason to ever, ever leave a man in a tracksuit.
(Who knew so many people on the Sudan-Congo border found a tracksuit to be the clothing of choice? The winning tracksuit goes to a small Congolese man on the cessations of hostilities monitoring team. He wasn’t a midget, but almost. His suit was baby blue, with red patches, white trim, and a silk screen of an anonymous African man with a gun, repeated on both the back and the lower left pant leg. More interesting than the most colorful tracksuit is the question, how did they all manage to get their track suits to Nabanga? Did they have them folded on their bedside tables in Juba, have a friend go and pick them, bring them to the UN airport there, and fly them out to Nabanga? Who leaves a tracksuit ready and waiting by their bed? Who knew UN choppers could be used to transport tracksuits?)
Anyway, so Obita came over to our table, in search of another drink. Since six pm, he’d been drinking a bottle of cognac someone had brought for celebratory purposes (assuming the deal would be signed). It was about midnight. While indulging in our whiskey (UN choppers transporting alcohol – more acceptable or less than tracksuits?), he complained of someone stealing his mattress. We mentioned the SPLA theft of cigarettes and potato chips, and he said, “Yes, they are specialists in abduction.”
Yes, it was one of these baby-faced SPLA that took our cigarettes and potato chips, and probably have done a whole lot of shit worse than that.
The next day, it was clear that JoKo would be a no-show. We were out of whiskey, tracksuits no longer the cause for laughing antics, fear spreading of a cholera outbreak, my almost fall into a pit latrine (the sitter slipped backwards and I screamed, only to be helped up by a lady from the contingent of Acholi elders), the drinking water getting murkier every day, we decided to go back to Juba.
Peace had not been achieved. New dates have been set (I hear May 10), and new dates will be changed. But, regardless of the implausibility of a new signing date in the near future, the next time AP asks me to jump on a plane to Juba and endure another few days in Nabanga, I’ll go.
Meanwhile, there are reports of new LRA abductions, mainly in CAR and Chad. Northern Uganda is returning to stability, but will take years to catch up on the twenty years of infrastructure development and economic growth and progress the rest of the country has undergone.
As long as Kony seems to be inactive in Acholiland, people will continue to return to the ancestral villages. But without a signed deal, without justice, will there be real peace?
COPYRIGHT Glenna Gordon/Associated Press. For the full caption, and the rest of my wire photos, visit Washington Post, ABC, etc. After all of this, all you could do was sit down and exhale.
I’m Glenna Gordon, an American photographer and journalist, presently commuting between West Africa and Brooklyn. Previously, I lived in Liberia. And before that, I lived in Uganda. I’ve traveled and worked in over a dozen countries in Africa.
