orginally published in Africa Review, Kenya
While the United Nations mulls pulling out of one of the most war-wrecked, poorly-governable country’s in the world, at least one thing seems to be going right in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Or at least in the right direction.
Belgium-owned Brussels Airlines is broadening its reach after coupling with investors in Germany and the Congo to create a new airline in the troubled central Africa country.
Korongo, meaning ‘bird’ in Swahili, will be based in the copper-belt city Lubumbashi, with a focus first on the Great Lakes Region of Africa, and then further destinations. It has acquisitioned a Boeing 737-300 from Brussels Airline and would begin operating sometime this year.
The other investor, George Forrest, has a 50% stake in the company and is one of the most well-known businessmen in the Congo, where he is a kingpin in Lubumbashi dealing with the region’s precious metals. He also owns the last cement factory in the entire country.
Air travel in the country is constantly rated among the most iconic of the Congo’s ills, along with endemic rape, blood-minerals and rampant corruption. Though there are a number of domestic and international airlines, they have rough safety record and are banned from serving European airports, limiting the industry’s girth in the country. Kinshasa, the capital of the country, is the second-largest French speaking city in the world, the country retains vibrant economic and social ties to France and Belgium.
The Congo, a broken country with limited infrastructure and no roads reaching from east to west, has often had to rely on its is shoddy and unregulated airline industry to transport aid workers, diplomats and government officials around the country. While the United Nations peacekeeping mission to the country has developed a busy and regional airline and helicopter service, it is not avaible to consumers. Rather, they have to rely on a bevy of Congolese airlines and Soviet-era planes wit one of the world’s worst aviation records. Monthly plane crashes are not unheard of, and often worst hit region is the volatile east.
Notable accidents in recent years include the tragic death of 17 aid workers and United Nations officials in September, 2008 when their charter flight crashed into a mountain in the country’s troubled South Kivu province. In April of 2008, over forty were killed when a commercial flight crashed into a market in city of Goma, killing many on the ground. Last November, a flight carrying over 100 passengers failed to take off from the runway in Goma and instead crashed head on into a boulder of lava rocks. Earlier in the year a plane flying from the Central African Republic to Zimbabwe simply disappeared over the forests of the Congo. A plane that crashed in October in 2007 in the capital Kinshasa killed at least 39, though figures of the death toll vary. It was a Russian-made Antonov-26.
The most reliable transport in the country remains ferries that criss-cross – and often sink in – the Congo’s hemorrhage of rivers connecting all parts of the country.
It has not helped the countr’s identity. The Congo has a myriad of ethnic groups – some at peace, some in the second decade of seething conflict. While the western half of the country speaks mostly Lingala, the volatile east speaks mostly Swahili. The roads have long since broken and washed away connecting the two regions and the influences of country’s such as Uganda, Zambia and Rwanda have made it difficult for the Congo to find a unified voice, as it heads into elections in 20011.
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