By Osoro Nyawangah
Tuesday, June 30th 2020
the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) will be celebrating the sixtieth
anniversary of its independence from Belgian colonial rule. Celebrations are
set to be subdued in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Patrice Lumumba (C) in December 1960. He was
then Prime Minister of Congo-Kinshasa. Beside him, Senate Vice-President
Joseph Okito (L). Patrice Lumumba was murdered with two of his
relatives, Joseph Okito and Maurice Mpolo, on January 17, 1961.
President
Tshisekedi announced that the funds destined for a grand celebration will be
redirected to fight the pandemic and to provide the Congolese army with pay
bonuses for their ‘bravery and heroism’.
But sixty
years after independence, the DRC is one of the poorest countries in the world,
placing 179th on the Human Development Index measuring life expectancy,
education and per capita income.
In 2018,
72% of the population of 84 million was living in extreme poverty on less than
$1.90 a day.
And yet,
this is poverty amidst plenty. The DRC is the world’s biggest producer of
cobalt, accounting for 70% of the global supply of the metal used in batteries
for phones and electric cars. It is Africa’s top copper producer and produces
80% of the world’s coltan, a mineral essential in the production of the micro-processors
that have enabled the global information technology boom of the last two
decades.
This
poverty amidst plenty is rooted in the DRC’s colonial history, the neo-colonial
plundering post-independence, dictatorships and war.
The Congo Free State — 1885–1908
Prior to
colonization, the Congo River delta was an important hub in the trans-Atlantic
slave trade from 1500 to 1850. Four million slaves were taken from the area,
smashing previous social structures and realigning the coastal Kongo kingdom into
European trade networks.
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| Patrice Lumumba, hero and martyr of the country's independence. |
From
1874–1895, Belgian King Leopold II invested his personal fortune and huge loans
from the Belgian government to lay claim to what is today the DRC in the
context of the European imperialist scramble for African colonies. At the 1885
Berlin Conference Leopold played the main colonial powers off against each
other, promising that he would destroy East-African slave trading and turn the
area into a free trade zone. Leopold II renamed an area encompassing the Congo
Free State, imposing a new collective identity on around 250 different ethnic
groups speaking up to 700 different languages and dialects. Taking the mantle
of a humanitarian, Leopold made all land outside human settlement his personal
property and introduced a system of terror.
The
territory was plundered first of ivory and then of rubber. Leopold’s mercenary
army imposed harsh harvesting quotas, brutalizing and murdering the population
of areas that did not or could not comply.
The race
for rubber led to the collapse of agriculture, adding famine to the atrocities.
Leopold’s seizure of ‘vacant’ land created long-term agrarian and
inter-communal tensions, as farmers moved off exhausted land and onto crown
lands. This system led to 3 to 5 million deaths, the higher estimations of 10
million are based on incorrect extrapolations by explorer-colonizer Henry
Morton Stanley.
Contrary
to the claims of colonial apologists, Leopold was fully aware of these
atrocities in a territory he never visited in person. An international humanitarian
campaign drew attention to the atrocities in the Congo Free State. Colonial
propaganda spoke of an ‘English campaign’ led by Edmund Morel, Joseph Conrad,
Roger Casement and Mark Twain.
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| King Leopord II |
The
campaign gathered African eyewitness reports of atrocities committed by
Leopold’s forces, so the King and Belgium’s politicians and bourgeois elite
knew what was being perpetrated. Leopold even had several archives burned to
obscure his complicity.
For a
variety of reasons, Leopold was forced to relinquish control of the Congo Free
State to the Belgian state in 1908. Leopold II’s legacy to the Congo was a
history of mass murder, an artificially created national identity and the
establishment of Congo’s long history of imperialist looting.
