http://emperors-clothes.com/interviews/congo.htm
Jared: Let me read you a dispatch from the January 17th 'New York Times'
www.tenc.net
[Emperor's Clothes]
1-19-2001 - The government of Congo (DRC) has just now confirmed that
President Laurent Kabila is dead. The circumstances surrounding his death -
indeed, the whole history of the Congo and Central Africa - are extraordinary
and tragic. The following is an interview with a diplomat associated with the
British government. He is familiar with Central Africa, and sympathetic to
the people there. He asked that his name be withheld. We identify him by the
initials 'DB'.
The interviewer is Jared Israel.
Interesting comments and links to further reading follow the interview.
A Murder in Congo
'President Laurent Kabila of Congo, who deposed one of Africa's great
dictators but then brought his country into even worse disarray, was shot
and killed today, diplomats and associates said.
… The government's minister of interior, Gaetan Kakudji, one of Mr.
Kabila's closest allies, went on state television to say that the president
himself had ordered the curfew, suggesting that he was still alive.
But in Washington, a senior administration official said the United States
has received several reports from credible sources that Mr. Kabila had been
assassinated. "Our operating assumption is that he is dead," the official
said.
Isn't this rather extraordinary? First, we have the 'Times', which is the
closest thing to an official U.S. government newspaper, condemning Mr. Kabila
in the first sentence of a news story - blaming him for "even worse
disarray". And then you have the U.S. government insisting the man is dead
when the Congo government says he is critically wounded. Is this normal
diplomacy?
DB: It is highly unorthodox. When a head of state is the target of an
assassination attempt foreign governments refrain from making announcements
until the government itself releases an official statement. They don't
immediately declare: "He's dead! He's dead!" Let alone "This dictator is
dead!" And the fact that Belgium, the U.S., the United Kingdom, Uganda and
Rwanda, which are the two aggressor states in Congo, the fact that all these
governments jumped on this situation crying, "He's dead! He's dead!" at the
very least betrays their desires; they hope it's true. It raises the
question: why would they commit this type of breach of diplomatic etiquette?
What else is involved?
If you consider the month of January, it is a very important time for
Congolese people, for their national prestige and honor. January is when they
celebrate the anniversary of their liberation from colonialism. It is also
the month when [anti-imperialist Prime Minister ] Patrice Lumumba was
assassinated. It has a great psychological impact for this assassination
attempt to occur at this time. And then these premature declarations from the
West and pro-Western African leaders - it all strikes at the morale of the
Congolese. The country is bogged down in a civil war. Now another leader from
Lumumba's generation, a man who identified with Patrice Lumumba during the
1960s is attacked.
The history of Laurent Kabila is this. He was on Lumumba's side during the
civil war in the early 1960s. When Lumumba was assassinated in 1961 Kabila
declared himself against the pro-Western dictator Mobutu Sese Seko. In 1964
Kabila actually staged an uprising against Mobutu. It was put down and he
fled to Tanzania and tried to start a revolution there. He worked some there
with Che Guevara, who was then in Africa.
So Kabila has been in the bush since the 1960s. He was really a marginal
player until the later 1990s when he was swept into power on the heels of the
Rwanda forces who were backed by the U.S. The big question is, did he ever
seriously side with the US or did he opportunistically use the U.S. to get in
power? A lot of people claim the U.S. was never happy with him at the head of
the AFLD. (This was the party Kabila headed up. It was kind of a front
organization for the Rwandan invasion.) He was identified with that
generation of Congolese leaders that the West despised so much, people like
Patrice Lumumba. (1)
But whatever his original allegiance, he more or less threw out the West,
abrogated contracts for mineral concessions and the like which were made with
Anglo-American partners and most important has refused to pay back Congo's
debt to the Western institutional investors. Most of that debt was
accumulated by the Western-backed Mobutu regime for its own personal
enrichment. As soon as he turned against the West they sponsored a new
invasion, a new aggression against the country.
