From The Ramparts

The Same Ol Game In The Congo

The Same Ol’ Game In The Congo

“Formerly the Belgian Congo, this territory was inhabited by ancient Negrito peoples (Pygmies), who were pushed into the mountains by Bantu and Nilotic invaders. The American correspondent Henry M. Stanley navigated the Congo River in 1877 and opened the interior to exploration. Commissioned by King Leopold II of the Belgians, Stanley made treaties with native chiefs that enabled the king to obtain personal title to the territory at the Berlin Conference of 1885. Leopold accumulated a vast personal fortune from ivory and rubber through Congolese slave labor; 10 million people are estimated to have died from forced labor, starvation, and outright extermination during Leopold's colonial rule. His brutal exploitation of the Congo eventually became an international cause célèbre, prompting Belgium to take over administration of the Congo, which remained a colony until agitation for independence forced Brussels to grant freedom on June 30, 1960. In elections that month, two prominent nationalists won: Patrice Lumumba of the leftist Mouvement National Congolais became prime minister and Joseph Kasavubu of the ABAKO Party became head of state. But within weeks of independence, the Katanga Province, led by Moise Tshombe, seceded from the new republic, and another mining province, South Kasai, followed. Belgium sent paratroopers to quell the civil war, and with Kasavubu and Lumumba of the national government in conflict, the United Nations flew in a peacekeeping force.
Kasavubu staged an army coup in 1960 and handed Lumumba over to the Katangan forces. A UN investigating commission found that Lumumba had been killed by a Belgian mercenary in the presence of Tshombe, who was then the president of Katanga. U.S. and Belgian involvement in the assassination have been alleged.” http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0198161.html
The whole African continent is the target of ongoing rape, pillage and plunder by European (those there and the ones here) elites, their NeoLiberal (IMF, World Bank and USAid) surrogates and a Eurocentric minded African elite most who were put in place overtly or surreptitiously by whites. These “leaders” are being supported and propped up by the West or they are like Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe targets of Western animus. We see this in so many African “hot spots” like Zimbabwe, Somalia and Sudan that occasionally make the news. But the same thing is happening in many African “countries” that do not make the nightly newscasts. Countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo rarely make the nightly news in AmeriKKKa. But it is a major hot spot. The Democratic Republic of the Congo finds itself mired in an ongoing civil war and is being set up for long term destabilization by Western backed forces working on behalf of multi-national corporations that covet the abundant natural and mineral resources (bauxite, cobalt, copper, cadmium, manganese, tantalum, tin, oil, industrial and gem diamonds, gold, silver, uranium, coal. Hydro-power and timber) the nation possesses.
The region has been the victim of massive European rapine, exploitation, depopulation and destabilization since 1885. It’s “post colonization” history has been a continuation of Western intervention, mischief and larceny with the Belgians, US and other European nations playing pivotal roles in keeping the region in debt, disorganized and in a dependent and vassal condition. Currently the Democratic Republic of the Congo is experiencing problems reorganizing after both internal and external strife (Western backed money and corporatist forces prompted Rwanda and Uganda to attack the country and engage in a protracted fight over territory and natural resources) which kept the various governments the country has had in recent years wobbly and on shaky ground. “U.S., European, and South African military interests have continued to support various factions in Central Africa, arming militias and rebel groups through proxy armies from Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) in south Sudan. France's presence in Central Africa is based out of Gabon, the major point of French military penetration on the continent... It is important to note that the conflict in Central Africa revolves not around ‘governments’ so much as militarized power blocks and multinational corporate alignments which are transnational. Thus while powerful U.S. government interests may back the Kagame and Museveni regimes in support of destabilization of Central Africa and the annexation of the Kivu and Orientale provinces, other powerful interests-such as the International Rescue Committee -maintain a constant international media presence that appears to be in conflict with that agenda, but which nevertheless exists as a major lobby in support of or defense of certain interests at the expense of certain others. Notable personalities on the IRC's Boards of Directors and Overseers include Morton Abramowitz, Tom Brokaw, and Henry Kissinger.” Rwanda's Secret War U.S. - backed destabilization of Central Africa By Keith Harmon Snow (February 2005) http://www.africaresource.com/content/view/252/68/
