|
Last November, I went to [President Mobutu Sese Seko]'s lakeside palace in
Goma. The gates stood open and unguarded. The Zairean flag lay in a lump in the driveway. Munitions abandoned by Mobutu's Special Presidential Division littered the grounds -- heaps of assault rifles and cases marked "TNT" packed with
sixty-millimetre mortar rounds. Five mint black Mercedes sedans, a shiny Land Rover, and two ambulances were parked by the garage. Inside, the house was a garish assemblage of mirrored ceilings, malachite-and-pearl inlaid furniture, chandeliers, giant televisions, and elaborate hi-fis. Upstairs, the twin master bathrooms were equipped with Jacuzzis.
Goma is largely a shantytown. The poverty is extreme. Just after the rebel takeover, I had stopped by the house of a friend who had gone away, leaving his dogs. Their snouts stuck out beneath the locked gate. I was feeding them some United Nations high-protein biscuits when three men came around the corner and asked for some, too. I held out the box to the first man, who was clad in rags, and said, "Take a few." His hands shot out, and I felt the box fly from my grip as if it were spring-loaded. The man's companions immediately pounced on him, tussling, cramming biscuits into their mouths, snatching biscuits out of one another's mouths, and along what had seemed a deserted street more people came running to join the fray.
Mobutu's Jacuzzis were lined with bath oils and perfumes in bottles of Alice in Wonderland magnitude; they must have held about a gallon apiece. Most were quite full. But one appeared to have enjoyed regular use: a vat of Chanel's
Egoiste.
He bathed in the stuff.
That was Zaire.
-- Philip Gourevitch in the New Yorker
|
