A MURDER IN CONGO, PART 3 DB: So here you have a Tutsi military invasion, the ruthless and violent displacement of a million Hutus, and then two Hutu Presidents are assassinated. The Hutu leaders responded by trying to eradicate the Tutsi population which they saw as a Fifth Column poised to attack. In 1996, another Hutu President of Burundi was ousted in a coup by Pierre Boyuya, a Tutsi. Subsequently, Hutus have been interned in Burundi, put into camps in terrible conditions. Nobody has talked about these actions, but all of it together has created an environment of great mistrust in the region. And now the Rwandan and Ugandan forces have attacked Congo with strong support from Burundi. All three are Tutsi-dominated. This has dragged Southern Africa in. Neoliberal states like Zambia are trying to bring "peace." That should be put in quotation marks because what they want is a neoliberal peace that would justify the Rwandan-Ugandan invasion. Meanwhile states like Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola have mobilized on the other side, defending Congolese sovereignty. And this all brings in South Africa, with its internal factions that are pro-neoliberal and anti-neoliberal, saying different things, giving mixed signals. Parenthetically, this is similar to the situation in Yugoslavia now. Some factions don't want to the country to go neoliberal so quickly and others want it to go as quickly as possible, so the question becomes who is implementing the program and where will they try to take it. But it is important to recognize that in all these conflicts there is this neoliberal line that is driving a specific ideological vision in these different regions, trying to impose the neoliberal vision. This is the case whether it is in Africa, or southern Europe, or Southern Asia. Even if there is a chance for peace that peace will be sabotaged if it does not include neoliberal domination. Only the establishment of neoliberal policies makes peace acceptable to Washington. That is why the peace in Bosnia was sabotaged in 1992. And that is why all the African peace-making efforts have been sabotaged. The key thing is to see the United States as the sole arbiter of conflict, as the only power able to bring peace to the world by installing those allied with the U.S. economically and politically. And that is why they have tried to marginalize the African peace-making efforts. They want to see their peace prevail. Jared: The problem is, the peace installed by the U.S. means war. DB: Their peace means war or for a war-weary population that is under occupation, like the people of Bosnia, it means colonial administration; it means misery; it means economic deprivation and it means long-term suffering and it means complete disempowerment of the population because the state, the post-conflict state is put under multilateral trusteeship, basically, with control of the country's finances, its military and its very sovereignty in the hands of neoliberal technocrats. Jared: Who in turn are answerable to -? DB: Who in turn are answerable to financial circles in New York, Frankfort, and London. The end of sovereignty ***. Further reading and further thoughts: (1) An informative comment on the shooting of Congo President Laurent Kabila appeared in today's 'Christian Science Monitor.' The quote is from one Hannelie de Beer, described as a "senior researcher at the Institute for Strategic Studies in South Africa." The proper name is the 'Institute for Security Studies'. While expressing the opinion that Mr. Kabila was probably shot because he "was losing the support of his generals" and therefore ''Any replacement for Kabila would be 'a leader that agrees with the way the generals want to proceed. This conflict could just draw out and continue,'" Ms. de Beer cannot restrain her distaste for Mr. Kabila: "If Kabila is dead, Ms. de Beer says peace could in fact be closer. 'His attitude toward the international community was really an obstacle to peace,' she says, describing Kabila as 'belligerent and rude.' 'Maybe a new president will handle this whole thing more tactfully. It will depend on who becomes the next president,' de Beer adds." ('The Christian Science Monitor', January 18, 2001) I did a little checking and found that the Institute for Security Studies has among its main funders the Hanns Seidel Foundation of Germany (closely allied with the hierarchy of the Catholic Church) and our old friend, the Open Society Foundation of George Soros. And indeed, the reports of the institute offer generous helpings of Open Society rhetoric, starting with the constant use of the term "civil society" which really means "neoliberal groups under Western control." (See http://www.iss.co.za/Pubs/ASR/6.1/Editorial.html ) The point is that Mr. Kabila was not liked in Western power circles. We have separately posted an interview that Mr. Kabila gave in November, 1998. While this interview appears to gloss over his initial alliance with Rwanda and Uganda, and may be overly generous about his motives, it certainly makes clear why the U.S. would find Kabila's switch to an independent stance highly undesirable. From the grand heights of the Imperial perspective, Kabila definitely did not know his place. "Billigerent and rude"? Indeed, downright uppity. (To read the interview with Congo President Laurent Kabila, please go to http://www.emperors-clothes.com/docs/kabint.htm ) (2) How do