The Belgian Congo — 1908–1960
The
Belgian State reformed the colonial system in order to pave the way for
long-term economic exploitation. The Catholic Church worked hand in hand with
the colonial regime to encourage Christianity’s message of obedience. Church
schools censored everything rebellious, avoiding, for example, talk about the
French revolution. While Christian obedience was encouraged, critical religious
movements suffered harsh repression. The preacher, Simon Kimbangu, was arrested
in 1921. He died in prison 30 years later. His followers, the Kimbanguists,
were displaced and persecuted, but are still a big movement in Congo. Starting
in 1937, forced labor concentration camps were set up for members of the
Jehovah’s Witnesses inspired Kitawala sect due to their anti-colonial
sentiments.
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| Congolese children celebrating the independence of the country, the day after the proclamation of June 30, 1960. |
Unlike in
some African colonies such as Kenya and South Africa, European settlement in
the Congo was tightly controlled by the Belgian State for fear of white,
anti-colonial, communist agitation. As if the Congolese did not have reason to
oppose colonization!
With the
discovery of Congo’s vast mineral wealth, the country was industrialized. The
dominant mining company, Union Minière, ran its own totalitarian state
apparatus in the southeastern province of Katanga, mining copper, manganese,
uranium, gold, etc. Palm oil plantations provided the raw material for the
soaps that laid the foundation for today’s multinational giant, Unilever.
The
working class grew from a few hundred in 1900 to 450,000 in 1929, then to
nearly one million in World War II, when the mining industry boomed. The US
atomic bombs dropped on Japan used uranium mined in Katanga. Congo became the
second most industrialized sub-Saharan country, after South Africa, but living
conditions for workers and the poor remained terrible.
Discontent
led to strikes and riots at the beginning and end of the war, with 60 miners
killed in a mass protest in Elizabethville, now Lumbumbashi, in Katanga. Strike
leaders were tracked down. In 1944, the army shot 55 unarmed Kitawala rebels,
using scorched earth tactics on their villages and fields after they rose up
against wartime forced labor. Certain groups or tribes were singled out as
‘troublemakers’. It was part of the divide and rule strategy.
Congolese
people who had endured the brutal wartime corvée labor and quotas in the mines
and plantations expected their lives to improve after the war. Congolese
soldiers who fought against totalitarianism with the ‘Allies’ in Abyssinia,
Egypt and Burma also expected improved conditions. Racism, however, persisted.
Africans could still be whipped in public, had to stand at the end of queues,
and were banned from bathing facilities. Trade unions were illegal. Local
elections were introduced in some cities, but any mayor was subservient to the
Belgian ‘first mayor’. In the same way that capitalist governments granted
concessions and reforms in the post-war period to stave off revolution,
colonial governments across Africa engaged in ‘developmental colonialism’ in
the post-war period to prevent pro-independence movements. The Belgians
invested in infrastructure development projects to raise the standard of
living, such as the INGA hydroelectric dam project, but then also left the
Congolese with the bill upon independence.
Decolonization
After
World War II colonial revolutions and liberation wars erupted around the world.
India, Indonesia and the Philippines shook off British, Dutch and US control.
In Algeria and Indochina armed struggle continued against French colonial
troops. In 1957, Ghana was the first sub-Saharan country to become independent,
sparking a wave of decolonization across the continent.
The
Belgian Congo had its share of religious organizations opposed to colonial
rule, however up to 1955 there was no national political organization demanding
independence. All this changed in 1956 with the rise of civil disobedience
campaigns. The Association des Bakongo (ABAKO), originally a tribal
organization led by Joseph Kasa-Vubu, put forward a freedom manifesto.
Two years
later, the Mouvement National Congolais (MNC) was formed, with Patrice Lumumba
as leader. Its goal was to liberate Congo from imperialism and colonial rule.
The response was enormous. Lumumba visited the new state of Ghana, where he met
the country’s leader, Kwame Nkrumah. On returning to Congo, 7,000 people
gathered to listen to his report. The Belgian government anticipated having to
grant independence eventually, but until 1958 the Belgian Colonial Ministry had
no plans for the Congo’s independent political future.
In
January 1959, Congo exploded. The Belgian first mayor banned a protest meeting
in Kinshasa, then Léopoldville, leading to riots. The army was used in full
force, killing up to 300 and injuring many more. The unrest spread to Kivu,
Kasai and Katanga.
