Background of events in the DRC
Ahmed (CMKP)


Africa was largely ignored by the United States throughout the
fifties. It was only with the assumption of the presidency by John F.
Kennedy that Africa began to figure prominently on the U.S foreign
policy agenda. The crisis that plagued the Congo shortly after
independence provided the opportunity for the United States to
establish a beachhead of intervention in Africa.

Located in central Africa, the Congo is one of the largest, most
populous countries in the continent. Strategically located it borders
nine countries; Angola, the Congo-Brazzaville, the Central African
Republic, Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania and Zambia.
Economically, the Congo is one of the richest countries in the world
in terms of resources, with the western Capitalist countries
obtaining seven percent of their tin, nine percent of their copper,
forty nine percent of their copper, and sixty nine percent of their
industrial diamonds from there in 1959.

Belgian colonialism witnessed the intense exploitation of this
resource rich country, dominated by Belgian-owned firms. Apart from
mining these resources, large latifundia and commercial farms
produced cash crops destined for Brussels such as Cotton, rubber,
coffee, tea and cocoa.

With the intensification of the freedom movement spearheaded
primarily by the Mouvement Nationale Congolaise (MNC) founded and led
by the leftist Patrice Lumumba, Belgium was compelled to abandon its
colony in the Congo, however it reserved the right to play a major
role in its subsequent history. To review the character of the major
parties up to independence, the MNC was "the patriotic party enjoying
most influence among the population…it stands for complete
independence and unity of the country"

In alliance with it, stood the Parti Solidaire Africaine and the
centre du regroupement Africaine which apart from independence called
for the nationalization of plantations and industrial undertakings
along with the participation of workers in the management of
industry. The appeal of the MNC as opposed to its competitors can be
explained largely by the fact that it was the only national party
claiming to represent all Congolese whereas the other parties
represented the interests of specific ethnic, tribal and regional
groupings.

The largest party antagonistic to the MNC and its allies was the
Association des Bakongo (ABAKO) led during the crisis by Joseph
Kasavubu to represent the Bakongo ethnic group. Close to the Catholic
Church, ABAKO "well known for its separatist tendencies became
obedient executors of the will of the Imperialists"

Congo became independent with a coalition government formed between
the MNC and ABAKO and various other smaller parties. Lumumba was made
prime minister with Joseph Kasavubu in the largely ceremonial post of
president. On 30th June 1960, at the formal independence ceremony
held Leopoldville, the difference between the two was made
immediately clear. In the presence of King Baudouin I of Belgium and
his entourage, Lumumba in an impromptu speech lambasted Belgian
colonialism and its racial policies. A particularly scathing part of
his speech:

"Our lot was eighty years of colonial rule ... We have known tiring
labor exacted in exchange for salary which did not allow us to
satisfy our hunger ... We have known ironies, insults, blows which we
had to endure morning, noon, and night because we were "Negroes" ...
We have known that the law was never the same depending on whether it
concerned a white or a Negro ... We have known the atrocious
sufferings of those banished for political opinions or religious
beliefs ... We have known that there were magnificent houses for the
whites in the cities and tumble-down straw huts for the Negroes."

Just a few days later, an uprising broke out involving the 24,000-
strong Force publique, the Belgian-created and officered army
designed to perform both military and police functions. The problem
was instigated by a Belgian officer Lieutenant-General Emile Janssens
inscribing on the blackboard at force headquarters; "Before
Independence=After independence". This proved to be too much for the
native soldiery, who long resented the poor conditions and
impossibility to rise above the rank of noncommissioned officers (a
post with no real authority and not included in the officer corps)
for Africans.