Jared: Why don't you talk a little about Patrice Lumumba so readers can get a
clearer picture of the background.
DB: Patrice Lumumba was a Pan Africanist. In 1960, when Congo was granted
independence, Patrice Lumumba became Prime Minister. At the same time, a
President was essentially appointed by the West. There was a power struggle
and Lumumba, being Pan Africanist, wasn't willing either to be a pawn of the
West or the Soviet Union; he wanted an African line. In cold war terms, he
was more inclined towards the Soviets than the Imperialists, the former
colonialist powers which had bled Congo dry for so many years. If you recall,
Congo was the site of the 20th Century's first genocide because this is where
King Leopold turned Congo into his own personal fiefdom. 10,000,000 Congolese
died. Ten Million. And it is simply never discussed. It is a non-event.
Jared: That was the subject of the book, "Heart of Darkness" by Conrad. It
ends with one of the Belgian colonialists dying, and his last words are "The
horror!" Ten million human beings.
DB: Yes. A non-event. Imagine if the Congolese had done that to some Western
country.
And in 1908 when the colony was handed over to the Belgian colonialist
administrators they didn't do much better. They still used the colony for
resource-extraction. Cleaned up their human rights act a bit but still
exploited Congo harshly. Other than the brief interlude from 1960 to 1961
when Patrice Lumumba's movement was running the show, the country was a
colony. Then after 1961 it was run by Western clients who again used harsh
repression to exploit Congo's vast mineral resources.
And the story isn't much different now except that Kabila was in a position
to once again put forward Lumumba's line. He was identified with that line
among the Congolese population and amongst Western leaders which would
explain why some hated him. And in the Western press and especially the
Anglo-American press, it explains the fact that Namibia, Angola and Zimbabwe,
all these states that had fought white apartheid regimes, all these
revolutionary states that went to the support of Kabila have been demonized
for supporting him whereas the story of Uganda and Rwanda [which invaded
Congo] has been minimized when in fact the invading forces of Uganda and
Rwanda have essentially plundered Eastern Congo.
Indeed this is how they have managed to develop in the last few years and
meet their obligations under International Monetary Fund [IMF] and World Bank
guidelines: by plundering Eastern Congo. Actually Entebbe [Uganda] and Kigali
[Rwanda] are crawling with arms merchants and Western prospectors seeking to
cash in on mineral resources which are being extracted from Congo. Meanwhile
these two regimes - especially Uganda - are being held up as models of
African neoliberal development - when in reality it is all based on the
plunder of Eastern Congo. (2)
Jared: That pays their IMF tribute.
DB: Pretty much. And a great deal has been made of the fact that Zimbabwean
companies, which support Kabila against the Rwanda-Uganda invasion, have been
given rights to work the diamond mines. The point is the Zimbabwean companies
were given those rights through the Congolese government. Mr. Kabila is after
all an actual Head of State. Whereas the Ugandans and Rwandans and their
American backers and American firms that are profiting immensely from the
plunder of the region don't have any authorization to do that from Kinshasa,
which is the capital of the Congo.
It is a situation similar to Sierra Leone, where the Western media demonizes
those whom they oppose for exploiting the mineral resources. But if the
situation changes and the West comes in they will seize and exploit those
resources ruthlessly. So the real question is who is going to possess them?
That is the big issue in Eastern Congo.
In 1960, when Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba put forward his call for
independent development in Congo, Belgium, backed by the United States,
launched a separatist movement in Katanga Province. The separatist army was
mainly white mercenaries. In response, Lumumba called on the UN to defend
Congo's sovereignty. But when the UN did get involved, the Western troops
tried to influence the situation on the ground. During the chaos that
followed, Patrice Lumumba was assassinated by Mobutu, backed by Belgian and
US secret services. So the whole history of Congo for the past 120 years has
been so tragic. The Congolese people, except for brief periods, have faced
either constant exploitation or war and when they have tried to forge an
independent path they have faced the fiercest external aggression.