At the
start of 1960, the Belgian government announced it was convening a round table
conference with the goal of negotiating the Congolese transition from colonial
rule to independence. The post-war Congolese economy was deteriorating, due in
part to Belgium developing more public services in the colony. The colony’s
public debt rose from 4 to 46 billion Belgian francs between 1949 and 1960, a
debt which Belgium graciously allowed Congo to inherit upon independence after
decades of colonial exploitation. King Baudouin visited the Belgian Congo to
reduce political tensions, but only managed to have his ceremonial sword
stolen. The growing grassroots movement in Congo, the riots in Kinshasa, and
the global struggles against colonialism all contributed to the decision to
accelerate the pace towards independence to June 30th 1960!
The Congo
was to have formal, political independence but multinational companies were to
operate as before, acting in accordance with Belgian law. Further undermining
any real Congolese economic power, the Belgian parliament abolished Congolese
power over the dominant Union Minière three days before independence. All army
officers and the highest officials were to remain Belgian. It was going to be
independence in name only.
Nevertheless,
hopes for real change were high and the MNC under Lumumba won the first
elections. However, regional parties also had great support: the breakaway
MNC-K led by Albert Kalonji in Kasai, the Confédération des Associations
Tribales du Katanga (CONAKAT) under Moïse Tshombe in south Katanga, and ABAKO
in Bas-Congo. Kasa-Vubu became president, with Lumumba as prime minister.
The stage
was set for a multifaceted struggle: a Congolese fight for true independence, a
civil war, a Belgian attempt to retain control and a Cold War proxy conflict.
The Congo Crisis’ — 1960–1965
One week
into Congo’s ‘independence’ a mutiny in the army against the Belgian officers
led to the Africanization of the officer corps. Violence erupted between black
and white civilians. Belgium sent in troops, officially to protect its citizens
but in reality to protect its mining assets. Katanga and South Kasai seceded
with Belgian support. Thousands died in the fighting.
Lumumba
was only in office for two months in a country that was unravelling under his
feet. He appealed to the United Nations to intervene, but the UN peacekeepers
actively prevented the Congolese government from retaking the breakaway
regions. He also appealed to Nikita Khrushchev, who sent food, weapons and
vehicles. The Congo crisis struck at the heart of the cold war between the US
and Stalinist Russia and in September, he was deposed by Kasa-Vubu.
Joseph
Mobutu, in command of the army, conducted a CIA-backed coup d’état,
establishing a new government in Kinshasa under his control. Lumumba was placed
under house arrest. The Belgian government and US president, Dwight Eisenhower,
gave the green light for him to be murdered.
After
torture and transportation to Katanga, Lumumba was shot in front of local
leaders, including Tshombe.
Lumumba
had clearly been a threat to the interests of the former colonial elite and had
stood in the way of a new aspirant black elite eager to become the privileged
gatekeepers to Congolese wealth. The Belgians planned and executed the plan to
kill Lumumba, as his call to nationalize Congo’s riches for the benefit of the
Congolese people ran counter to their plans to retain control of this wealth.
In the
context of the Cold War, the US feared that Lumumba would end up like Fidel
Castro, that the colonial revolution would push him from a liberal to a
‘communist’ position. Lumumba’s unpredictability, the expectations he created
and his supporters’ talk of revolution scared the imperialist powers.
The
Africanization of the Congolese army officer corps loosened Belgium’s grip on
the Congo, leading to the decision by the Western powers, Belgium, the CIA, the
UN and their accomplices in Leopoldville, Kasai and Katanga that Lumumba had to
be removed.
Furthermore,
Lumumba’s pan-African vision for the Congo, unity across ethnic and tribal
divisions, ran counter to tribalist Congolese elites like Tschombe and
Kasa-Vubu who only sought to defend the interests of their own ethnic groups.
Lumumba’s popular appeal threatened to rouse the Congolese masses behind a program
meeting the social, economic and democratic demands of the population, which
would have required the nationalization of the Congo’s mineral wealth. This ran
counter to the interest of Congolese elites and international capitalism.
