F.C.'s New Sister City: Just What & Where is Congo's Kokolopori?

By Nathan Hamme

The Falls Church City Council voted last week to consummate a new “ Sister City” partnership between Falls Church and Kokolopori, a hamlet in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in central Africa. Facilitated by Sister Cities International, and entailing a mere $340 in annual membership dues, the partnership is an important arrangement for both parties involved. It is an opportunity for the citizens of Falls Church to learn about a people and environment that are largely neglected and misunderstood, and through that understand, to better educate the world.

To illustrate the point of how important this knowledge is, one might try typing “ Kokolopori, Congo” into an Internet search engine, or perusing a local bookstore for travel guides relating to central Africa. One will find little information about the region, most results relating exclusively to Falls Church’s newest partnership and the only current “ Sister City” relationship existing in the DRC.

If the first effort proves sparse, a second search effort, more than likely, will prove entirely fruitless. That’s how this reporter’s research for this story began. Fortunately, he came upon some Falls Church citizens who were knowledgeable about the area, and who spearheaded the “ Sister City” effort locally.

Kokolopori is less a city than a series of 25 villages in the rainforests of the Congo Basin. Encompassing about 1,860 square miles (3,000 kilometers), these villages are home to over 19,000 indigenous Mongandu people. There is only one road connecting these villages, and only three trucks traverse this road at any given time, as it is difficult to bring heavy machinery through the dense surrounding forest.

Citizens travel almost exclusively by trodden path or by boat, with the Congo River’s many tributaries acting as liquid boulevards for carved-out canoes. Because of its isolation, the area is also home to approximately 1,500 bonobos, one of the four great ape species, and the most critically endangered.

While the partnership has just been sanctioned, a great deal of work was required in laying the foundation for it, particularly by Ingrid Schulze, Falls Church’s driving force behind the program. As volunteer for the Bonobo Conservation Initiative (BCI), and as self-proclaimed National Geographic enthusiast, she hopes to be the first Falls Church representative to visit Kokolopori this summer.

Schulze has made numerous contacts with conservationists and Congolese citizens in anticipation of the new partnership. None has been more notable than Albert Lokasola, chemist and president of Vie Sauvage, BCI’s affiliate organization based in the DRC.

Last October, Lokasola gave a presentation at George Mason High School about the bonobo and the organizational efforts being made on behalf of the victimized species. Planned by the George Mason Environmental Club, including Schulze’s daughter, Maya Cough-Schulze, the presentation spawned a letter writing project between GMHS and two secondary schools in Kokolopori, schools founded by Mr. Lokasola that afford students continued education previously unavailable to them.

More than the endangered apes, however, the Sister City program is based on furthering mutual respect and understanding between people of different cultures. “This (partnership),” Schulze maintained, “is about human beings and helping their lives. We have many things we could learn from them.”

Among the lessons is a more worldly view of people and cultures, the shift of individuals’ foci from everyday routine and material possessions, and to learn to live in balance with the surrounding natural world, something habitually ignored in contemporary industrial society.

In an interview with the News-Press following last week’s City Council vote, Schulze and fellow advocate Ralph Yatsko, member of the Falls Church Environmental Services Council, helped to brainstorm about different ways City residents can assist the program, and more centrally the people, through the partnership.

In addition to submitting letters and pictures to be sent to the African region to convey scenes of daily life in Falls Church, there are many supplies and resources that are useful donations. Among the most important medical supplies, bicycles and bicycle parts, books and textbooks (specifically in English and French language), and school supplies such as pencils. Both Schulze and Yatsko went on to mention AIDS prevention as focal point, and the idea of working with the Falls Church-based Northern Virginia AIDS Ministry to help educate citizens of Kokolopori.

Schulze explained her hopes of recruiting a program committee in Falls Church to work with BCI and the Kokolopori Partnership. These Falls Church volunteers would ideally be people with backgrounds in many different areas — health, education, government — who could better define what efforts and materials would prove ultimately the most useful.

