Author: Cong Shan graduated from the French Department of Xi'an University of Foreign Chinese; since 1985, he has worked at the Chinese Embassy in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, the Embassy in the Republic of Gabon, the Embassy in the Republic of the Congo, the United Nations Mission in Geneva, Switzerland, and the Embassy in France;
During the period of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the author and his wife took a photo after attending the "August 1st Army Founding Day Reception" (photo provided by the author)
Towards the turn of the century, the political evolution of the two Congos showed a clearly different trend.
On the north bank of the Congo River, following the dispatch of Angolan President dos Santos to Brazzaville in support of the Sassou faction, the situation in the Congo (Brazzaville) began to gradually stabilize, and although sporadic gunfire could be heard frequently at night in the following months, social order had begun to gradually recover, and since then there have been no large-scale riots and loss of control in the country.
Reception room in the Superior Room of the Ambassador's Residence after being hit and fired by a Soviet Katyusha rocket (courtesy of the author)
In the months that followed, Counsellor Liu Yuxi and I (currently the Chinese Ambassador to the African Union) went all the way to the banks of the Congo River, working day and night to take charge of the aftermath of the embassy in the Congo (Brazzaville), restoring water and electricity communication facilities, and equipping office supplies, until June 1998, when the Chinese Embassy in the Republic of the Congo was reopened, the staff returned to Congo (Brazzaville) from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and carried out normal work. With the joint efforts of all parties, China's relations with Congo (Brazzaville) have also made great progress and have been continuously consolidated and upgraded.
On the other side of the river, after the regime change, the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has become more complex and changeable, even uncertain, and the instability has become more persistent.
Soon after the elder Kabila overthrew the Mobutu regime, he changed the name of the country from Zaire to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or the Democratic Republic of the Congo for short, and formed a new government. However, on the whole, it is not so stable, the reorganization of the new and old armed forces has progressed slowly, and the restoration of social order is also quite tortuous and difficult.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is larger (2.345 million square kilometers) and has a larger population (89.6 million) than the Congo (Brazzaville), with hundreds of tribes, especially complex relations with many neighbouring countries: on the one hand, the attitudes of the neighbouring countries towards the new regime in the old Kabila, which sometimes have been greatly adjusted; on the other hand, due to cross-border ethnic and territorial resource disputes, there are considerable numbers of cross-border refugees and migrants, as well as illegal armed forces.
The remnants of the former Mobutu army, the resurgence of tribal warlord forces in the war, the multi-border militias in the east, especially in many parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where there are also regular Ugandan and Rwandan armies that have sent troops to help the old Kabila fight the country, have begun to clash with the old Kabila, resulting in a fragile situation in the country that is once armed, changeable, and difficult to get out of the capital.
One day in the summer of 1998, the inflection point of a large-scale rebellion in Kinshasa finally arrived. That night, riots broke out in some of the surrounding garrisons, the rebels quickly approached the capital Kinshasa, the fierce exchange of fire was endless, the situation was out of control, the capital was no longer safe, the mainland embassy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Chinese-funded institutions and overseas Chinese life and property were seriously threatened, and the mainland government decided to immediately withdraw overseas Chinese from the DRC. As Kinshasa International Airport is under direct threat of rebel artillery fire, the evacuation route can only concentrate the relevant personnel to cross the Congo River by boat to Brazzaville on the other side, and then arrange a follow-up return.
In the summer of 1997, the Embassy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo assisted in the evacuation of our embassy and expatriates in the Congo( BRAC), and after a year, this time it was my embassy in the Congo (Brazzaville) that in turn helped to evacuate our embassy and nationals in the Dr. Congo.
Ambassador Qu Fujun's article published in World Knowledge (Courtesy of the author)
After receiving the urgent instructions from china, Ambassador Qu Fujun held a meeting of various departments of the embassy overnight to arrange arrangements to assist the evacuation of our embassy and overseas Chinese in the Democratic Republic of the Congo . Given the urgency of the situation, we only have one day to prepare, but we have to complete the workload that takes several days to complete. That is to say, the embassy in Congo (Brazzaville) from the last evacuation distribution center into this reception and transit station, and at that time the embassy's operations have not yet fully resumed, subject to the lack of hardware facilities, just put the dormitory bed equipped, all kinds of supplies are not complete, the ordered vehicles have not arrived, the supply of materials is still in short supply, often there is money can not buy things, to run a lot of places, in order to get enough supplies. The order of life outside is still being restored.