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President Mobutu and wife 1971
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Contrary
to colonial apologists, the Congo crisis was not the result of Belgium leaving
too early. Belgian colonialism existed to economically exploit the Congo, not
prepare it for independence. Belgium purposefully accelerated the pace towards
independence because the Congo had a new, unstable government and the nation
had not had the time to develop a workers’ movement with a clear program aimed
at meeting the needs of the population.
Lumumba
was not an explicit socialist and lacked weapons as well as a nationwide,
democratic socialist movement among workers and the rural poor, which could
have drawn the support from the working class internationally.
The
legacy of Congo’s accelerated independence is that gains could not be won by
the Congolese working class upon independence, instead the Congolese working
class were served with a series of defeats and dictatorship which have hampered
the development of strong working class organizations to this day.
The
central government defeated the rival pro-Lumumba, Soviet-backed Free Republic
of the Congo in the eastern Congo by 1962, defeated the secessionist movements
in Katanga and South Kasai by 1963 and with Belgian support crushed the Simba’s
proclaimed communist Peoples’ Republic of the Congo in 1964 alongside whom Che
Guevara briefly fought.
The
Soviet Union and China only provided limited support, not wanting to see a
region of the world develop genuine workers’ democracy outside of their
control. Tshombe, now in support of the central government, won the 1965
election with US and western support. However, he was too unreliable and Mobutu
carried out a second coup d’état to finally ensure that the Congo would be open
for business with western imperialist powers.
The Mobutu Years
Mobutu
became a brutal and corrupt dictator, remaining in power until 1997, at the
head of the Popular Movement of the Revolution (MPR). He became a close ally of
the US and Israel, fighting ‘communism’ in central Africa.
Washington
depended on Zaire as a supply route for the US-backed National Union for the
Total Independence of Angola (Unita) rebel movement fighting a 17-year
guerrilla war against the government of neighboring Angola supported by the
Soviet-Union and Cuba.
At the
same time, Mobutu also maintained a friendly relationship with China. He adopted
a cult of personality featuring hours of musical tributes and a cultural
nationalist policy to underpin his rule. Only indigenous names and music were
allowed.
The
country was renamed Zaire in 1971 and the following year Mobutu renamed himself
Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga (meaning “The all-powerful warrior
who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, goes from conquest to
conquest, leaving fire in his wake.”)
In
1968–69 a Congolese student movement rose up, with Lumumba as its hero,
parallel to the student protests in Europe and the US. Mobutu had the movement
violently crushed in 1969. Officially, 6 students died in the protests, but in
reality 300 were killed and another 800 sentenced to long prison terms.
Despite
this repressive violence, or maybe because of it, the West pandered to Mobutu’s
regime in order to gain access to Congo’s mineral resources. The US provided
more than $300 million in arms and $100 million in military training for the
dictatorship.
Mobutu’s
corrupt and inept rule squandered Congo’s agricultural potential, making the
country dependent on food imports. Inflation spiked and loans made up 30% of
the state budget in the 1970s. Like many other African countries, Congo ended
up in the clutches of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.
Their
structural adjustment programs imposed privatization and cuts. Congo reduced
the number of teachers in a short time from 285,000 to 126,000 — transforming
its high literacy to the situation today, where 30% are illiterate.
Meanwhile,
the term ‘kleptocracy’ — a government by those who seek to enrich themselves at
the expense of the governed — was coined to describe Mobutu’s use of state
funds. By the end of his rule he had amassed a personal fortune estimated at $4
billion, while running up a $12 billion external debt.
Mobutu’s
position got increasingly complicated in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1982, his
long-term ally and member of the MPR central committee, Étienne Tshisekedi
broke with Mobutu, forming the country’s first opposition party calling for
non-violent democratic change, the Union for Democracy and Social Progress
(UDPS). In the late 1980s, protest movements against IMF policies and
dictatorships arose across Africa, sparking the formation of new political
parties, associations and trade unions.
