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Conference to Build the ASI - Report from Congo-Kinshasa
Presented by Antoine Lokongo
June 2003
Uhuru! Everything that I had planned to say has already been said, but I would like to make some other comments. In the last year, the situation in Africa has gone from bad to worse. And next year, when we meet again, it will be even worse than it is today. So the situation is calling for us to unite, to take decisive action now.
As others have already pointed out, our people are dying, and if we don’t take decisive action now, it will be too late. If our people die, our land will be free for the taking.
We are actually experiencing the recolonisation of Africa. They talk about famine, AIDS and war, but who caused that? It’s imperialism. They know what they are doing. They want to recolonise Africa. And the best way to do it is to wipe out all the African population, so that the land is free for them. Then they can take everything they want and even settle there. That’s the situation we are faced with, and if we don’t act now it will be too late! It is time to unite!
As a journalist, I have spoken to many people. I have noted that whether you come from Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda (which has invaded Congo), Ghana or Nigeria, the problems we face everywhere are the same. If you take a statement from an asylum seeker from Angola or Congo or Ghana and you compare it with the one from Cameroon or Nigeria, it’s almost the same. We are all evoking the same problems.
When we come here to England we are treated like animals! We are the scapegoats for everything! They are now accusing us of roasting the Queen’s duck! They really, really make us question ourselves. What do we want to do? Live here in this situation or unite and go back to our land and live in dignity?
The situation in Congo is deadly. Since August 2, 1998, Kabila, who chased Mobutu away from power, begged Museveni of Uganda, Kagame of Rwanda and Buyoya of Burundi: "Don’t ally yourselves with Britain and America. Let’s develop our region on our own."
They didn’t listen to him at all. They preferred to invade Congo. They accepted all the favors from Britain and America in terms of money and arms and invaded Congo so they could get rich very quickly.
Since 1998, five million Congolese have been massacred. Deadly stuff like napalm is used against the innocent people. The invaders arrive. They move to villages, clear the people, slaughter them and begin digging the stuff that they call coltan, which is essential today for mobile phones and computers and everything electronic. Congo has 80 percent of the world’s reserve of coltan. That explains this war in Congo. That explains the fact that Museveni and Kagame would not listen to Kabila. They chose to ally themselves with the imperialists-Britain and America-invade Congo, and kill and loot, enriching themselves in the process.
I myself have been working with a very Pan-Africanist magazine called New African, but I’m no longer there because my boss started accepting advertisements from Museveni and Kagame. I said, "This is blood money! I can’t stay here if you run those ads."
We say "Uhuru means freedom," but freedom has a price. We have to be ready to say "No, I’m not going to do that-for the sake of my people."
Just one month ago my mother died in occupied territory. I couldn’t even go to bury her. She had been very sick. I don’t even know the circumstances under which she died.
So how can I live in London, happy like other Congolese, dancing to music all night long as if nothing is happening back home, as if people aren’t dying? Is that human? We have been brainwashed. I blame Catholicism for that and all kinds of religions.
Do you know what the CIA does today in Congo-Kinshasa? They finance religions. On every corner you have a church - what they call a mission church. They provide them with musical instruments, very expensive ones that the people can’t afford and they promote what they call "civil society." They take them on tours of America and Canada. They give the people money and get them to say all kinds of things like, "We want peace. We want America to intervene."
America will never intervene in the interest of the Congolese people! Look at Liberia. They cannot even intervene in Liberia when people are dying, because they say they don’t have the resources. So the people have to get down on their knees. They say when America gives us money then we will go to Liberia. Are we really independent?
I lived in Uganda for three years. I have no problem with the Ugandan people, but I have problems with sell-outs like Museveni and Kagame. That’s the problem. We have been betrayed by our own leaders.
It doesn’t just happen in Africa, it happens here too!
I suggest that you go to the library and read Tony Stewart in The Voice on the 17th saying, "Thanks to slavery we are now enjoying reggae in Britain! Thank God our ancestors came from Africa in shackles and now this new generation can be proud of being descendants of slaves, because we are enjoying opportunities we would not have had!"
