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HANDS OFF THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO NOW!
By Antoine Roger Lokongo
On the 17 May 1997, a great event took place in the Democratic republic of Congo, known as the former Zaire. Laurent Désiré Kabila with massive popular support and the military technical help from Rwanda and Uganda chased away Mobutu Sese Seko from power. Laurent Désiré Kabila had a load of expectations on his shoulders: from his own people first of all, who have been dehumanised and pauperised by Mobutu’s compradore and economically chaotic regime for 37 years, all reduced to jokers singing and dancing for Mobutu, albeit with empty stomach; then from his allies in the war of liberation, that is Rwanda and Uganda, and from Western superpowers and multinationals who clearly signalled that Kabila should toe the line, play the same game as Mobutu, be aware that the Cold war has been won, yes by the West and that power has swung on one side, almost unilaterally.
An so we watched Kabila. And what did we see? A new hope for the newly re-baptised Democratic Republic of Congo sprang, literally from the ashes. As soon as Kabila settled in Kinshasa, he started to articulate clearly the aspirations of his people and summoning them to take their own destiny into their own hands politically and economically.
The people of Congo enjoyed a short-lived time of respite during Kabila’s first year in power. They could eat three times a day again as prices of essential commodities drastically dropped, roads and bridges were repaired, public transport restored, electricity extended to the suburbs of Kinshasa and people freed from Mobutu’s ill paid soldiers’ransoming. The new currency, the Congolese franc was launched and the inflation rate dropped from 88.2% in 1993 to 6% in 1997. Corruption was severely combated. All this was achieved in the absence of any help from the IMF and World Bank who conditioned their financial support to Congo normalising its relations with the institutions of Bretton Woods and pledging to pay all the debt the old regime contracted. Such was also the position of the ‘Friends of Congo’ meeting in Brussels in December 1997. Kabila refused to pay all the debts Mobutu contracted, arguing that he did not see any work that that money has done in Congo.
The new government embarked on an ambitious three year programme of national reconstruction and during the third summit of Comesa (Common Market Community of Central and Southern African Countries) held in Kinshasa on 29 June 1998, Kabila clearly tabled out what role Congo would play within the common market and in Africa as a whole.
He explained that “more than 30 years of African independence have offered to the world a sad spectacle of a continent looted and humiliated with the complicity of its own sons and daughters”. He expressed the wish “to see Africa entering the 21st century totally independent of foreign interference” and declared that the battle for Congo’s independence and sovereignty is fought in the interest of Africa as a whole.
“Our country,” he said, “has a vocation of exporting peace, development and security to the rest of Africa. A weak Congo means a vulnerable Africa from its centre, an Africa without a heart.” The stakes were then raised!
On the political front, the new government promised free and fair elections but did not liberalise political activities until an national assembly was set up, charged with the task of setting the rules of the game stipulated in a new constitution. On the day he was sworn-in as president, Kabila gave a precise calendar of the democratic process which would have culminated with general elections on April 1999.
Helas! Kabila’s nationalist stance immediately clashed with the interests of those who backed him on his way to Kinshasa, because he eventually reviewed all the contracts he had signed with American and South African mineral companies when he was a rebel and nationalised the mining industry. Earlier on he had enlisted the support of Zimbabwe to enlarge his circle of friends, should he fall out with the first ones, prompting President Thabo Mbeki to say: ‘The more time goes, the more we will loose control of Kabila.’
The US State Department called him a loose canon.
That is what explain the fact that with the with the blessing of Washington, London and South Africa, Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi On the 2 August 1998, launched what they called ‘a war of correction’ against the Democratic Republic of Congo on the pretext that Kabila was not doing enough to curb rebel activities from the Congolese territory into Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi, especially the Interahamwe, presumably responsible for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
On the 2 August, Rwandan troops caused a general panic in the capital Kinshasa and attempted to assassinate Kabila. On 3 August, troops loyal to Kabila got the situation under control. At the same time, a “mutiny” broke out in the east, in Goma particularly near the Rwandan border. 16 days after the invasion a masterminded ‘Congolese rebellion’ was quickly fixed to give the aggression some kind of Congolese legitimacy. The RCD rebel movement made up of disgruntled Mobutuists and Congolese Tutsi of Rwandan origin, estimating was then born. 500 Rwandan troops landed in Kitona military base in the west of Congo, 2,500km away from their border; notwithstanding all UN and OAU charters which forbids any member state from violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of another state.
