In a bizarre twist to a compelling story in which the truth shifts and shapes to fit the motivation of the tellers—big conservation from Western countries and their agents on the ground in Congo—the most recent investigation charges that the sensational gorilla killings of July 2007 were not due to the elusive “charcoal gatherers” fingered by Emmanuel Demerode of Richard Leakey’s Wildlife Direct and the UNESCO investigators flown in from Paris, nor were they due to the trade in infant gorillas or the bushmeat trade that, being the usual suspects, are forever indicting starving African people for their own miseries.
The real reason for gorilla killings may be as old as the soul of Africa—a quest as compelling as that for the Holy Grail—the acquisition of magic “gorilla sticks” fetching up to $20,000. These gorilla sticks are reportedly used as walking sticks or canes for elder gorillas and elder chimpanzees, and according to the recent S.O.S. they are thought to hold supernatural powers. The question that goes hand in hand with the old gorilla walking cane story is why the existence of magic walking sticks has not been raised by either the Congolese rangers—who most certainly understand local customs—or the gorilla organizations that are quick to capitalize on and spread media and academic frenzy over the “tool-using” practices of great apes.
Why haven’t gorilla and chimpanzee primatologists reported on the tool-using capabilities that revolve around magic gorilla sticks?
Meanwhile, the regular Congolese army, in its supposed zeal to rid Virunga Park of an alphabet soup of militia—including Mai Mai, the Interahamwe and the Forces for the Democratic Liberation of Rwanda—not to mention villagers who only want to find a way to survive in the hell that has overcome North Kivu Province—has eaten anything and everything that moves. Virunga has become a “Ghost Park” in the words of the Congolese animal rights’ investigators.
To get these sticks the primate must be killed. According to the Congolese investigators the local militia and soldiers “are engaged in the dirty business.” After the ape is killed, the meat is either taken as a by-product of the kill or left to rot in the bush. Any orphan gorillas are left behind too.
The trade in rhino horn—coveted for its believed aphrodisiac qualities—has eliminated the White Rhino from Virunga and nearly completed the extermination in Garamba, another national park in the north of Congo. The power of the magic gorilla stick is even greater in a region where life and fate turn on a dime.
According to field reports and interviews conducted by independent Congolese investigators who gained the trust of village women by posing as gorilla smugglers, “the stick used by the big apes is supposed to carry magic power useful to protect someone in his job so that he can keep it as long as possible, he must be feared and [can] exert authority on the other workers.”
Local investigations independent of any NGOs or park authorities report that since January 3, 2007, eleven chimpanzees have been killed at Tongo and three mountain gorillas at Rumangabo, two sites in the Virungas landscape. Six of these chimps were reportedly killed on March 19, three on April 16, and two on June 16 by the forces under command of Congo’s resident Rwanda-backed warlord General Laurent Nkunda.
Rubiga, the female mountain gorilla of the Kabirizi Group (family) was killed in Rumangabo on June 8. The baby, Ndakasi, left feeding at its breast was hauled off to Goma amidst much media attention by the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project, and the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International (DFGF-I) wasted no time in issuing a press release about its own involvement in the “rescue.”
The Rumangabo location in the Virungas is noteworthy. We visited Rumangabo in February 2007, and the place was crawling with rangers affiliated with both ICCN and the Frankfurt Zoological Society. The FZS project is run by conservationist Robert Muir, and both projects are closely tied into Richard Leakey’s “elite” Congo Rangers. The Rangers are either operating with rusty machetes or well-oiled machine guns: those who believe the story peddled on July 22 by the Washington Post’s Stephanie McCrummen can buy the “rusty machete” descriptions; those who saw the photos supplied by Robert Muir have to place their bets on a well-trained and incredibly well-equipped mercenary army.
Rumangabo also has a sophisticated communications tower, well stocked food storage areas and, according to local investigators, a lively ongoing trade in gorilla and chimp orphans.
During the course of an investigation regarding the disposition of one baby gorilla, the investigative team brought an interpreter proficient in Kinyarwandan (Rwandan) to “Camp Vodo,” a location a scant fifteen meters from the ranger station at Rumangabo.
Instead of one infant gorilla, the team found a two-month old and a four month old. Price was discussed. The two month old was being offered for $3,000 US and a $5,000 price tag with a special “discount” would nab the second gorilla. Investigators had a digital camera and suggested that their “buyer” would like a photo or two before the price was agreed upon, but “a man who had a soldier’s attitude, but dressed in civilian clothes,” prohibited any attempts at photo documentation.
The investigators recommended that the sellers come with the sting team to Goma to obtain the money for the gorilla, but the sellers and the military spokesman in civilian clothes opposed the plan. It was either turn over the money, or head out, since it was already getting dark and there is no twilight in this part of equatorial Africa. The Rwandan guide, doubling as interpreter, drove the group to a third dealer—this one a woman. The baby gorilla in her possession had a severe wound on its right thigh. The woman appeared to be in close collaboration with the soldiers whom she said would always provide her with as many gorillas as she wanted. The gruesome process was always the same—slaughter the mother, take the baby. The team suggested that the life of the proffered baby gorilla was in danger because of the severe wound, but the woman reassured the team that the baby was under the care of a veterinarian.
The woman then said she had another gorilla at a location eight kilometres away, but this one was older than the others, she said, and the team needed to choose which gorilla it wanted to purchase. Refusing to buy sight unseen, the woman eventually produced a bag of hair and excrement that she said came from the older gorilla.
Investigators reported that the woman appeared confident and said she collaborates with a Ugandan businessman who often arrives in Kiwanja, a village in North Kivu province 10 miles west of the border, from Uganda. While in Kiwanja, the Ugandan teams up with a local businessman by the name of “Bahati” who is connected with a young man called “Kakule.” (We confirmed that this is not the Pierre Kakule of DFGF-I and the Mwami’s Tale “Henchmen and Heartbreak in the Heart of Darkness.”)
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