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war in the congo
War in the Congo —
a product of neocolonialism
The following article is from the summer issue of Socialist Resistance,
a
journal in which our British cothinkers of the International Socialist
Group
collaborate. It comments on the civil war that was begun in the Congo
some
years ago by groups seeking to overthrow the regime of Laurent Kabila,
who
ousted the pro-imperialist stooge regime of Joseph Desire Mobutu.
The rebels were backed by the imperialists. But Kabila, who was later
assassinated, failed to defeat the uprising by mobilizing the Congolese
people. Instead, he resorted to alliances with various African
neocolonialist regimes.
Thus, the civil war turned into a war of different groups and African
states
interested in pillaging the national resources of the Congo. The war is
still continuing despite formal peace agreements.
“The suggestion is that Congo’s war is too complicated to quench
another
age-old and inevitable African war.”
This is the kind of journalism we have become accustomed to reading
whenever
the West is forced to confront the continual wars in the Congo and
other
African countries over the last 40 years. This quote from a recent
article
in the Guardian is actually far from the worst. But it shows the sort
of
language we read and hear every day.
This is the kind of hand-wringing compassion which suggests that if
only the
Africans would stop fighting each other then the problems of AIDS,
debts,
and starvation could really be tackled. If only they would let the West
help
them.
We’re about to start reading this kind of language again in another
context:
Iraq. If only the Iraqis would allow themselves to be liberated, then
the
U.S. and British troops could get on with the urgent (and profitable)
task
of “rebuilding” the country.
Even though we’re not so used to hearing about Western pillage and
plunder
in Africa any more, the New Colonialism in Africa is actually as old as
the
Middle Eastern variety. As far as “spheres of influence” go, Europe got
there first.
African countries used to have names like “the Belgian Congo” and
“German
East Africa” before the national liberation movements of the 1950s and
1960s
forced Europe’s great powers to find another way to cling on to the
vast
resources of Africa.
The solution to these movements in the case of the Congo was for the
Belgians (with help from UN troops, the CIA, and Britain’s Edward
Heath) to
kidnap and assassinate the most powerful nationalist leader the
liberation
movement in Africa had produced, Patrice Lumumba, in 1961.
Common imperialist policy dictated that they partition the mineral-rich
province of Katanga and install a friendly dictator, Mobutu. This
ensured
that they could continue to extract the copper, cobalt, diamonds, and
other
minerals so profitable to the western multinationals.
Inter-imperialist rivalry between Europe and the U.S. takes on a new
meaning
in countries like the Congo.
“We don’t know the importance of col-tan,” said Martin Nkibatereza,
leaning
on his shovel. “I mean, how is it useful?” In processed form,
columbite-tantalite, also known as col-tan, is vital to the manufacture
of
mobile phones, jet engines, air bags, night-vision goggles, fiber
optics,
and capacitors—as well as the components that maintain an electric
charge in
a computer chip.
The price for a ton of col-tan can range from $100,000 to $200,000.
Martin is one of many miners working long shifts in wildly hazardous
mines
that are not owned by companies but worked in by miners who sell their
day’s
work to many of the rebel groups. According to the Washington Post,
multinational mineral companies buy the ore directly from whichever
rebel
group controls the particular mine.
This is direct cause for much of the fighting that surrounds these
mines.
Recently, a hillside collapsed and buried at least 50 workers in a mine
30
miles north of the town of Goma.
While the United States has been preaching peace in the Congo and
supporting
every UN resolution to that end, the flow of U.S. arms and military
training
has not ceased. Rwanda, Uganda, Namibia, and Zimbabwe all continued to
receive U.S. arms and/or military training.
The World Policy Institute (WPI) documents that out of the $19.5
million in
U.S. arms and training that was delivered to African armed forces in
1999,
$4.8 million went to nations directly or indirectly involved in the
Congo
war. So whilst the hand-wringers of the West can attribute the
conflicts to
local war lords, the dynamic is entirely driven by huge profits.
The U.S.-based Bechtel Corporation (the same company now plundering
Iraq,
with a board including former U.S. Secretary of State George Schultz)
worked
closely with Laurent Kabila to draw up the most complete mineral and
geographic inventory of the Congo ever assembled.
According to one source, an executive from Bechtel became a close
advisor to
Kabila, traveling the country at his side and assisting him with
information
to determine his war strategy.
U.S.-based Mineral Fields made the first mining deal with the
victorious
Kabila after the overthrow of Mobutu, securing a $1 billion deal for
the
mining of cobalt and copper.
“It is capitalism in its purest form,” said Robert L. Raun, president
of
Eagles Wings Resources, a U.S.-based company that began buying
Congolese
col-tan two years ago.
Companies with interests in the Congo read like a “Who’s Who” of
international capital. They include names such as Anglo-American,
Barclays
Bank, and De Beers from Britain; Bayer A.G. from Germany; and America
Mineral Fields and Cabot Corporation from the U.S.
And to make things safe for Western multinationals, the European Union
is to
send its first ever deployment of troops to the Congo, as well as the
UN
“peacemakers” already there.
Last October, an independent panel of experts reported to the UN
Security
Council that 85 multinational companies based in Europe, the U.S., and
South
Africa had violated ethical guidelines in dealing with criminal
networks
which have pillaged natural resources from the war-torn central African
country.
According to the panel, a scramble for gold, diamonds, cobalt, and
copper by
army officers, government officials, and entrepreneurs from the Congo
and
neighboring African countries had generated billions of dollars, which
found
its way into mining companies and financial institutions.
History has shown that the UN will do nothing to liberate Africa from
the
multinationals. Whilst the eyes of the world’s press have been fixed on
the
latest imperial excursion into the Middle East, Africa remains the
forgotten
continent.
One of the last things Patrice Lumumba wrote before his assassination
still
reverberates more than 40 years later: “One day history will have its
say.
But it is not history they teach at the UN, in Washington, Paris or
Brussels, but the history they teach in countries freed from
colonialism and
its puppets. Africa will write its own history.”
The article above was written by Karen O'Toole.