When you read about the region most sources cloak direct Western involvement by citing the ethnic and tribal dynamics of the various conflicts. Keep in mind this is the primary strategy of the West: divide, conquer and rule! Where do African “rebels” get the needed arms, food, trucks, air and logistical support to wage their assaults and wars? How do the “rebels” pay their troops many of whom are mere children? We have to look below the surface and peak beyond the spin and Eurocentric propaganda to see the real deal. Is there corruption in Africa ? Certainly, but who is offering the African leaders money, support and illusionary trappings of power? Certainly not the indigenous ethnic or tribal groups most of whom suffered from Western induced poverty and privation. Make no mistake about it, the West primarily US and multinational corporations covet the resources of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They are working assiduously behind the scenes to gain control via tried and true Neo-Colonial strategies. Wording on the US State Department Website indicates the importance of the region to the US government and its corporate masters. “The United States remains a partner with the D.R.C. and other central African nations in their quest for stability and growth on the continent, and facilitated the signing of a tripartite agreement on regional security in the Great Lakes region between the D.R.C., Rwanda, and Uganda in October 2004. Burundi formally joined the Tripartite Commission in September 2005, and the Tripartite Commission is now Tripartite Plus. The United States also strongly supported U.N. efforts to create a Joint Verification Mechanism to monitor the border between the D.R.C. and Rwanda. From the start of the Congo crisis, the United States has pursued an active diplomatic strategy in support of these objectives. In the long term, the United States seeks to strengthen the process of internal reconciliation and democratization within all the states of the region to promote stable, developing, and democratic nations with which it can work to address security interests on the continent and with which it can develop mutually beneficial economic relations. The United States appointed its current ambassador to the D.R.C. in 2004. The D.R.C. appointed its current ambassador to the United States in 2000. The Congo has been on the State Department's travel advisory list since 1977.”
State Department hypocrisy about partnership and desiring stability aside, the US does lust after the natural resources in the Congo for their corporate puppeteers. Just as we pay for “blood diamonds” we are paying for other blood natural resources that go into making modern Western lifestyles possible. “ Coltan - which is found in 3 billion-year-old soils, like those in the Rift Valley region of middle Africa, western Australia and central Asia - has become a critical raw material in high-tech manufacturing. The tantalum extracted from the ore is used mainly to make tantalum capacitors, tiny components that manage the flow of current in electronic devices. Many semiconductors also use a thin layer of tantalum as a protective barrier between other metal coatings. The metal, which is also found in other minerals and can be extracted as a byproduct of tin refining, is used in the airline, chemical, pharmaceutical and automotive industries as well. The market for the material is huge. Last year, about 6.6 million pounds of tantalum was used around the world, 60 percent finding its way into the electronics industry, where it can be found in products like mobile phones, computers, game consoles and camcorders. (The United States is the largest consumer of tantalum in the world, accounting for 40 percent of global demand.) In 2000, demand for tantalum capacitors exploded in tandem with the mobile phone and PC markets, causing a severe shortage. Tantalum ore prices shot up, with per-pound charges for refined powder climbing from less than $50 to a peak of over $400 at the end of last year. Today, with demand softening worldwide, prices have fallen to around $100 a pound. In response to the increased demand, coltan miners all over the world increased production. In the Congo region, both legitimate and rogue coltan merchants joined the rush. The boom brought in as much as $20 million a month to rebel groups, as well as independent factions, who were trading coltan mined mostly from northeastern Congo, according to the U.N. report. That money helps fuel the war.” Guns, Money and Cell Phones By Kristi Essick http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/Africa/Articles/TheStandardColtan.asp
Once we scratch below the surface we see things haven’t changed since the Belgians and their Western allies deposed Patrice Lumumba in 1961 because he was an African nationalist looking out for the interests of his people. We have seen on numerous occasions in many different countries around the world, this is a no- no! A secondary benefit for the psychopathic Western elites is, all the death, devastation and displacement caused by their resource wars furthers their aim of non-white global depopulation. The current situation in Congo has been suppressed by the corporate media. So if and when you do see something about it in the media, keep all this in mind and view what you see and hear from this perspective.

posted by Junious Ricardo Stanton @ 4:11 PM