Very soon, it became evident that the operation was a brainchild of the United States of America. 200 Black American soldiers settled in Idjui Island near Goma and wielded the communication equipment for the rebels. The raid on Kitona military base was coordinated by two American war ships anchored on the mouth of the river Congo. The rebels seized the Inga central hydro-electric dam and threatened the lives of six millions people in the capital Kinshasa which they encircled.
For Washington and London, the stakes were high enough not to be involved. Congo is rich in minerals and natural resources, some of which have a capital value in military technologies. Gold, diamond, copper, manganese, zinc, bauxite (aluminium), tungsten, tantalite, etc. The Congolese coltan looted and smuggled from occupied territories contribute to the proliferation of mobile phones, computers, in fcat everythin high tech in the West. There are also three big oil-fields, one of which is the only one exploited at the moment.
The giant américan Anglo-Gold has invested $1.5 billion to exploit gold in Kilo-Moto near Bunia, the scene of massacre. It seems the UN Mission in Congo, known as MONUC by its French acronym, is there to protect gold mines, not the people. De Beers wants to go back to exploit diamonds. American Mineral Fields want a contract of 40 years to exploit copper and cobalt in the southern Katanga province. Clearly Congo is on sale!!! And agricultural potentials could make Congo the bread-basket of the whole of Africa.
Vis-à-vis a nationalist government led by Kabila in Congo, the West utilised a double strategy: To push Kabila to make concessions to the so-called democratic opposition in order to isolate him in the midst of a vast pro-western coalition, or the ‘military option, via their African ‘friends’, namely Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi with the backing of South Africa. They had also not forgiven the old guerilla fighter, a friend of Cuba, China, and North Korea of having revised the contracts he had signed with American mineral companies, and so they encouraged Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi to get rid of “an old Marxist rebel incapable of leading a country such as the rich Congo according to the principles and rules of the market economy and liberalism”. According to the Times of London, Kabila was not “a man the West could do business with”.
The USA thought probably that Kabila would be finished within days (he was eventually assassinated in exactly the same circumstances as Patrice Lumumba on the 16 January 2001). But Kabila quickly enlisted the military support of Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola. Congo’s allies repulsed the invasion on the western front with the backing of the people of Kinshasa, whom Kabila galvanised and managed to convince that this was not a rebellion but an aggression by Rwanda and Uganda. He also predicted a long-winded war.
If his son Joseph Kabila so far was not swept away from power, it is because, like his father, he enjoys the support of the revolutionary masses even in occupied territories. The people of Kinshasa bear handedly tracked down the invading troops, lynched them or burned them alive. But the aggressors gained ground in the eastern and northern parts of the country which they have occupied up to this day with the complicity of three split ‘rebel movements’: Jean Pierre Bemba’s MLC in the Equatorial province and RCD Bunia (a splinter group of RCD Goma) both sponsored by Uganda and RCD Goma, sponsored by Rwanda.
There are now nine militia terrorising the population in Ituri province alone.
The effects of this aggression have been devastating: more than 4.7 million Congolese have been massacred by the invading troops according to the International Rescue Committee (an American organisation) and 500,000 loose their lives each month as a direct consequence of the aggression. My own mother died of illness in occupied territory. Trapped there, there was no way to bring her to Kinshasa, the capital for treatment. People die gratuitously every day from illnesses and induced famine. On top of that killings, rapes and the spread of HIV have become a daily experience of the Congolese people in occupied territories, as is happening in Ituri right now. The population of Congo is one of its greatest asset and so the aggressors know how to hit where it hurts in order to weaken this great country. Often people are buried alive, shot dead or chopped with machetes, their bodies thrown into the river or forced down the latrines. Innocent women, children and elderly in Kasika, Ngweshe, Burinye, Kasala, Budi, Makobola, Mwenga and recently in Katogota – to cite but a few – lost their lives like animals in this barbaric manner. Adding to that the destruction on a massive scale of Congo’s socio-economic infrastructure (whole factories are dismounted and taken to Rwanda or Uganda, such as the sugar cane factory in Kiliba, Kivu which has been transferred to Jinja, Uganda) and the looting of its mineral and natural resources, fauna and flora. Twice the armies of Rwanda and Uganda had fought over diamond in Kisangani, leaving 3,000 Congolese dead, the city destroyed, and this at 1,500 km away from their borders with the Democratic Republic of Congo which they claim to be securing from rebel incursions.
