Congo – A History of Foreign Dom

Congo – A History of Foreign Domination

Peter E. Gehl

Regina Peace Council

June 6, 2010


As the world recognized Africa Day on May 25th, it had become abundantly clear that “peace-making” forces, as opposed to “peace-keeping” forces, sanctioned by the United Nations are incapable of bringing peace and stability.  Such forces authorized by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) include MINUSATH in Haiti, ISAF in Afghanistan, MONUC in Democratic Republic of Congo and MINIURCAT in Chad and Central African Republic.  Increasingly, these interventions are being seen as enforcing the economic and political interests of the veto-holding Great Powers seated on the Security Council as opposed to resolving deep-rooted, socio-economic and political problems in the recipient nations.

The Peace Operations Working Group of the Peacebuild network reports that in 2009 with 97,569 military and police serving in 15 missions, the United Nations deploys and supports more troops than any other entity in the world except for the defence department of the United States – more than the UK, France, China and Russia combined.  Growing five-fold in the last ten years, the UN now deploys more troops than at any time in its history.  Peacebuild observes that UN missions are most notable in Africa and are “now more robust, more multi-faceted and more complex.”  The current United Nations Mission in Congo (MONUC) is the UN’s largest with an estimated annual budget of US$1 billion.  In 2009, twelve Canadians (all military) were part of MONUC.

Idriss Déby, President of Chad, has indicated that MINIURCAT has failed to protect civilians and to construct infrastructure projects as promised.  The UNSC will start withdrawing troops from Chad and the Central African Republic this July with complete withdrawal by December 31st.  The UNSC has tentatively complied with Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila’s request that UN troops be withdrawn from the country by August 2011.

Bountiful Riches and Colonial Plundering

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is pivotal to the future of the African continent.  The country of 65 million borders nine other African nations.  With a size of Western Europe, the DRC holds practically every mineral known to man.  The DRC contains most of the planet’s cobalt reserves and produces 21% of the world’s gold.  The country could literally become the powerhouse of Africa with a single proposed mega-dam on the mighty Congo River (Grand Inga project) increasing Africa’s total electricity supply by 50 percent.  After Brazil, the DRC has the second largest rain forest in the world.  The fertile land of the DRC could reportedly feed a population of 9 billion – the estimated world population by 2050.

The riches of the DRC have not gone unnoticed.  In the 1400s Europeans made contact with the Kongo Empire and began utilizing Kongolese trading routes for commerce in natural resources (e.g., ivory) and slaves.  With so many people sold into slavery, by the 19th century the Kongo Empire had collapsed due to the lack of human resources and the cost of war with the Portuguese.  Called by Portugal and organized by Otto von Bismarck, Chancellor of Germany, the Congo Conference of 1884-85 held in Berlin proclaimed the Congo Free State as private property of the Congo Society which was controlled by King Léopold II of Belgium.  The United States was the first country to recognize the Congo Free State under the ownership of King Léopold II.  In the 23 years of Léopold’s rule, 10 to 15 million Congolese died due to exploitation and disease.  In 1908, the Belgium state took control over the Congo until Congolese independence on June 30, 1960.

A Promising Independence

The Republic of Congo’s first democratically elected Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba declared Congo for the Congolese.  He immediately faced opposition from the colonial powers and mining interests which backed an armed secessionist movement in the southeastern province of Katanga headed by businessman Moїse Tshombé.  In a military coup, Congolese Chief of Staff Gen. Joseph Mobutu (later Mobutu Sese Seko) overthrew Lumumba in September 1960.  The illegitimate regime placed Lumumba under arrest and then with CIA assistance abducted him to Katanga where he was interrogated, tortured and murdered on January 17, 1961 with his body being dismembered and dissolved in hydrochloric acid.

On November 25, 1965 Gen. Mobutu again seized power and began a 32-yr. reign of brutality.  In 1968, under the guise of granting amnesty to Pierre Mulele, leader of the 1964 Simba rebellion and former minister of education under Lumumba, President Mobutu Sese Seko had Mulele publicly tortured and executed: his eyes were pulled from their sockets, his genitals ripped-off and his limbs amputated one-by-one, all while he was alive.  From 1965 to 1991, Mobutu received more than US$1.5 billion in military and economic assistance from the United States.  In return, US corporations increased their share of the Congo’s fabulous mineral wealth.  US presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush respectively praised Mobutu as “a voice of good sense and goodwill” and “our best friend in Africa.”

Mobutu’s dictatorship came to an abrupt end on May 17, 1997 when forces led by Laurent-Désiré Kabila captured Kinshasa with the backing of Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi. By 1998, Kabila’s former allies of Rwanda and Uganda turned against him and backed a new rebellion to remove him from power.  Seven other African countries became involved.  The conflict which is often referred to as Africa’s First World War officially ended in July 1999 as a result of peace talks led by South Africa.  Implementation of the Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement has been difficult and marked with continued warfare and interference in Congolese affairs.

In a failed coup attempt, DRC President Laurent Kabila was assassinated on January 16, 2001.  He was replaced by his son Joseph Kabila.  In 2003, the DRC established a transition government and parliament which wrote a new Congolese constitution that was overwhelmingly approved by referendum in 2006.  National elections were held which saw Joseph Kabila elected as president.  Antonie Gizenga who served as deputy prime minister in Patrice Lumumba’s 1960 government was named prime minister.  In October 2008, he was superseded by Adolphe Muzito.

