The Most Unconventional Weapon

By DANIEL BERGNER
Published: October 26, 2003
As we sat in a shanty in a village north of Beni, Kakule, recounting what had happened, could not be completely sure of the soldiers' reasons for cannibalism. Congo is about two-thirds the size of Western Europe, the M.L.C. originated in a distant part and Kakule could not comprehend the tribal language the soldiers spoke much of the time. But his explanation echoed the understanding I heard repeatedly from his countrymen: that eating the flesh, especially the organs, of your enemy is a way to augment your own power.
Nande and Pygmy civilians were viewed as enemies of the M.L.C. because of their apparent support for a rival rebel army. And though Pygmies are scorned as subhuman by other Congolese (for their miniature bodies and their abject lives, impoverished even by the standards of one of the poorest countries on earth), they were seen as a source of coveted knowledge and resilience. ''The acts of cannibalism,'' write U.N. investigators, ''particularly concerning the Pygmies' internal body parts such as the heart and liver, can be considered to be pure fetishism aimed at helping the perpetrators to acquire the capacity and ability of the victims to hunt and live in the forest.''
Fetishism can't explain why, according to testimony given to U.N. investigators, M.L.C. troops forced one woman to eat from her husband's corpse. It can't explain why some victims were ordered to swallow their own ears or toes, why Kakule had to eat the less desirable parts of his assistant's body alongside his captors or why, after the butchering of a Protestant priest, others were forced to pay money or eat his flesh -- or be butchered themselves. The inflicting of vengeance and spreading of terror -- aspects of war that are as modern as they are ancient -- have played a part in Congo's cannibalism. A Human Rights Watch report released in July suggests that ''perpetrators have found that fear of cannibalism terrorizes victims more effectively into compliance with their orders than does the simple fear of death, so frequently faced in daily life.''
But to travel on the visa sold in Beni, to travel around the northeast, is to be taught that by eating another man's heart (especially the heart of a Pygmy, whose people are considered the original tribe of the country, possessors of a primal strength), a man can make himself bulletproof. It is to be taught that only such cannibalism, along with the gris-gris of traditional priests, allowed the M.L.C. to come so close to seizing the town. It is to feel, in the Congolese ways of seeing the world, the pervasive hold of the atavistic, the magical.
To glimpse the depth of magical thinking, of spiritual vision, that lies beneath the cannibalism, I arranged for a display of spiritual power. In khaki slacks, a neatly pressed white dress shirt and a gaucho-style hat made of ''witch material,'' Vita Kitambala, a Mayi-Mayi military general and traditional priest, demonstrated his capacity to deflect bullets. The strength he claimed was not due to cannibalism, as far as I know. He would not reveal the rituals or substances that allowed him, according to his troops (who ranged in age from 8 to adulthood), to make his soldiers fly or to make himself invisible. He would agree only to give evidence of his ability. So, one morning, he directed one of his soldiers to set a green flip-flop on the patchy grass of his Mayi-Mayi garrison. Amid the rectangular huts, another gunman shook a black jerrycan. With AK-47's and grenade launchers, a great crowd of troops had gathered in the sun, amused but not terribly excited. Water from the jerrycan was splashed onto the flip-flop -- the same sanctified water, blessed secretly by the general, that the soldiers had often splashed on themselves.
They all knew of the water's bulletproofing power in battle. They had laughed, the previous afternoon, at my skepticism, my deprivation of faith, when they told of the things their general could do. ''The mzungu cannot believe,'' they said, using the Swahili word for ''white man.'' They had their knowledge, a truth they took for granted, and there was no ceremony, no fanfare, to the demonstration now. A teenager standing over the flip-flop fired down so suddenly that I missed the aiming. The green rubber was unscathed, but I requested another display. The general offered to let me choose any gun in the crowd, to let me fire it, so I would know there were no tricks. He offered to let me shoot at the chest of any soldier.
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Daniel Bergner is the author of ''In the Land of Magic Soldiers: A Story of White and Black in West Africa.''




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