What amazes us is the fact that France has sent troops to Congo to save lives, but the French should not have waited for a UN Security Council Resolution on this matter. Ironically, when Britain and America invaded Iraq recently, they did not wait for any UN Security Council Resolution. French troops are in Bunia – and not in Gbadolite and Goma as wished by the people - but just in the vicinity of this town massacres go on. His men are guilty of cannibalism in Ituri province. Clearly, there is need for an International Tribunal for Congo.
Moreover, Britain and America have lifted an arms embargo against Rwandan and imposed it on eastern Congo, giving Kagame of Rwanda and Museveni of Uganda a free hand to re-deploy troops or arms pro-Rwandan and pro-Ugandan militia in eastern Congo, where massacres continue on daily basis. Two planes full of arms from Kigali have already been intercepted in Beni and confiscated.
Faustin Twagiramungu, a Hutu presidential candidate in the recent elections in Rwanda was right to call for one minute silence for the victims of genocide both in Rwanda and in Congo before addressing every rally that his party organised. Clara Del Ponte, was right in contesting the decision by Koffi Annan, the UN Secretary General under the instigation of the Rwandan government - backed by Britain and America - to have her replaced before the end of her mandate (mid –September) as chief prosecutor of the Rwanda international Court that is trying those presumed responsible for the 1994 genocide. Madame Del Ponte has vowed to work till the end of her mandate, until she finishes to investigate the case of top officials in the RPF/RPA government now ruling in Rwanda for their responsibility in the genocide of more than 30,000 Hutus.
Now that Britain and America are occupying Irak, despite a massive opposition by international opinion, they have banned all the dignitaries of the Baa’th party, led by Saddam Hussein from sharing in the new power and political dispensation. On the contrary the American “Road Map” in the Democratic Republic of Congo requires that Joseph Kabila shares power with dignitaries from the fallen Mobutuist dictatorial regime and the rebels, responsible for a genocide of more 4.7 million of their compatriots after allying themselves with external aggressors who wish to annex the rich-in-mineral and oil eastern part of Congo to their respective countries and looting their Country’s natural and mineral resources to get rich quickly.
It is only after a genocide of nearly 5 million people that the UN is talking about increasing the quota of its peace keepers in Congo with a new by its French acronym, MONUC is now led by the inflexible Mr William Swing, an American with “a history” in Congo as far as the end of Kabila was concerned. Kabila was gunned down on 16 January allegedly by one of his body guards.
But for the Congolese people, he was killed in the same circumstances as Patrice Lumumba, Congo’s nationalist and first democratically-elected leader was assassinated by the CIA and Belgian agents in 1961. Lumumba’s body and those of his two companions were chopped and doused in barrel of acid to disintegrate.
The Guardian revealed recently that Clare Short, the former British Secretary of State for International Development used to give Museveni and Kagame £30 million a year respectively to wage a war of looting in Congo. Recently Channel Four revealed that the Blair Government givers 60 million pound a year (Cf. The Congo Killing Fields Documentary) When is she or the Blair Government going to be investigated by a “parliamentary select committee on international affairs? Congo should be at the center of the political debate now raging in Great Britain.
Even Azarias Ruberwa, a Congolese of Rwandan origin, has been appointed as one of the vice presidents for the transitional government (in Congo we know have one president and four vice-presidents until elections are held in two years, the first until Patrice Lumumba, Congo’s nationalist and first democratically-elected leader was assassinated by the CIA and Belgian agents in 1961). That is why Paul Kagame has redeployed troops in eastern Congo unopposed by Ruberwa and other stooges of RCD-Goma, sorry, RCD-Rwanda I should say.
Unlike in Rwanda and Sierra Leone nobody is even talking about an international tribunal for Congo, to prosecute Museveni, Kagame and Buyoya with their Congolese rebel allies for war crimes and crimes against humanity. It really pays to be a criminal in the Democratic Republic of Congo!
At the same time, the UN Panel of Experts on the illegal exploitation of Congo’s natural and mineral resources has just named in a report several British companies involved in the looting. They are Avient, Das Air, De Beers, Oryx Natural Resoources, Euromet and Mineral Africa Ltd., Tremalt Ltd and the Kababankola Mining Company, apart from other European, Asian and African companies.