There is no doubt agents are in this room because they need the information that will help them devise new policies for Africa tomorrow. All our meetings are always infiltrated, but people like us, we say, "Come what may!"
People like us don’t have much more to lose. Since ’98 I have lost members of my family including my own mother, and the whole country is devastated. Whole generations have no hope in Congo. We don’t have anything more to lose. All we have to do is stand up and continue to fight.
In fact, the Congo should be at the center of the political debate that is going on in this country now. Tony Blair is being quizzed for taking this country into war in Iraq on false pretenses. He has now come under fire. So I wrote to the Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Foreign Affairs.
In March, The Guardian newspaper in this country revealed that Clare Short, while she was the Secretary of State for International Development, used to give Museveni and Kagame 30 million pounds a year to wage the war in the Congo. So I wrote to the chairman of the committee, "Why aren’t you interested in investigating that as well, because this government is also sponsoring the war in Congo?" Not only in Iraq, but also in Congo.
In response I got a letter that was just bureaucratic and I cannot make any sense of it. But at least I had the courage to write it.
Secondly, I wrote a letter to Baroness Amos who is supposed to be one of us, pleading with her not to continue with the same criminal policy for the Congolese people and for the African people. I didn’t get a reply.
Of course, the first thing she said when she came into office was, "We have to forget slavery. We have to forget the past. Britain is a new society. We are multi-cultural. We are now one country, so we have to forget the past." That makes our claim for reparations totally invalid! If you hear something like that from a highly placed person like Baroness Amos, you can suspect that she is going to continue with her criminal policies against African people.
What we have to do now is unite and support each other, whether in Congo or in any other country where there is imperialist war against our people. You see on television that the United Nations has gone into the Congo to help the people. There is a small French contingent in Bunia. Since ‘98 they have just gone to Bunia.Why did they just go to Bunia? Why not to Goma where people are also dying like flies?
In Congo we are ready for more tears. Why? Because the head of the UN Mission in Congo is William Swing. He was the American ambassador in Congo during Mobutu’s time. When Kabila came to power, Bill Clinton sent Simpson as ambassador. They were not happy with Kabila because Kabila nationalized everything. He said that Congo will never send our diamonds and our cobalt and our gold to Antwerp or Brussels to be sold there because we don’t know what price they will charge. You have never seen a market where the buyer determined the price of the goods. Kabila said, "So, if you want cobalt, if you want gold, come here to the Congo and buy it from us here."
They were not happy with that. They called Simpson back and put Swing there. Two months after Swing came to Kinshasa, Kabila was assassinated. Today Swing is back as the head of the UN mission in Congo. So I suspect Bush is ready to inflict more tears in Congo.
Lumumba was killed under the UN Mission in Congo. He called them asking for help because the Belgians invaded the whole southern country in Katanga, because they wanted to encourage succession. Lumumba wrote to the UN calling for UN troops, but I will tell you one thing: wherever the UN intervenes in the world, it intervenes on behalf of Britain and America. That’s the reality! We see it again and again and again in Congo.
Fortunately the people of Congo, know what it is all about. They understand. They are people of very high political maturity, but they need to be organized. There is no organization to unite the people to resist even more.
In Congo we have always resisted. In 1960, after Lumumba’s death, they tried to divide the country. They didn’t succeed. Since ‘98 up to today, they are not succeeding because the people are resisting. The people want that country to remain united.
People want to benefit from the immense wealth that we have in Congo. The resistance is there but there is no organization. All the intellectuals are sell outs. People are just looking for their own enjoyment. Some people even blame me. They say, look what are you wasting your time for? Just look out for yourself, your family. Work hard and bring your brothers and sisters to Europe. Forget about Congo, because you will never change the situation there.
One Congolese had the audacity to tell me, "Let them sell that country and bring me my $10,000." These are the kind of people we are dealing with. There is need for an organization. I am saying that I am ready to play my part in that organization. The political maturity is there, but there is no organization. Thank you very much.
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