By Madi Jorbateh
In 1885 the Congo Free State was established as Leopold’s private colony after the Berlin Conference (1884 –1885), where European powers recognised and granted his claim. Between 1885 – 1908 Leopold ruled the Congo as his personal property, exploiting its resources (especially rubber and ivory) through brutal forced labour and amputations, leading to millions of deaths.
By 1908, the level of brutality and carnage was to such alarming proportions that even his fellow European powers were outraged, and due to the pressure over atrocities, Belgium took control of Congo from Leopold, and the territory became the Belgian Congo (1908–1960).
Interestingly Leopold himself never actually visited the Congo physically, but both him and his country and by extension the rest of western Europe profited immensely from its exploitation. His rule is infamous for its extreme violence and human rights abuses. For that matter, he was nicknamed ‘The Butcher of Congo.”
On 30 June 1960 Congo gained independence from Belgium which reluctantly conceded.
The country became known as Zaire led by its progressive and democratically elected leader, Patrice Lumumba.
Within months of independence, western powers led by both Belgium and the US and aided by NATO hatched plans to kill Lumumba because of his moves towards pan-Africa policies.
Lumumba was determined to remove the Congo and Africa out of Western exploitation and domination to create a truly independent country and continent. Together with other progressive African leaders like Kwame Nkrumah, they sought unity and reached out to allies in the East to secure necessary support.
In August 1960, the U.S. Government through the CIA launched a covert political programme in the Congo aimed at eliminating Lumumba from power by poisoning and replacing him with a pro-Western leader. The U.S. Government provided advice and financial subsidies to separatist and criminal entities within state and non-state agents in the country. This marked the beginning of neo-colonialism not only for the Congo but also for the rest of Africa.
Meanwhile, Belgium was also fomenting resentment within the Congolese army where it was empowering and instigating soldiers to stage a coup! The Belgians were also supporting corrupt opposition politicians such as Moïse Tshombe by encouraging them to secede the rich region of Katanga.
After all the decades of oppression and exploitation that Belgium and the West inflicted on Congo and Africa, they have demonstrated that imperialists and colonialists have no conscience, no shame and indeed no remorse for their crimes.
Eventually, their schemes succeeded when on 17 January 1961 Lumumba was arrested by state authorities under Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, a soldier in the Congolese army and influenced by Belgium. Patrice Lumumba was sent to the State of Katanga and, with the help of Belgian mercenaries, tortured and executed by the separatist Katangan authorities of Moïse Tshombe.
Lumumba was shot dead by a Belgium soldier and then they dissolved his body in sulfuric acid to hide evidence. But not before the psychopathic Belgian officer had the audacity to pluck out one of Lumumba’s teeth to keep as a souvenir. Since then, Belgium had refused to take responsibility for the assassination of Lumumba until 2002 after so much fight for justice by the children of Lumumba, Congolese people, and human rights defenders and lawyers in Belgium itself and across the world!
In essence Lumumba was prime minister of the Congo for only six months, all of which time was spent in turmoil leading to his assassination. Since 1961, the Congo remained in turmoil as Western powers helped the despicable Mobutu Sese Seko finally stage a coup in 1965.
Congo and Mobutu became the effective outpost for CIA operations in Africa as the West maintained him in power until 1997 when rebels led by Joseph Kabila overthrew him. Kabila then renamed the country the Democratic Republic of Congo or DR Congo.
During its entire history from independence in 1960 to date, Western governments and businesses have maintained their control and exploitation of the Congolese people and the rich minerals of this land! Behind rebel lines, their companies would sign contracts with corrupt warlords to continue to loot the country. Congo has been in conflict for so long that the world seems to have forgotten about it.
With the resurgence of the M23 recently backed by the autocrats in Rwanda and Uganda – Kagame and Museveni respectively, my heart bleeds for our people in Congo, the heart of Africa. When I reflect on this most endowed land with the most beautiful and ingenious people, I know that Congo is the victim of blatant betrayal by imperialists and colonialists and their local collaborators and the United Nations!
The story of Congo like the rest of Africa reflects both the betrayal of the international community as well as the criminality of the West which continues to misuse and abuse Africa for their selfish interests just like in the days of slavery and colonialism. In 1960, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) called on the UN to deploy peacekeeping forces to Congo to prevent the attempted secession of the diamond-rich Katanga province. The OAU also asked the UN to tell Belgium to leave the country as it was fomenting instability in the country.
Sadly, the UN failed to deploy troops on time leading to the assassination of Lumumba and the subsequent coup and autocracy that that country has known ever since. This betrayal by the United Nations simply because of the lack of support by the powerful Western nations prompted leaders like Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah and others to call for a continental military force, the African High Command, and to advocate for the creation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was born in 1963.
In his seminal book, ‘UN Peacekeeping in Africa from the Suez crisis to the Sudan Conflicts’ Prof Adekeye Adebajo noted that because of the betrayal of Congo,
“A consensus emerged among African leaders that henceforth African problems were to be resolved by Africans themselves. This attitude, known as the “Congo allergy,” prevailed for nearly three decades, as a result of which no major UN peacekeeping mission was deployed in Africa between 1964 and 1989.”
The betrayal of Africa by the United Nations would come to play out once again in 1994 in Rwanda when UN peacekeepers watched without intervention allowing genocide to unfold. Today, it is the same betrayal unfolding in Sudan as the UN watched the country disintegrate in a brutal civil war without any meaningful intervention.