With the
end of the Cold War, Mobutu’s western imperialist allies pressured him to move
Zaire in a more democratic direction, or at least neo-colonial capitalism with
a human face. Mobutu permitted multi-party politics in April 1990, but angered
his Western backers, especially Belgium when his soldiers attacked a student
hostel in the same year, killing dozens. Belgium temporarily cut off aid in
response, and mass opposition to Mobutu’s rule grew through 1991.
At the
same time, the mineral-based economy collapsed as production from vital copper
mines in Katanga dropped precipitously. Thousands of Congolese soldiers, angry
at not receiving a pay rise, went on a looting spree in Kinshasa, killing at
least 250 people. On 16 February 1992, priests and churches organized the ‘hope
march’ in several cities in protest at the shutting down of a conference on
democratization. Over one million Congolese took part.
Thirty-five
demonstrators were killed in the repression. In 1993, Mobutu clamped down on
any talk of democratization, thwarted an impeachment attempt by Tshisekedi and
regained full control. Inflation exploded, reaching 9,769% in 1994. Mobutu was
forced to introduce a five-million New Zaire note.
After
decades of political repression and amid the worsening economic crisis, ethnic
violence erupted. In Katanga groups demanded that migrant laborers from other
provinces ‘go home’ and in eastern Kivu province, nativist Mai-Mai militias
started threatening Tutsis, some of whom had been settled in the area by the
Belgians during the colonial era.
Like the
rebel groups active in eastern Congo today, they fought for farmland and
control over mines. Opponents of the Museveni dictatorship in Uganda also
gained a foothold in eastern Congo, organizing rebel bands.
In 1994,
after Rwandan civil war and genocide, a large part of the defeated Habyarimana
regime fled into Eastern Congo with France providing protection. Mobutu
welcomed the Rwandans, thereby sealing his fate and sparking a transnational
conflict that persists to this day.
Congo Wars
President
Paul Kagame of Rwanda and President Museveni of Uganda backed the Alliance of
Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (ADFLC) that killed up to 300,000
Hutus, including Rwandan refugees that participated in the Rwandan genocide.
Laurent
Kabila, a Congolese citizen and former Maoist Simba leader, headed the ADFLC,
marching his army for 2000 km across the country. Tired of decades of
corruption, poverty and an ill-disciplined army, support for Mobutu quickly
disappeared and Zairians welcomed Kabila’s soldiers as liberators. Kabila
overthrew Mobutu upon arriving in Kinshasa.
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| Laurent Kabila |
Kabila
was let down by his former imperialist supporters (mainly the US) because he
was not docile. On the other hand his Stalinist idea of a two-stages revolution
made him seek support from what he called “good capitalists”, capitalists who
were willing to participate in “national development.”
The Congo
was to develop into a stable capitalist country with a constitution, individual
rights, private property and the rule of law, before it could attempt a second
socialist revolution, in which workers and peasants would seize economic and
political power. Yet, this policy meant that there was no fundamental progress
for the population, as there were no “good capitalists” to be found. There was
no agricultural reform and no nationalization of the key sectors of the
economy.
Kabila
also fell out with his Rwandan and Ugandan backers, who wanted a part of
Congo’s riches. Rwandan and Ugandan backed troops made war on Kabila, but also
each other for the Congo’s natural resources. Angolan and Zimbabwean military
interventions saved Kabila’s regime. The UN sent in a massive peacekeeping
force in 1999. The now renamed DRC fell into chaos.
The Congo
war was fuelled by the region’s huge mineral wealth, with all sides, including
multinational corporations, taking advantage of the chaos to plunder the
country and further finance the war. Half way through the war in 2001, a UN
Security Council report estimated that Rwanda alone had gained at least $250
million from illegal coltan exports.
The US,
Belgium, Britain and France also jostled to defend their economic interests,
supplying millions of dollars of weapons to different sides in the war.
