Africa addio Page #5

speak excellent English,

and receive union wages

for putting on nylon underwear and

dancing the dance of their grandmothers.

During their breaks,

the ancient rhythm of the tom-tom

gives them a few variations

on the theme.

The African female has discovered

she is a woman

and is beginning to behave as such.

She wants to be modern because

she feels the past is against her.

When she was naked,

she had two mammary glands.

Now that she's clothed,

she has two breasts.

She does not wants to display herself.

She wants to be looked at

to make you guess

what's under her alluring clothes.

She covers her intimacy not

out of modesty, but to be flirtatious.

She undresses to surrender

and dresses to attack.

Naked she was prey,

like a black female.

Clothed she is a tyrant,

like a white woman.

Africa covers itself consciously

and all wrapped up in the veils of its

consciousness, Africa disappears.

For their part, the authorities

encourage or even impose modesty.

In the southern regions of Sudan,

thousands of pairs of underwear,

all one size

are distributed to the tribes in

the interior by the "Legion of Decency".

The unconquerable warriors

entrusted with them

must maintain them

with the care owed by every good citizen

to everything that is state property.

Among all things to hide,

underwear covers what's most urgent.

That's enough to decently begin to march

toward the conquest of further dignity.

Never before has a warrior put on pants.

Never before has a lion climbed a tree.

The fact is that times have changed,

and in the new republics

the ancient kings

have fallen into disgrace.

Let's take the poor ex-king

of the animals with the stiff muscles.

Today, his roar doesn't scare anyone.

While zebras and gazelles flee,

pursued by gunshots,

the once invincible, ex-aristocrat,

ex-hunter of noble prey

climbs trees and hunts lizards.

Poor king of the jungle!

His old reputation haunts him,

making his humiliation public.

The tourists crowd the parks

to see him, only him.

Where's the lion?

There's the lion.

Wait, let's see

what the lion's doing.

It's like that the whole day,

and they don't even leave him

a moment of intimacy.

Encouraged by his ancestral laziness,

the African lion has given up hunting,

seeing as how the park rangers

do the hunting for him.

Fresh meat is delivered to his door,

that is, to the areas

most accessible to tourists

where the park administration

has a great interest that he stays.

So, over time, the ancient, nomadic,

independent king of the jungle

has become a stingy retiree

with middle-class habits

forced to defend his steak

against those who up until yesterday

would not have dared to come close.

A new rebellion

has broken out in Tanganyika.

The mob has massacred Muslims,

including women and children.

The mortuaries are full.

The corpses have to be lined up outside.

The vultures wait patiently

for the operation to finish

so they can start their own.

Dar es Salaam

is in the grips of anarchy.

Everyone is in revolt:

The people, the police,

and even the army,

which has mutinied.

President Nyerere has disappeared.

No one knows who's in charge.

For us European journalists,

going out on the streets in search of

footage is a nearly suicidal endeavor.

Everywhere we go, they chase us away.

They insult us. They threaten us.

We try to get to the outskirts.

On the bloody streets, a crowd hides

the victims of the massacre from us.

In one neighborhood,

a Muslim tries to flee from a lynch mob.

He jumps off a seawall.

The mob reaches him and drowns him.

They destroy the houses and shops

of businessmen

accused of having taken over

from the whites in exploiting the people.

With great effort, we push

through the crowd in Uhuru Square.

Someone has killed

three African soldiers.

The police prepare the reprisal,

dragging all the Muslims

out of their homes

and lining them up against the wall.

They yell at us to leave,

they threaten us with guns.

We try to equivocate, to win time,

while the camera continues to roll.

One of us is injured.

They open the doors

and drag us out.

They arrest us.

They put us up against the wall.

We are saved by a miracle

which the newspapers would later report.

Moise Tshombe has returned from exile

as a liberator,

father of the country,

and special envoy of the UN.

Three quarters of Congo is in

the hands of rebels and communists.

Tshombe promises to clean house

in three months.

Two months later, Stanleyville,

stronghold of Simba leader Nicholas Olenga,

has been conquered

by Belgian paratroopers and mercenaries.

The city is a cemetery without graves.

During 100 days of occupation,

the Simba have tortured

and, in part, eaten 12,000 Africans.

Guns in hand, regular Congolese troops

force the Simba prisoners

to carry out this gruesome cleaning.

In the final days, 80 schoolchildren

were burned alive.

Four nurses were raped and killed.

Sixty-four people were shot including

Europeans, Indians and Pakistanis.

Many bodies have a long gash

in the belly

where the Simba cut out the liver

and ate it.

Nine nuns, seven missionaries

and four white children

were tied up with wire

and shot by the rebels in the mouth.

The heat is unbearable.

The air is thick

with the stench of corpses.

There's fear of pestilence.

At the Leopoldville airport,

American C-130s land with the survivors

of the Stanleyville massacre.

Just yesterday, they had been

massed together for execution.

The machine guns had already started

cutting them down

when 320 Belgian paratroopers

dropped from the sky

and, in 10 minutes, managed to pull them

out of the hands of 7000 rebels.

Despite the lightning operation,

The injured were pulled out

from under a pile of 40 corpses

among which were identified Americans

Carlson and Rain

and Belgians Brinkman, Masqueau

and De Smitter.

Five of these wounded, among whom

was a woman who had been raped,

were to die soon after

in a Danish hospital in Leopoldville.

The evacuation of survivors,

the transport of the wounded,

food and medicine,

was carried out in a few hours

by the US Air Force with 40 planes.

Two days later, November 27,

the governments of the new African states

demanded that Washington

make a broad official apology

for the abusive interference by the USA

in private Congolese affairs.

Beyond Polis and Beni, on

the northern border of Congo with Sudan

an attempt is made at the aerial

resupply with food and medicine

of a mission occupied by rebels.

The life of the priests, nuns

and over 100 children is in danger.

The 6000 rebels of the Kirlis army

who rule the area

have threatened to wipe out

all of the besieged

if even one paratrooper

or helicopter tries to land.

For eight days, the planes of the ANC

take turns in the sky above the mission

making drops that end up

in the hands of the rebels.

At dawn on the ninth day,

planes and helicopters take off

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