The targets of the uprising were the Belgian officers and the roughly
100,000 Europeans remaining in the Congo. The uprising spread to
Leopoldville, Stanleyville and Katanga. Panic-stricken, Europeans
within the Congo began a mass exodus to nearby Congo-Brazzaville and
Belgium. The monopoly of the European settlers of the administrative,
military and economic apparatus of the state ensured that this spelt
disorder and chaos in the newly-independent republic. To appease the
rebellious troops, Lumumba dismissed the 1,135 Belgian officers and
reorganized the Force Publique into the Congolese national army.
Joseph Mobutu was named as the chief of staff of this new army.

At this juncture, the ideological split within the leadership became
apparent. Joseph Kasavubu, who desired the retention of western
influence and a pro-capitalist orientation for the state, Mobutu who
also harbored sympathy for the conservative wing of the leadership
were at loggerheads with the radicals; Lumumba, a firm advocate of
socialism, supporter of the Soviet Union and critic of neo-colonial
domination of poor countries who saw Kwame Nkrumah's Ghana as a model
for economic development, Pierre Mulele; a Maoist who distinguished
himself by his affinity to Peking and Antoine Gizenga his deputy
prime minister. The conservatives resented the alienation of the
Europeans from the new regime.

The crisis was further exacerbated when on July 10th, Belgium sent
paratroopers in the towns of Kamina and Kitona in direct violation of
Congo's sovereignty under the pretext of protecting the European
population. These areas were cleared of rebellious Congolese troops.
Conservatives such as Kasavubu welcomed this intervention. However
they were soon disappointed when the excesses of the Belgian troops
brought the regime to near political collapse with the massacre of
nearly a score of Congolese civilians in the town of Matadi on July
12th.

Moise Tshombe, head of the Katanga province, with Belgian backing
announced the secession of mineral-rich Katanga from the Congo.
Although conceding political independence, the Belgium was unwilling
to give up its economic domination of the Congo. With its Gold,
Uranium and Copper deposits, Katanga represented 80% of the country's
national economy and its only source of foreign exchange. Mining
rights were given to a Belgian company, the Union Minere de haut
Katanga who, by contract was to hold exclusive mining rights until
1990. The Belgian intervention and the secession of the Congo were
designed to protect Belgian economic interests, along with those of
the U.S and Western Europe from the threat posed by the radicals and
nationalist Congolese leadership. Katanga's claims to secession were
bolstered not only by the Belgian regular troops but also by hundreds
of white mercenaries mainly from South Africa and Rhodesia.

Enraged, Lumumba approached the United Nations. A peacekeeping force
was dispatched to the Congo on the 15th of July 1960. This did not
upset the Belgians as the secretary-general at the time Dag
Hammerskjold was seen as a pro-U.S figure. The force itself was
commanded by U.S and West European personnel. With the Congolese army
still in disarray, Lumumba called on the U.N force to clamp down on
the Belgian sponsored-Katanga secession. This was refused. In
reaction, Lumumba cut off contact with Hammerskjold, accusing him of
collaborating with the U.S and Europeans in the fragmentation of the
Congo.

Lumumba then approached the Soviet Union and nearby African
nationalist regimes for help. The Soviet Union provided transport
aircraft, vehicles and a thousand technical advisors within a span of
six weeks.

This move alarmed the conservatives Kasavubu and Mobutu along with
the United States. CIA director Allen Dulles began describing
Lumumba as an African Fidel Castro who would frustrate American
policy in the region.

Preparations for overthrowing Lumumba were in full swing. This
included an assassination attempt by the CIA which entailed poisoning
Lumumba's toothpaste, which was never carried out as Larry Devlin
(the top CIA man in Congo at the time) couldn't sneak it into
Lumumba's house before it expired. According to a thousand-page
Belgian parliamentary report released in 2002 on the events in the
Congo, the CIA had by August 1960 launched the covert `Project
Wizard' which included providing hundreds of thousands of dollars to
political opponents of Lumumba and the nationalists including
president Kasavubu, Mobutu (who commanded the loyalty of a section of
the Congolese army), labor leader Cyrille Adoula, foreign minister
Justin Bomboko, top finance aide Albert Ndele and Joseph Ileo the
senate president. According to the joint CIA-Belgian plan, Ileo and
Adoula would put engineer a no-confidence vote against Lumumba's
government, followed by union-led strikes, culminating in the
resignation of cabinet ministers (organized by Ndele) and the
dismissal of Lumumba by Kasavubu.