the Ugandan and Rwandan governments pay for their invasion of Congo not to mention their debts to the IMF? As the interview above suggests, they finance these efforts by plundering the wealth of Eastern Congo. Thus, although these countries mine virtually no gold within their own borders: "Between 1998 and 1999, for example, Rwanda sold at least 2.2 tons of gold to Belgium. The war in DRC [Congo] is being financed by its own mining resources. However, such 'self-financing' necessarily results in a subtle arrangement between the banking institutions of the invading countries and those of the "receiving" countries, which are supporting the government authorities and the "Congolese" rebellion." See: http://www.africa2000.com/UGANDA/mineralseng.html The bitter irony of the current arrangement is that the Belgians still get to rape the Congo, but they do it from a distance, working through Rwanda and Uganda. (3) To get some idea of the history of the Tutsi-Hutu division, see part 1 of "Ten Years of Suffering" which can be read at http://www.fespinal.com/espinal/english/visua/en93.htm#2 . This text is by no means the final word; it has a somewhat pro-Western bias. But it is helpful in understanding Hutu-Tutsi divisions. (4) Last February, the 'National Post' published a most interesting story on the shooting down of the plane carrying the Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi in 1964. The story, which suggested that Tutsi forces had shot down the Presidents' plane, was picked up by 'Associated Press' but apparently was not covered by the U.S. or British press. The 'AP' commented that this story: "if verified, could have significant repercussions in the ongoing work of a U.N. tribunal investigating the Rwandan genocide that followed Habyarimana's killing...Defendants before the tribunal and others [have argued] that if the plane carrying Habyarimana was shot down by Kagame's [Tutsi] RPF, then the ensuing attacks by Hutus were more a consequence of war than a planned genocide." And other testimony supports the contention that the downing of the plane was a provocation carried out by the Tutsi RPF: "Recently come to light, on 10-08-99, is the testimony of a Rwandan military [officer], Christophe Hakizabera, an RPF member from 1990 to 1995. When speaking of [Hutu President] Habyarimana's assassination he says: '"The RPF prepared a macabre plan to drive the country into chaos: the death of President Habyarimana. He was considered to be the main obstacle to the forceful seizure of power. The first meeting to plan the assassination was held in Kabale (Uganda), in the Bishop's premises, under the auspices of the Archbishop Harerimana. Later, meetings of this type were held in Mbarara, in the home of Salim Saleh, the Major General, half brother to the Ugandan President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni. Then, pertinently, it is known that the decision to assassinate President Habyarimana was taken in Bobo-Dioulasso, in Burkina Faso in March of 1994, and that the Commander Paul Kagame, RPF leader, participated in this meeting"'.('The African Great Lakes: Ten Years Of Suffering, Destruction And Death' which can be read at http://www.fespinal.com/espinal/english/visua/en93.htm#2) Everyone agrees that ''the death of President Habyarimana was to be the spark that would light the gunpowder thereby unleashing the killing of civilians'' (ibid.) One would imagine, therefore, that the Rwandan War Crimes Tribunal would investigate who shot down the plane. But the 'AP' story notes that the Rwandan War Crimes Tribunal has avoided this highly important matter: "Tribunal officials say the mandate for their work excludes an investigation of the crash. The National Post story said Louise Arbour, the former chief prosecutor of the tribunal, halted the investigation into the crash for that reason. " ('AP' March 1, 2000) Click here to read the 'AP' Story or go to http://www.emperors-clothes.com/docs/ap-plane.htm In a related development, on May 30, 2000 the ICTR (Rwandan War Crimes Tribunal) Website posted a most revealing story. Amazingly, the Tribunal Website admited the Tribunal has a sealed document apparently linking the RPF to the downing of the Presidential plane. Yet according to the Website, the Tribunal refuses to release this document to a French lawyer for one of the Hutu leaders. This despite the fact that the man's innocence or guilt is directly related to the question of who shot down the plane. To read this report, click here or go to http://www.emperors-clothes.com/docs/ictr.htm (5) For general information on the role of the big mining companies in the fighting in Central Africa, see "The Geopolitical Stakes of the International Mining Companies in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Ex-Zaire)" at http://www.africa2000.com/UGANDA/mineralseng.html (6) For some generally quite informative links concerning Central Africa please see the Great Lakes Press Website at http://pages.infinit.net/glp/afrilinks.html *** If you find emperors-clothes.com useful, we can use your help... All our expenses are covered by individual donations. Any donation will help with our work. To use our secure server, please click here or go to http://www.emperors-clothes.com/howyour.htm. Or you can mail a check to Emperor's Clothes, P.O. Box 610-321, Newton, MA 02461-0321. Or call 617 916-1705. 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