The war
from 1998 to 2006 killed over 5 million people through violence and famine,
making it the most deadly conflict since World War II. Millions more were
displaced. Kabila’s government was weak, split and corrupt, with no full
control of its armed forces. The Congolese army participated in widespread
ethnic slaughter, executions, torture, rapes and arbitrary arrests.
Joseph Kabila
In 2001
Laurent Kabila was assassinated by one of his bodyguards. His son Joseph Kabila
assumed power, supported by the EU, the USA and China. His political course is
more reminiscent of the self-enrichment of Mobutuism than of Lumumbism.
At the
height of his popularity, Joseph Kabila won the 2006 election against the
ex-warlord and vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba. The first round of election
results led to three days of fighting between Kabila’s and Bemba’s armies.
These
divided loyalties in the Congolese army have never been truly overcome, rooted
in the one president and four vice-presidents formula of 2001–2006 meant to
resolve armed tensions in the country.
Kabila
proceeded to court increased foreign investment and to promise infrastructure
development in a country two-thirds the size of Western Europe, but with only
300 miles of paved road. China’s insatiable thirst for raw resources and rise
to Africa’s biggest trading partner and lender was felt in the DRC.
In 2009,
the Kabila government signed a $9 billion dollar investment deal with China,
allowing Chinese companies the right to develop Congolese copper and cobalt
mines in exchange for building roads, railways, hydroelectric dams,
universities, airports and hospitals.
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Monusco patrol
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The DRC’s
economy boomed during Kabila’s years in power, experiencing between 2.5% and
9.5% GDP growth depending on the year. However, the surging copper and cobalt
production failed to reduce the crushing poverty experienced by the majority of
the population.
In the
lead up to the 2011 election, hopes for change coalesced around opposition
candidate, Étienne Tshisekedi. Kabila was re-elected, while Tshisekedi
immediately disputed the results and declared himself president. The UDPS
called on the Congolese people to mobilize themselves and protect Tshisekedi’s
victory. Protesters flooded the streets of Kinshasa, tired of poverty,
unemployment, crumbling infrastructure, violence in the East and corruption.
Police
clashed with UDPS supporters, killing dozens. The protesters were angry at the
lost opportunity for change but also encouraged by similar movements for regime
change in Senegal and Tunisia. Despite not being able to remove Kabila, 2011
contributed to the formation of underground information and training networks
for political activism across Congo.
As under
Mobutu, massive corruption continued under Kabila. At least $750 million paid
to Congo’s tax bodies and state mining company disappeared in
2013–2015, $1.3 billion when other state bodies and a now-defunct provincial
tax bodies were included. At the same time, chronic lack of funding for
government services continued.
In 2015
protests erupted again when Kabila announced that he would seek re-election,
despite exceeding his constitutionally established term limits. Protesters,
mostly youth, returned to the streets inspired by the role of youth in the
Citoyen Balais movement that removed Blaise Compaoré from power in 2014 in
Burkina Faso.
Police
and military used lived rounds, killing 42 and arresting hundreds. The
government shut down the internet and blocked text messages to contain the
movement, but demonstrations spread to eastern Congo, to Goma and Bukavu. The
government, seeing how big the movement now was, declared the youth movements
illegal, declared its leaders terrorists, hunted them down, kidnapping and
jailing. Many went into exile or hid out in remote towns. A mass grave was
discovered outside Kinshasa.
However,
the protests forced the government to retreat. The Senate amended the bill
aimed at giving Kabila a third term, allowing Kabila to stay on until the
national census added younger voters. Opposition parties called off the
protests, but the youth stayed out demanding that Kabila resign.
Kabila
remained in power for another 2 years, allegedly waiting for the census, while
the movement for his removal continued. “Villes mortes” — dead cities — was the
opposition’s main slogan in the general strike organized in August 2016. The
streets of Congo’s major cities emptied as both workers and employers stayed
home.
Demonstrators
stopped traffic in Goma while in Kinshasa they erected barricades nearby the
UDPS headquarters after police attacked them. Police violence escalated in
September with 53 killed, 127 injured and 368 arrested according to the UN.