According to declassified U.S documents, beginning on the 1st of
September 1960, the U.S National Security Council (NSC) authorized
payments to Kasavubu. On the 5th of the same month, Kasavubu
dismissed Lumumba from the post of prime minister. An enraged Lumumba
declared Kasavubu's presidency terminated. Lumumba then proceeded to
rally support within the Congolese parliament. On the international
scene, the Soviet Union managed to win support amongst the African
and Asian countries to recognize Lumumba as the legitimate head of
government.

In the midst of this constitutional crisis, Andrew Cordier, the
American head of the U.N mission in the Congo shut down
Leopoldville's pro-Lumumba radio station (thereby hampering Lumumba's
ability to rally support) and it's airport, to prevent Soviet planes
from transporting Congolese troops loyal to Lumumba to defend him.

Despite the Belgian and U.S role in destabilizing the government, Dag
Hammerskjold, the U.N secretary-general reserved his condemnation of
outside unilateral assistance in the Congo only for the Soviet Union.
However, Kasavubu was unable to act decisively against Lumumba, as he
had no mass following nor the popularity that the latter enjoyed. On
the 14th of September, Mobutu, who was identified by the U.S as its
surest bet due to the following he commanded in a faction of the
army, carried out a coup, retaining Kasavubu as the president,
holding Lumumba under house arrest and establishing a `college of
commissioners' to replace the disbanded government. This formation
was funded directly by the CIA including a one-time payment of over
$200,000 and arms, ammunition and sabotage materials.

In the UN session on the 23rd of September 1960, Soviet chairman
Nikita Khruschev reaffirmed support for Lumumba and reserved the
right to militarily assist pro-Lumumba forces. A few days earlier,
the Soviets had abstained from a Security Council resolution
forbidding all outside military intervention and support to any
forces in the Congo except through the United Nations. The reason was
obvious; the Soviets had correctly perceived the UN in the Congo as
merely an extension of U.S foreign policy.

Meanwhile, Lumumba's former deputy prime minister Antoine Gizenga had
organized a separate pro-Lumumba government in the Orientale
province, determined to oust the U.S-Belgian backed government in
Leopoldville. At the time, therefore, four separate entities claimed
to represent the Congo. At the capital Kasavubu and Mobutu rallied
the conservatives, in Katanga Moise Tshombe retained his government,
Albert Kalondji declared himself the king in the short-lived
secession of southern Kasai and in the Oreintale, Gizenga organized
Lumumba loyalists. Almost immediately, the Soviet Union, the People's
Republic of China, Nasser's Egypt, Sekou Toure in Guinnea, the German
Democratic Republic, Poland, Czekosloavkia, and other Eastern
European states recognized Gizenga as the legitimate government of
the Congo. This recognition was backed up by increasing military
supplies.

The CIA had, by the 20th of November begun stepping up its deliveries
of arms, ammunition, sabotage materials and training to Mobutu's army
in the event that a military showdown took place between pro and anti-
Lumumba forces.

On the 27th of November 1960, Lumumba eluded his captors escaping in
a foreign diplomat's car. He made for the Orientale province to join
Gizenga and his forces. On the 1st of December 1960, he was caught en-
route by Mobutu's troops on the banks of the Sankuru River, with the
active help of the CIA, who was tracking his movements. Upon capture,
he was taken and beaten in front of media cameras in Mobutu's private
villa. However, his captivity was to be short-lived. His immense
popularity throughout the country, even amongst his own prison
guards, was to make him too much of a liability for the usurpers of
the government. On the 17th of January 1961, he was transferred to
Katanga, in the hands of his arch-enemy, Moise Tshombe. This decision
was transmitted by Mobutu to the CIA three days in advance and was
carried out with the overt support of the then-Belgian minister of
African affairs and the Foreign Minister.

