Remembering Lulumba

‘War in Congo’
Ama Biney

[On the 52nd anniversary of the vicious assassination of Patrice Lumumba, Ama Biney reflects on both the current state of the DRC and Africa, arguing that the Congo is not only a 'world problem' but remains critical to the future unity of Africa due to its resources and geo-strategic location.

The people of Congo have continued to profusely bleed to death. Rape has become a weapon of war against thousands of Congolese women. Between August 1998 and April 2007, up to six million Congolese have died through unspeakable atrocities, disease, starvation and malnutrition. This figure is almost the same number as the Jews who died in the Holocaust, which leads one to ask: is it because they are black skinned Africans that global humanity responds with paralysis and indifference? If they had been Europeans, would the killings have been averted or lessened? Surely the unfolding catastrophe in the Congo is of similar proportions to that of the Cambodian and Rwanda genocides, the Vietnam War, the wars in Europe known as the First World War, Second World War and the Balkans war? How is it possible that after 50 odd years of so-called independence the life expectancy of a Congolese woman is 47 years and that of a Congolese man is 42 years?]

Che Guevara was correct when he wrote in his diary in 1965 that 'the Congo problem was a world problem.' Furthermore, Che could also see that 'Victory [in the Congo] would have repercussions throughout the continent, as would defeat'. Indeed the Congo remains a 'world problem' when it continues to provide 64 percent of the world's reserves of coltan used in cellular phones, laptops, pacemakers, video cameras, jet engines, prosthetic devices, rockets, hearing aids, amongst other products. Most of these products are only affordable in the developed world, yet the raw material is to be located in the Congo. This reinforces the reality that Africans produce what they do not consume and consume what they do not produce. To put it differently, the consumer lifestyles of most Westerners is dependent on the cheap exploitation of Africans and African wealth whilst most Africans remain impoverished due to the structural linkages of this relationship. Much has not changed since the era of colonialism. In the 19th century, the Congolese were being forced by the Belgians in savage conditions to produce quotas of rubber from which up to 10 million Congolese died and many lost their limbs for failure to meet production quotas. Now the pillage, plunder and looting of coltan by Congolese rebel groups with their backers in Rwanda, Uganda, US, Britain and various Western multi-national companies profit enormously from this wealth at the expense of the Congolese people who see little of this wealth invested in their country. As individuals upgrade their cellular phone as a matter of'natural' entitlement, it seems 'blood diamonds' now co-exist with 'blood coltan.'

Kwame Nkrumah wrote of the challenge of the Congo. And those challenges remain even today in new and complex permutations; the challenge to create and sustain a democratic centralised or federalised government in which all of Congo's 200 ethnic groups have a voice in governance; that the phenomenal economic resources of the Congo primarily meet the needs of the Congolese masses instead of being siphoned out of the country to meet the needs of outside interests; that the imperialists are fully aware of the fact that the Congo—the size of Western Europe —borders nine African countries and if one controls the Congo, one controls Africa. The balkanisation, disunity and secession of Africa are tragically epitomised in the Congo which Nkrumah emphatically cautioned against.
On 8 August 1960 Nkrumah declared to the Ghana National Assembly: 'If we allow the independence of the Congo to be compromised in any way by the imperialist and capitalist forces, we shall expose the sovereignty and independence of all Africa to grave risk. The struggle of the Congo is therefore our struggle. It is incumbent on us to take our stand by our brothers in the Congo in the full knowledge that only Africa can fight for its destiny.' Nkrumah's words remain as relevant in 1960 as they are today. Today one asks: why is it that one cannot find one African leader who echoes Nkrumah's words and deeds in relation to the Congo? The reality is that not only is a revolutionary collective leadership and vision wholly lacking in Africa but continental unification is difficult to realise when Zimbabwe, Angola, Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda have all supported one or other warring rebel group in the Congo or the Congolese government for their own national interests alongside outside interests that have sought to benefit from the continued pillage and plunder of Congo's enormous mineral wealth. It is also difficult to achieve when the obsequious African petty bourgeois comprador class continue to exist on hand-outs from their former colonial masters and are entrapped in complex bilateral and multilateral arrangements that have further subordinated Africa to the global neo-liberal capitalist economy.