Liu Yuxi's counselor's office hit by an anti-tank bazooka (courtesy of the author)
The key is that we do not have such a large degree of reception conditions, and how to overcome the immediate difficulties has become an important task before us. I remember that the Iron Man King Jinxi had a bold saying: "There are conditions, there are no conditions, and the conditions must be created." "No matter how difficult it is, we must also complete the arduous tasks entrusted to us by the motherland."
Shortly after the end of the civil war, everything was in ruins. The embassy's few temporarily repaired cars at the time escaped the fate of being robbed because local employees removed the tires of the cars, and after the war, the tires were installed and continued to be used. Before I could even get the license plate on the van I had just bought, I took it out of the dealership and temporarily loaded the old license plate left behind by the original robbery of the embassy. Together with a few vehicles from the staff and the guest house, a small temporary convoy was formed.
At the same time, employees were arranged to work overtime to clean up the embassy rooms, install furniture, support mosquito nets, purchase stoves and daily necessities, and initially have the living conditions for the personnel of our embassy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) who have been temporarily arranged to be evacuated. The SNC and guest houses also immediately procured mattresses, mosquito nets, food and bottled water in preparation for the temporary reception of large numbers of evacuees.
The government of Kabila, the elder of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was reluctant to allow the evacuation of foreign nationals because it appeared that their regime was not stable enough and undermined their international image, so they threatened all evacuees to cancel their visas on their passports and claimed that they would never be allowed to re-enter the country once they left, thereby restricting their departure. But the expatriates of all countries are ready to evacuate, and the marinas in Kinshasa are crowded with expatriates from all countries to be evacuated.
The author takes a picture in the office (courtesy of the author)
The Mainland Embassy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) quickly informed the experts and overseas Chinese of the expert group of Chinese-funded institutions, plus some staff of the embassy, a total of more than 100 people, arrived at the Kinshasa wharf in the early morning, but due to the large number of people and disorder, coupled with the congolese authorities setting up obstacles to let go, boarding the ship has been blocked. We didn't expect to wait so long, and the limited food and water carried by the evacuees were eaten and drunk, and we had to go hungry. Although the embassy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is not far away, the docks are under martial law and food and water cannot be delivered. Our two embassies have been on the phone to keep abreast of progress in order to find countermeasures.
Due to the temporary emergency evacuation, all Chinese evacuees did not hold Congolese (Brazzaville) entry visas. I specially drafted a note to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Congo (Brazzaville) in advance, and went directly to the Office of the Secretary-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Congo (Brazzaville) to find the Secretary-General himself to sign and agree to apply for visas on arrival for all evacuated Chinese. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Congo (Brazzaville) does not have a Deputy Minister, and the Secretary-General is equivalent to a Deputy Minister. At this moment, we can see the importance of making friends on a daily basis. The Secretary-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and I had a very good personal relationship, so I was able to go directly to his office to find him to sign, and got the approval documents for the visa on arrival a day in advance.
Early in the morning on the day of the evacuation, a group of our embassy members rushed to the congo (Brazzaville) side of the dock to meet the compatriots, because they did not know when to release the line there, they braved the heat to wait on the dock for nearly 10 hours, and only in the afternoon did they get the news that our personnel had boarded the ship. However, the expatriates of France, Belgium and other Western countries were detained on the dock by the soldiers of the old Kabila, and they could not be evacuated on the same day.
On the dock, Counselor Liu Yuxi met the Counsellor of the French Embassy in Congo (Brazzaville), who was also left behind because of the war, and he was also waiting for the French evacuees on the dock. We used to have a lot of contacts and formed good personal friendships during our stay-behind period. Everyone talked about our lack of capacity, the vehicle could not pull so many people, I am afraid that we would have to run several times. A friend of the French counsellor took the initiative to ask, "Do you need help?" We have cars, and today the French diaspora can't be evacuated, and we can help and lend you the convoy for free. Counselor Liu Yuxi said, "This can solve our big problems" and thanked him.