The same day (barely five hours later) Lumumba and two comrades
caught with him were tortured and shot by firing squad, supervised by
four Belgian officers, and in the presence of Tshombe and other
members of the Katanga government. To hide the murder, Belgian troops
dug up the bodies, hacked them to pieces and dissolved them in
concentrated sulphuric acid procured from a nearby Belgian-run mine.
A cover story was aired on Katangese radio involving an escape
attempt by Lumumba ending in his killing by enraged villagers.
However, no one was taken in by it. Thus, the first (and only)
elected leader of the Congo was murdered, in connivance with the very
states that posed as champions of `Democratic' principles.

Mobutu and Kasavubu now acting in concert deported Soviet technicians
and materials, and arrested Gizenga. The U.N general assembly in 1961
opened with strong denunciations of the U.S and Belgium from the
Soviets and the newly independent states of Africa, Asia and Latin
America. In particular, the Soviets accused the U.N and its general-
secretary, Dag Hammerskjold as being directly complicit in the
murder. Tshombe was termed `Africa's most unpopular African' for his
role in the murder.

To consolidate the new pro-western government, the U.N in September
1961, began to clamp down on the Katanga secession, something that it
deemed too difficult to do in Lumumba's lifetime. Hammerskjold died
when his plane crashed near Ndola airport while departing for
negotiations with Tshombe. Subsequent enquiries into his death by the
U.N, despite opposition by Tshombe, brought to light evidence of
Belgian complicity once again. Katanga was Brussel's turf.


Following the end of the Katanga secession, Tshombe was made the
prime minister in 1964. Paradoxically, he helped defeat another
rebellion in a break-away province, Oreintale.
Lumumba's murder and the abolition of Gizenga's government led to the
outbreak of the Simba (Swahili for `Lion') rebellion. Based in the
Orientale province, it was led by former members of Gizenga's
government, the Maoists Mulele, Soumaliot and Gbenye. At one point
succeeding in controlling two-thirds of the Congo, the movement was
only crushed by the military intervention (once again) of the U.S and
Belgium in an operation titled operation `Dragon Rouge' (once again
under the cover of protecting and evacuating white residents) and the
use of white mercenaries from Rhodesia, South Africa and Belgium.
After the defeat of the Simbas, Mulele was subsequently killed by
gouging out his eyes and hacking off his limbs one-by-one under
Mobutu's regime.

After holding corrupt elections, Tshombe was forced to flee to Spain.
In November 1965, Mobutu staged another CIA-sponsored coup and
accused Tshombe of treason In Abesentia, Kasavubu had fled, removed
from his post of president. The foreign policy objectives of the U.S
and most of Western Europe had come full circle. Mobutu, their
identified tool had concentrated absolute power in his hands.
Mobutu went about setting up an anti-communist, one-man dictatorship
that was seen as the very picture of Kleptocracy in Africa.

In 1965, another Lumumbist armed movement was underway to overthrow
Mobutu. Led this time, by the young Marxist Laurent Kabila, with
Soviet and . The Cuban revolutionary Ernesto `Che' Guevara also
landed in the Congo as Kabila's military assistant, accompanied by
guerrillas of the Marxist Popular Movement for the Liberation of
Angola (MPLA) from nearby Angola. However, the operation was a fiasco
in Che's estimation, forcing him to return to Cuba. [25] The Maquis
(Resistance) to Mobutu continued throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s.

Mobutu embarked on a program of `Zairianization', which included re-
naming the country Zaire (its 14th century name) and abolishing
Christian and European names for people and places. Thus,
Leopoldville was renamed Kinshasa and Joseph Mobutu became Mobutu
Sese Seko.