But, despite the burden of war, the people of Congo have kept their morale high, and are not ready to let themselves be humiliated indefinitely. If the aggressors did not progress as swiftly as they did in the beginning, it was because they were blocked at every front - not only by government troops and their allies from Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia, but also by a popular resistance mounted by the masses. The Mayi-Mayi combatants , loyal to the government in the east took the resistance into the very heart of Rwandan-controlled territories where the Congolese flag was still flying, such as in Fizi, Baraka and Kiringye. The aggressors controlled only the main cities, towns and road junctions, but they did not dare venture to the interior because they knew what fate awaited them. Many were killed and taken POWs (see www.deboutcongolais.info).
As a reminder, Congo was a belgian colony. The Belgian occupation was followed by 80 years of an oppressive colonial rule imposed on the people of Congo from 1885 onwards when King Leopold II acquired their country as his special private ‘Domaine Royale’ at the Berlin Conference and handed it over to the Belgian government as a colony afterwards when his own coffers went dry. But it has always remained a kind of “free trade zone area” for all western imperialist powers. That is the deal they did at the Berlin Conference. Those papers should be torn and burnt to ashes!
The people of Congo endured unbearable atrocities committed by King Leopold’s agents. The death toll of the forgotten genocide perpetrated against the natives is hardly known. Important elements of the King’s ‘system of exploitation’ endured for many years, particularly during the ivory and later the rubber boom, cause of the worst bloodletting (through the cutting of hands) which began under Leopold’s rule in the mid-1890’s, but continued several years after his ‘one-man regime’ (see Adam Hochild, King Leopold’s Ghost…p.225ff.).
Congo’s independence on 30 June 1960 followed years of bitter and protracted struggle incarnated by one great man by the name of Emery Patrice Lumumba, the first democratically elected Congolese prime minister.
In his independence day impromptus speech delivered in the presence of King Baudouin of Belgium, Lumumba rightly articulated the feelings of his people against the Belgians who ‘have only brought slavery and oppression to the Congo’ – contrary to what the King had said earlier, describing the Belgian occupation as the ‘dawn of civilisation in Congo.’ Lumumba also described the Congolese people’s struggle for independence in terms of ‘tears, fire and blood’.
The nationalist and popular Lumumba had then sealed his fate. The whole imperialist machinery was set up against him. The Belgian establishment rallied with the CIA to finish the daring ‘black pimpernel’, using Lumumba’s own entourage which they corrupted and bribed, and hoisted Lumumba’s own former secretary, then Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Désiré Mobutu, who would serve their interest for more than three decades.
Their swift action took many forms: they masterminded a workers’strike, an army mutiny and the secession of the southern mineral- rich Katanga province under the leadership of Moise Tshombe with the backing of Belgian troops. Lumumba dismissed Belgian officers from the Congolese army and demanded for an immediate withdrawal of Belgian troops who had bombarded the port of Matadi on 11 July 1960. He also called for a UN neutral peace keeping force to force Belgians troops out of Katanga. The UN contingent dominated by Western interests, was obeying instructions from New York and Brussels. Lumumba then realised that he had made a big mistake.
Desperate by the hour, he turned to the Soviet Union and called Soviet troops to help him retake the secessionist provinces of Katanga and Southern Kasai which declared unilateral independence on 11 July and 8 August 1960 respectively. He was consequently branded ‘a dangerous communist’. This was unacceptable to the West at the height of the Cold War.
With the complicity of UN’s and Mobutu’s troops, Lumumba was arrested, transferred to Katanga and assassinated on 17 January 1961. The truth about his assassination has finally been established 40 years after. Revelations in Belgian sociologist Ludo de Witte’s new book De Moord op Lumumba (= The Assassination of Lumumba), written in Dutch and published by Van Halewyrck, Louvain, Belgium and by Karthala, Paris last year; and based on newly declassified Belgian archives, has firmly pinned Belgium and the USA in the dock. The revelations including the fact that Lumumba’s body was cut into pieces and doused in sulphuric acid to erase the evidence are so startling that the Belgian parliament decided on 9 December 1999 to set up a commission of inquiry into Lumumba’s death and the West’s responsibility in it. The first atomic bomb that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki was made out of iranium extracted from Congo.
But at the end of the day, the people of Congo will remain masters of their own destiny. We will work with every other nation under the sun, but only on our own terms. That is what we are fighting for. To be given a respite, to preserve our territorial integrity and national sovereignty and to halt the spoliation of our wealth by outside forces. Victory is ours, like it or not.
Hewa Bora – for a Liberated Democratic Republic of Congo!
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