On 8 August 1960 Lulumba entered into a secret agreement with Nkrumah affirming their joint 'determination to work in the closest possible association with the other Independent African States for the establishment of a Union of African States, with a view to liberating the whole continent of Africa from colonialism and imperialism.' Tragically the agreement was never implemented due to the breakdown of the government and murder of Lulumba at the hands of lackeys of neo-colonialism and imperialist forces represented by the Belgians and Americans. Both Nkrumah and Lulumba envisioned that  the Independent African States would establish a 'Combined High Command of military forces to bring about a speedy withdrawal of foreign troops from the Congo. Alas, this was not to happen. Since the Congo debacle, they are perhaps convulsing in their graves at what is happening not only in the Congo but over much of Africa as neo-colonialism has entrenched itself deeper into the pores and soil of Africa as well as the psyche of some Africans. Nkrumah's African High Command has become parodied in the Africa Command or AFRICOM led by the United States of Aggression—America, established by former President George Bush, Jr. It is now led by Barack Obama who hails from a Kenyan father and American mother and now unreservedly services US imperialist interests under the fig leaf of AFRICOM. Under the euphemistic buzzwords such as 'mutual security', 'cooperation', 'piracy' in Somalia, 'joint military training exercises', the fight against the 'Global War on Terrorism', the armies of myriad neo-colonial African governments have engaged in such training exercises across the continent under the auspices of AFRICOM and those of their former colonial masters. AFRICOM has a military outpost - Camp Lemonier in Djibouti, in the Horn of Africa with more than 2000 American troops stationed there.

Since Lulumba's savage assassination new gas and oil reserves have been found in several African countries and will only lead to further imperialist and neo-colonial intrigues in Africa, if Africa does not unite to use these resources for her people. In addition, the rise of Boko Haram in Nigeria, Al-Shabaab in Somalia and the alliance of Islamists in Mali with Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb portend the further militarisation and disunity of the African continent as pretexts for intervention by outsiders bearing Trojan gifts. The savage murder of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi on 20 October 2011 is not only a profoundly retrogressive step for the oil-rich nation of Libya but the entire continent as the African Union was carelessly and arrogantly sidestepped by NATO, France and Britain in their pretext of 'Responsibility to Protect' (R2P) doctrine in which the plight of dark-skinned Libyans and African migrants became targets for torture and detention in the unfolding mayhem. These Africans were not protected by the NATO forces. Such an ostensible humanitarian doctrine in R2P is simply the 21st century version of the 19th century's 'white man's burden' which conceals the motives of empire builders. The mistreatment of dark-skinned Libyans and African migrants in Libya undermines Pan-African unity; it is an issue belying national unity in places such as Mauritania and Sudan when Arabs oppress Africans.

Conflicts elsewhere on the African continent in Darfur, the Horn of Africa, Liberia, Burundi, Sierra Leone, and elsewhere; the war in the Balkans; the first Iraq war; the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001 followed by the grotesque invasion of Iraq in March 2003, despite international opposition to the warmongering governments of Britain and America; the abuses in Abu Ghraib; rendition by British and American governments all in the name of the Global War against Terror that has now replaced the Cold War of your era; alongside hundreds of detainees languishing at the US military camp at Guantanamo in Cuba. In short, many have died, been wrongly imprisoned and tortured. In addition, there has been the slow genocide inflicted on the people of Gaza in the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, whereby the declining infrastructure is negatively impacting on the lives of the Palestinian people and the food crisis is adversely affecting the old, children and pregnant women.

Frontier
Vol. 45, No. 31, February 10-16, 2013

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