American aid to strengthen the new regime intensified, cumulative
American military aid till 1977 amounted to a total of U.S $589
million. Economic assistance for the same period was $468 million,
discounting American private investments, which accounted for $750
million in 1975. Much of this capital was to find its way into
Mobutu's personal account or those of his relatives and loyalists.
The regime was characterized by its uncontrolled corruption. Mobutu
retained personal control of between 15 to 20 percent of the national
operating budget and 30 percent of its capital expenditures. Famous
examples of the corruption of the regime include the former minister
of culture auctioning off artifacts purloined from the national
museum as his personal property. In 1971 it was reported that more
than 60 percent of governmental allocations had either been lost or
been diverted for purposes not originally designed. The corruption of
the regime reduced the economy of Africa's once `Most industrially
developed country' (Great Soviet Encyclopedia) into shambles. By 1978
inflation had hit 100 percent. The once agriculturally self-
sufficient country with the potential to feed the whole continent and
a major agricultural exporter had reverted to subsistence farming on
all but 1 percent of the land. This due to the fact that Mobutu's
uncle imported vital foodstuffs under exclusive license from South
Africa, while countries such as the Ivory Coast with far fewer
agricultural resources prospered. Despite all of this, American and
west European capital continued to rain in, due to Mobutu's
preservation of their economic assets in the country.

In exchange for an annual payment of $50 million, Mobutu even
compromised Zaire's sovereignty, granting the West Germans
concessionary rights to 38,000 square miles of northeast Shaba, for
the latter to test cruise missiles on Zairian soil.

Despite, or perhaps precisely because of, the corrupt and reactionary
nature of the regime, Mobutu enjoyed extremely close relations with
the U.S and Western Europe; Belgium, Britain, West Germany and France
in particular. Indeed, the sheer extent of corruption and
unpopularity of the regime had rendered it unable to meet even
internal threats without outside help. In March 1977 small groups of
Guerrillas launched attacks from northern Angola on the Zairian army
in an operation termed Shaba I. The seventy-thousand strong Zairian
army crumbled under the attacks, the regime was saved only by the
intervention of fifteen hundred Moroccan troops. In May 1978, once
again the regime was on the verge of collapse in Shaba II, saved only
by the intervention of French Legionnaires and Belgian paratroopers.

Ideologically, Kinshasa (formerly Leopoldville-author) served as a
bastion of anti-communism, dedicated to prevent Communist or Radical
African Nationalist movements emerging in central, eastern or
southern Africa. In foreign policy, Zaire was completely subservient
to American geo-political interests. The most prominent example
being Zaire's patronization of the FNLA, led by Mobutu's brother-in-
law Roberto Holden (A party opposed to the Marxist pro-Soviet MPLA-
then fighting Portuguese colonialism- A key NATO country). Zaire
served as a conduit of CIA funds and base of operations for both the
FNLA and UNITA (another Angolan anti-communist party, patronized
primarily by South Africa, led by Jonas Savimbi).

Apart from working to prevent an MPLA victory in Angola, Zaire worked
to thwart Samora Machel's FRELIMO in Mozambique and ZANU and ZAPU in
Zimbabwe.

Mobutu was finally ousted in 1997 by a coalition of forces led
Laurent Kabila and the Rwandan Tutsi militia [30] under the banner of
the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire
(ADFL). Following the ADFL victory, Zaire was renamed the Democratic
Republic of the Congo (DRC). It is estimated that Mobutu had
embezzled more than $5 billion from the Congolese state and people,
making him the third-most corrupt world leader and most corrupt
African head of state, in history. Mobutu fled into exile in Togo and
eventually died in Morocco.