Étienne
Tshisekedi’s 2016 speeches failed to gather the same excitement as in 2011. He
called on his supporters to have faith in the electoral process, to believe in
the constitution and to trust in negotiations with Kabila. He purposefully did
not call for a mass movement to take action.
As a
result, the UDPS did not take to the streets as before, but again youth
protests continued. By the time elections finally happened at the end of 2018,
at least 320 people were killed and 3,500 injured in Kinshasa after 3 years of
protest.
Félix Tshisekedi — a new beginning
to an old situation
Congo’s
elections finally took place in December 2018, but once again, they were mired
in controversy. On the surface, Félix Tshisekedi, Étienne’s son, assumed the
presidency in the much-touted “first peaceful transfer since independence.”
Félix
invited high hopes after 18 years of Kabila, running on a pledge to further
‘national reconciliation’ and to fight corruption and poverty. Tshisekedi had
some political prisoners released and launched his $304 million “100 Days
Program” aimed at developing roads, health, education, housing, energy (water
and electricity), employment, transport and agriculture.
The
effectiveness of such programs will be limited if the DRC’s mineral wealth is
not nationalized and used to the benefit of the Congolese peasants and working
class. In Kabila’s final years in power, multinationals campaigned against the
government’s proposals for modest increases in corporate taxes.
After
threats of reduced investments, the government backed down and accepted a 10%
share in new projects, down from the proposed 30%. The fee for gold mines stops
at 6%. Unless Tshisekedi bites the hands that feed him, the Congo’s government
remains in the hands of multinational mining corporations.
The 2018
election results were also heavily contested. Both international observers and
the Congolese Catholic Church, which fielded 40,000 observers, maintain that
pro-Western interests, ex-ExxonMobil executive Martin Fayulu was the winning
candidate. F
ayulu
probably was the winner; but he hardly represented an alternative for the
Congolese people, being close friends with some of the richest men in Congo.
The
announcement of the electoral results coincided with a beefing up of security
forces in cities, an internet service disruption to contain protest
mobilizations and clashes with security forces. Sporadic unrest resulted in 34
people killed, 59 wounded and 241 “arbitrary arrests” in the week after the
announcement, according to the UN human rights office.
The state
is no neutral arbiter, serving the needs of the ruling class. The
constitutional court upheld Tshisekedi’s victory, permitting Kabila to stick
around. Tshisekedi entered into a power-sharing agreement with Kabila, who is
no longer president, but still holds the reins of many key sectors from his
position of ‘senator-for-life’.
Kabila
has refused to rule out a fresh run for president in 2023, when he will no
longer be constrained by term limits. During his 18 years in power, Kabila
installed his loyalists throughout the federal bureaucracy, and his ruling
coalition won a resounding parliamentary majority, 342 of 485 seats. As a
result, it came to no surprise when Tshisekedi finally announced a coalition
government, with 23 UDPS members and 42 members from Kabila’s Common Front for
Congo (FCC) coalition, seven months after the inauguration.
The
ruling UDPS-FCC coalition has already been struck by a high profile corruption
scandal as on the eve of Independence Day celebrations. Presidential chief of
staff Vital Kamerhe was recently sentenced to 20 years in jail for allegedly
embezzling $49 million earmarked for social housing in the 100-day building
program.
Kamerhe
backed Tshisekedi in his successful 2018 election campaign in return for
Tshisekedi’s support in the next election in 2023. As a result, his arrest and
conviction has sent shock waves through Congo, stoking speculation that the
case is politically motivated to prevent him from challenging Tshisekedi in
2023.
Earlier
in the month, the justice minister revealed that the former presiding judge,
who was originally said to have died of a heart attack last month, was actually
murdered. As a result, on the 60th anniversary of independence,
it is business as usual in the ruling circles of the DRC.
Eastern Congo and MONUSCO
MONUSCO
is the 20,000 strong United Nations ‘peacekeeping’ mission active in eastern
Congo since 1999 with a budget of $1 billion a year. First deployed in the
context of the second Congo war, the mission focused on dispersing the FDLR and
has since moved to engage other rebel groups operating in the Congo.