After many negotiations, the ferry finally came, the first to come down was Ambassador Sun Kunshan, all the personnel were very tired, in the equatorial sun under the hot wharf exposure for more than ten hours, no food or drink, the appearance is not very good. But we were all very happy to see us, after all, we saw our loved ones, many people cried, and we kept comforting and calming their emotions while immediately arranging for all the personnel to get on the bus. All the personnel of the Embassy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) were pulled back to the Embassy in the Congo (Brazzaville), and the other personnel went to the Reception Of the Embassy and the Staff Office.
I stayed at the border immigration office at the wharf, took everyone's passports to apply for visas on arrival, stamped and signed one by one, and took a lot of time. Because during that time, I went in and out almost every day, dealt with the officials there, everyone was very familiar, and I took the approval documents of the Congolese (Brazzaville) Foreign Ministry in advance and said hello, so several officials in charge of immigration came together to speed up the processing, but even so, it was still a lot of time.
When I went to the guest house with all the passports with visas stamped on arrival to meet all the evacuees, I received a call from Counselor Liu Yuxi, saying that a new situation had emerged. Originally, we were going to arrange for everyone to be in the guest house, and then book tickets for international flights to arrange for evacuation, but after the war, flights have not yet returned to normal, there are only one flight a week and there is no guarantee, and we do not know when we can evacuate people.
The French side arranged a special plane to stop at Brazzaville International Airport on the same day, preparing to evacuate the French diaspora to Gabon. At that time, the French expatriate was detained on the Kinshasa pier and could not be evacuated, and the idleness of the plane was wasteful, and the French side suggested that we could evacuate our personnel to Gabon first, and it was free of charge. Such a good thing is still hesitating, I am worried about no flights, how to withdraw so many people! I consulted with Counselor Liu Yuxi, immediately reported to the ambassador, agreed to the French proposal, and at the same time informed me that the Embassy in Gabon was ready to receive it.
The French side pulled all of our personnel to the French cultural center. Our embassy guest house sent someone to pull prepared baguette sandwiches, meat buns, porridge and other foods and bottled water to the French cultural center and distribute them to all the evacuees. For people who have not eaten or drunk all day, it is undoubtedly the same as "manna".
When I arrived at the French Cultural Center, the French ambassador to congo (Brazzaville), the counsellor and the military attaché were all present, and after exchanging greetings, we decided to verify everyone's identity on the spot. I took the passport, read everyone's name, issued the passport to me, and then the French side sent a car to take everyone to the airport to board the plane directly. Many experts and overseas Chinese in the expert group said to me with tears in their eyes, thank you to the motherland, thank the embassy for everything they have done for them, and even some people have to kneel, I hurried to stop.
Xinhua News Agency reporter Zhang Zhengdong published an article in The Globe (Courtesy of the author)
There was also a small episode in the middle, when I read the name of a person, the person said: "I can't evacuate because I'm a Xinhua reporter and I have to stay." "We verified his identity and the country did ask him to stay so that he was not sent away. We rushed to the airport with these evacuees and saw that the plane had taken off safely before leaving with confidence.
When Counselor Liu Yuxi and I dragged our tired bodies back to the embassy, night had fallen, and it was dinner time, and comrades from both embassies applauded us. Although we have not been wet or dripping water for nearly a day, we are very happy in our hearts that this safe evacuation operation has been successfully completed under such difficult conditions. By chance, it was a miracle.
After arriving in Gabon, all the evacuated personnel, with the strong assistance of our embassy in Gabon, returned to their homeland safely through Paris, France, Johannesburg, South Africa, and Zurich, Switzerland.
Soon, as the situation across the river slowly calmed down, the personnel evacuated from our embassy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) also returned to their posts in several batches.
The author and his wife are photographed wearing body armor and helmets (courtesy of the author)
Through this evacuation operation, I deeply realized the importance of making friends in ordinary times, which can play a role at critical moments, which seem to be accidental, but in fact inevitable. With the improvement of the mainland's international status and the increasing number of foreign exchanges, a large number of Chinese citizens go abroad every day, and the consular protection work of the embassy is increasing, and the tasks are becoming heavier and heavier. Protecting the legitimate rights and interests and security of Chinese citizens is one of the important tasks of our diplomatic work. The motherland is the strong backing of all Chinese, and this shield is forged by the hard work, selfless dedication and blood of thousands of diplomats on our diplomatic front.
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Graphic | Cong Shan
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