The end of Mobutu, however, did not spell the end of U.S and European
interference in the Congo. Kabila, another Marxist and outspoken
critic of neo-colonialism, embarked on a leftist economic and social
program. Young Congolese were organized into a `national service' to
rebuild the country's ruined infrastructure and undertake
agricultural projects, Cantines populaires (people's canteens)
combated food insecurity in the cities and comités du pouvoir
populaire (Committees of Popular Power) served as the grassroots
organization of popular political power. In addition an economic
program was drawn up and presented in 1997 in opposition to IMF and
World Bank dictates.

Kabila was no more palatable to the west than Lumumba. Once again the
U.S and Western Europe began to use Rwandan and Ugandan forces as
proxies to get rid of the Kabila regime. The Rwandan and Ugandan
armies (former Tutsi allies of the ADFL), and Mobutu loyalists within
the Congolese army began an armed rebellion led by guerrilla
commander Laurent Nkunda, Bemba and then-Rwandan minister of defense
Paul Kagame, in 1998 (armed and funded by the U.S and Belgium,
primarily). Stretching till 2003, this intervention (or more
appropriately, foreign invasion of the Congo by Rwanda and Uganda-
author) claimed the lives of more than five million Congolese,
including counter-massacres of Hutu civilians in the DRC by Tutsi
troops. Throughout the war, Belgium declared on numerous occasions
its ability and willingness to intervene with its paratroopers. The
DRC was supported primarily by Namibia, Zimbabwe and Angola.

Laurent Kabila was assassinated in 2001, succeeded by his son Joseph
Kabila. The last conflict termed `Africa's first world war' ended in
2003, due to the unpopular nature of the foreign intervention on the
one hand, and Joseph Kabila's acceptance of IMF and World Bank
strictures, something that won him acceptance in Washington and
Brussels.

However, recently violence has once again flared up in the Congo,
where the U.S and west European countries have given their backing to
a reinvigorated push by the pro-Imperialist Ugandan and Rwandan
governments and their local puppet Laurent Nkunda through
his `Congress for the defense of the people' (CNDP- In reality, just
Mobutu remnants). It is estimated that the military aggression has
led the displacement of over 45,000 people from camps for the
internally-displaced, fearing death at the hands of the `Lord's
Resistance Army' (LRA) (Patronized by Uganda) and the CNDP. What we
are witnessing here is another two-pronged foreign intervention in
the DRC. The UN `peacekeeping' mission in the DRC, one of the largest
deployments in the world, has been unwilling to engage in fighting
against Nkunda, has merely melted away in the face of this foreign
aggression. Where the roots of it lie is rather obvious. Given the
justifiable contempt in which the Congolese people hold the U.N and
the western Imperialists, frustration with UN inaction has led to
episodes of civilians launching attacks against the UN troops, apart
from resisting Nkunda's adventurism.

Why is this taking Place? Why now at this time? Lets keep in mind
that quite recently the Chinese signed a multi-Billion dollar deal
that envisaged the construction of Roads, infrastructure and
construction projects, as opposed to the withholding of aid by the
imperialists on the pretext of `corruption' and `lack of democracy'.
According to this deal, touted as arguably the most ambitious on the
African continent, a 3,400 km highway will be constructed linking
North-eastern Congo with the Zambian border to the south. In
addition, a 3,200 km railway will link the key mining heartland to
the port of Matadi. The deal also calls for the investment of 2-
billion dollars for the revitalization of state-owned mines, in
return for contracts for the sale of its products to China, out of
which the DRC will retain a 63% stake in revenue (including taxation
and royalties).

It is clear that the Western Imperialists are unwilling to allow
Africa to turn to alternative states for trade. This episode is
merely a reminder that they are willing to go to any lengths to
scuttle any deal that impinges on their interests on the African
continent, long viewed as their exclusive monopoly. Let us not forget
that the U.S-European Axis now also has established a NATO command on
African soil. This is merely the beginning of a protracted struggle
for Africa to cast off its historical colonial shackles and emerge as
truly independent socialist states. Who said the Cold War was over?

Death to Neo-Colonialism!
Socialism is our Future!