An
estimated 160 rebel groups with a total of more than 20,000 fighters operate in
North Kivu province alone, controlling key gold and cobalt mines.
MONUSCO
has been controversial from the beginning, with UN soldiers lending extensive
support to Congolese government soldiers, accused of widespread rape and
killings (the same crimes committed by the rebel FDLR).
MONUSCO
soldiers themselves have been frequently accused of sexually assaulting
civilians, while also not preventing the exploitation of miners at the hands of
multinational corporations or effectively protecting civilians from rebel
attacks.
In 2013,
the rebel group M23 took the North Kivu provincial capital of Goma, discrediting
the UN mission in the process. The UN responded by authorizing its soldiers to
fire first, a break with traditional UN peacekeeping regulations.
Victory
over rebel forces has remained elusive, as rebels control very lucrative and
resource rich regions. Added to this, several rebel groups have active support
from Kagame’s Rwanda and Museveni’s Uganda, neither of which are subjected to
international pressure to desist, as they are western allies in the war on
terror.
There are
also significant numbers of Rwandan refugees still in eastern Congo, some of
them war criminals, further complicating ethnic, resource and land tensions in
the country’s east.
Lastly,
the government’s and MONUSCO’s inability to protect civilians as well as the
lack of accountability for crimes committed by government forces understandably
encourages people living in Eastern Congo to form their own armed groups.
Since
fall 2019, violence has once again been on the rise in the east with rebel
groups attacking civilians in retaliation for a renewed government offensive.
In Beni frustrations erupted over the UN’s inability to protect civilians
massacred by rebel forces. Protesters attacked a UN compound after UN soldiers
killed two protesters, burning it to the ground.
The
protest was accompanied by a week-long shut down of businesses and solidarity
protests in Goma.
DR Congo ethnic
violence stopping refugee return
In 2020,
violence has escalated further and so far has received almost no media
coverage. Rebel attacks, including mass murder and rape, are slowing aid worker
and government interventions against Ebola virus and COVID-19 in the region.
In Ituri,
North Kivu and South Kivu over 1,300 people have been killed and over 500,000
people displaced over the last 8 months by rebel massacres of the civilian
population. The army has retaliated against the rebels, but soldiers continue
to kill and sexually assault civilians on a regular basis.
These
actions prevent any kind of trust between the Congolese people and state
representatives, both security and political.
The Way Forward
Despite the
Congo’s tumultuous history of colonialism and neo-colonialism, it is not in a
hopeless situation. The solution to poverty, war and imperialism lies with the
Congolese people, not with the current government, its international allies or
the UN.
There will
be no end to the Congolese peoples’ troubles as long as the country is run on
the basis of anti-poor, neo-liberal policies, as dictated by the IMF/World
Bank, and for as long as the Congo’s huge mineral wealth is plundered by the
multinationals and rebel troops.
Workers’
organizations are weak in the DRC due to years of war and dictatorship. Yet,
only by building building independent organizations of workers and the poor can
the grip of the local looters and imperialists be broken. The sustained
campaign for Kabila’s resignation and the “villes mortes” general strike shows
the emerging power of the Congolese working class.
These
kinds of movements allow lessons to be learned on how to broaden protests and
strike movements, on how to link social issues, safety issues and democratic
issues, on how to organize democratically and on how to fight for the right to
build independent unions and a party of the workers and oppressed.
A
socialist struggle is necessary in the DRC and it is the only way to break the
endless cycle of poverty, corruption, war and exploitation. The rights of
minorities must be protected.
Workers
must organize to defend themselves against exploitation and for the
nationalization of natural resources and finance capital under democratic workers’
control, with support from the rural poor. The profits from Congo’s mineral
wealth should be invested in education and healthcare. The DRC’s debts need to
be abolished.
The
governments and politicians of Congo are blocking development, since their interests
lie with multinational corporations, and must be overthrown. Workers around the
world must stand in solidarity with Congo’s workers in achieving these goals. - Africa