Jared: You know, Petar Makara says the problem for the Serbs is that they are
the people who put their house in the middle of a road that the West wanted
to use. And the Serbs didn't like some foreign Imperialists taking over their
road. Maybe the problem for the Congolese is they have too many priceless
gems in their house.
DB: That's about it. They are a big triangle jutting out of the heart of
Africa. Full of mineral resources, full of everything. If you superimpose a
map of Congo on a map of Western Europe it covers it. This is a huge nation
with a lot of potential, with a great people, but they have been run by
Western-backed dictators, by Western Kings and colonialists and so on for the
past 120-150 years.
Jared: And not necessarily milder now than they were a hundred years ago.
DB: I dare say, not in the least. Not in the least. The whole story of what
is happening there is hard to filter through. But if anybody does have the
opportunity they should try to look at French sources, because the story you
can find there is different, and look at Congolese sources. (6) You start
seeing a clear picture of the situation in the region. Whereas in the
American and I dare say the British press as well you start getting a lot of
stories, just negative, about Laurent Kabila, about Namibia, Angola and
Zimbabwe which have made significant sacrifices to defend Congo's territorial
integrity. And you will get a whitewash of Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi's role
as well.
Jared: Do you think the West is trying to break Congo up into little pieces?
DB: Not necessarily, because keeping it in one large piece with a reliable
dictator, as they did under Mobutu Seso Seko, is beneficial. And they have
only used separatist movements when they wanted to get rid of leaders who
weren't doing exactly what they wanted.
Keep in mind that a division exists within the G7/G8 countries. [For an
explanation of the G7/G8 countries see
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/g7/what_is_g7.html ] These countries are
somewhat divided concerning what to do with Congo. Especially France and
Russia on the one hand versus Britain and the U.S. on the other. And a good
number of observers have noted that a lot of the politics in Central Africa
and even West Africa is a thinly veiled battle between French interests and
American interests. Mobutu during the 90s was pretty much veering towards the
French line in Africa. He was more statist in the way he ran the government
and more statist in the way he ran the economy. This in contrast the new
generation of African leaders, which are praised by Washington and the State
Department, for instance people in Rwanda and Uganda, leaders who follow a
neoliberal model.
Mobutu Seso Seko was following the French pattern whereas these new leaders
were following the U.S. neoliberal model. So the U.S. government, and the
Anglo-American media suddenly discovered that Mobutu, with whom they had had
no complaints up til then, was very, very bad. They were hoping Kabila would
turn out to be a controllable neoliberal when he was implanted.
Jared: So you think initially that the US wanted Mobutu out.
DB: It was part of a broader dynamic because Mobutu for the US had become
rather inconvenient. He was hosting Hutu militias which were trying to
overturn the Rwandan Patriotic Front's victory in Rwanda and they were
staging attacks in Burundi against the Tutsi dominated government that has
repressed Hutus in Burundi. And the United States has had a very active
policy of trying to suppress these militias and trying to eliminate this Hutu
influence and restore the Tutsi dominance in Central Africa.
Jared: The Tutsi elite being the U.S. ally there.
DB: Yes. The strategy is to create a sort of greater-Tutsi sphere of
influence throughout Central Africa including the Tutsis in Eastern Congo,
known as the Banyamulenge.
The point here is the U.S. strategy requires that they heighten differences.
make them more extreme. The Hutus and the Tutsi people in Eastern Congo were
called Banyarwanda, without differentiation - a kind of a broad designation
for people that share similar linguistic characteristics. With the Tutsis and
the Hutus, the division is not linguistic, or cultural or national, you see,
so much as it is a class division, between former elites and the lower
classes, former serfs.
Essentially, these are the same people, though the Hutus originally were
farmers and the Tutsis were more often herdsmen. But what the colonialists in
this area have done is a classic process of ethnogenesis. This was
deliberately instigated. They literally created new ethnic groups to divide
a