Both Schulze and Yatsko also keyed in on helping the people of Falls Church to understand everyday life in another, remote part of the world among residents of Kokolopori, specifically, and the DRC in general.

Formerly a colony, Congo was given independence by Belgium in 1960. The subsequent 45 years have been marred by violent government repression, civil war, corruption, and subversive foreign intervention. Much of the intense international focus centered on the vast mineral wealth of the DRC, which was formerly known as Zaire during the rule of President Mobutu Sese Seko between 1965 and 1997.

During colonial rule, it was King Leopold II of Belgium who made a fortune on the sale of ivory and rubber. Amidst the struggle for political power after independence, western nations backed the secession of key mining provinces—effectively frustrating the nation’s hopes for unification. Rebel groups continued to fight one another for territory, and many political figures were assassinated and forced into hiding. Mobutu was able to capture and retain power based on military repression and his manipulation of rebel groups against one another.

He was also able to siphon off millions of dollars by nationalizing the mining industries, effectively setting the stage for impending economic collapse.

More recently, the DRC was forced to deal with interference by Rwandan and Ugandan armies, who were concerned with tribal relations inside the country and the vast economic profitability of the natural resources there, such as diamonds, manganese, coltan and gold. (80% of the world’s coltan — a key material in making cell phones — is found in the DRC, and its availability has been viewed as an important factor for continued international interference in the country).

Invading armies were slow to retreat after peace accords signed in 1999 and 2002, waiting behind to loot the country of its resources. Recently, however, progress has been made. In the first democratic, nationwide vote since 1970, citizens overwhelmingly ratified a new constitution last month, and parliamentary and presidential elections are now scheduled for June.

The many years of civil war preceding the DRC’s most recent democratic successes have had less of an effect on Kokolopori than most other areas of the country. The region has maintained much of its old traditions, including the native religion, Lilwa, which is the basis for the socio-political organization of the villages.

Increasing expansion by commercial loggers, however, has had multiple disastrous effects on their environment and livelihood. Not only is the base of the ecosystem perpetually degraded, the flora that provides food and habitat for many rainforest creatures, but companies are increasingly exercising control over the fauna as well.

Logging personnel typically clear the region of animals by shooting at anything that moves, later selling the meat for distribution around the world. While the Mongandu people have always held taboos against killing great apes, international companies hold to no such prohibitions.

With all this, nature’s evolutionary story is being rewritten. With the rainforest depleted by logging, the bonobo have been forced to change territory, a frightening reality considering that they may only have a short distance they can move. The bonobo is found only south of the Congo River, while chimpanzees exclusively populate the north.

This drastic division is a result of very particular historical circumstance. Scientists have found that chimpanzees and bonobos diverged evolutionarily approximately 1.5 million years ago. This event coincided with the archeologically determined formation of the Congo River itself. It is believed that the bonobo, which unlike the chimpanzee is often observed swimming and playing in the river’s waters, either migrated or developed independently from the chimpanzee through this severance.

The region’s ecosystem makes the setting of Kokolopori particularly unique. Correspondingly, it is important to recognize that the Mongandu people play a central role in maintaining its integrity, and are literal caretakers of what scientists often refer to as the “lungs of the planet.”

The Mongandu feel a strong connection with the forest and animals that have surrounded them for centuries, though they are slowly being taken away.

The “ Sister City” partnership between Falls Church and Kokolopori affords both parties an opportunity to make progress with regards to one another. The great hope maintained by those who have instigated this important association is that Falls Church will help to raise recognition of the issues facing the people of Kokolopori. This exchange of information, while essential, will be only a precursor to conscientious action.

For more information on the “ Sister City” partnership between Falls Church, VA and Kokolopori, Democratic Republic of Congo, or for those wishing to make donations of time of resources, contact Ingrid Schulze at kokolopori@cox.net. For more information on the bonobo, check www.bonobo.org.