Appropriation of Congolese Wealth - Still On the Table

The Rwandan and Ugandan invasions of 1996 and 1998 were primarily about gaining access to the DRC’s immense mineral wealth.  The systematic looting and appropriation of Congolese resources by Rwanda and Uganda was clearly identified in a December 2008 United Nations report.  According to Nicholas Bariyo reporting in the Dow Jones Newswire on May 15th, Rwanda’s mining sector output grew by 20% in 2008 mainly due to increased export volumes of tungsten, casserite (tin) and coltan.  He also notes Rwanda has no large-scale mining industry and that a large part of the minerals are smuggled into the country from the DRC’s North Kivu province. 

The actions of Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi have resulted in the deaths of 6 million Congolese and laid the foundation for the balkanization of the DRC or the outright annexation of eastern DRC by Rwanda.  One may ask why Rwanda has been able to commit such notable atrocities without receiving a meaningful reprimand from the United Nations and others despite the fact that two European courts have charged its top leadership with war crimes and crimes against humanity.  Sweden and The Netherlands are withholding aid from Rwanda as a result of its aggressions against the Congolese people.  The answer lies primarily in Washington, Paris and Brussels.

In November 2008, Herman Cohen, former Mobuto lobbyist and U.S. assistant secretary of state for Africa under George H.W. Bush, argues in a New York Times article titled “Can Africa Trade Its Way to Peace”, that “having controlled the Kivu provinces for 12 years, Rwanda will not relinquish access to resources.”  Cohen also believes that “the free movement of people would empty the refugee camps and would allow the densely populated countries of Rwanda and Burundi to supply needed labor to Congo and Tanzania.”  This all would be facilitated by creating a Central or East African free trade zone as advocated by the United States and France. 

More often than not, U.S. foreign policy involves the presence or use of its military.  Since 2001, according to African sources, the U.S. military has operated a base built by Dick Cheney’s Haliburton at Cyangugu in western Rwanda near its border with the DRC.  In a move to counter increased Chinese presence in Africa, President George W. Bush created AFRICOM, an independent U.S. military command dedicated to the entire African continent (except Egypt), in October 2007.  AFRICOM currently has cooperative security location or ‘lily-pad’ agreements with a dozen African nations stretching from Nigeria to Zambia and Botswana.  AFRICOM’s official mission is to “promote a stable and secure African environment in support of U.S. foreign policy.”  In January 2009, AFRICOM reported that its Brig. Gen. Mike Callan had met with Rwandan military chief Gen. James Kabarebe in Kigali to discuss turning Rwanda into central and eastern Africa’s “air hub” for both military and civilian air traffic.  Rwandan President Paul Kagame is a former student of the U.S. military training base at Fort Leavenworth and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s son, Lt. Gen. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni graduated from the same college in the summer of 2008.

China Enters the Fray

In April 2007, as the DRC emerged from widespread warfare, a Chinese consortium concluded a US$9 billion joint venture agreement with the Joseph Kabila government which would see new and badly needed infrastructure in the DRC: roads, two hydroelectric dams, hospitals, schools and railway links, all constructed in exchange for the right to mine 10 million tonnes of copper and 600,000 tonnes of cobalt.  China agreed to put US$6 billion into the DRC in the first four years before a new mine would enter into production in 2014.  Other Chinese companies came as well.  For example, China’s ZTE Corp. has signed a US$1 billion deal to construct a gigantic three million hectare (more than 5 times the size of Prince Edward Island) palm oil plantation.  In his late 2008 occupation of northern Kivu province, rebel leader Gen. Laurent Nkunda (known to be backed by Rwanda) demanded that the DRC government in Kinsasha cancel its agreement with China.  He said nothing about the developing Tenke Fungurume copper/cobalt project owned by Freeport McMoRan Gold and Copper Company (Freeport) of the United States.

The DRC-China deal bartering infrastructure construction for mineral rights caused so much concern in Washington and Paris that in May 2009 Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and former French finance and industry minister, said the IMF wouldn’t write off the US$10 billion of DRC’s foreign debt incurred by Mobuto Sese Seko and owed to the Paris Club of investors unless the agreement with the Chinese consortium was changed.  If the DRC had ready recourse to Chinese support, the Kabila government might be emboldened in its current review of existing mining contracts.  The DRC and China rejected the criticism saying that no new debt for the DRC would be created because the Export-Import Bank of China would be funding the deal and taking all the risk.  Peter Lee in a March 11th article for Asia Times reported that the DRC-China joint venture may be in trouble: under IMF pressure the Kabila government has deferred the second US$3 billion infrastructure payment; a Hong Kong court has awarded US$100 million to the FG Hemisphere hedge fund and blocked the payment of signing fees by China Railways to the DRC until the award has been paid; Gecamines, China’s local partner, is in trouble (US$23 million of the first instalment of the Chinese signing bonus has gone missing); two important supporters of the DRC-China deal Canadian Paul Fortin, former manager of Gecamines and Victor Kasongo, former vice-minister of mines and the man behind the recent review of all of Congo’s mining contracts, have left the scene; and opposition parties and NGOs in the DRC are now questioning the terms of the DRC-China agreement.  As presidential elections approach, the struggle for influence and advantage in the DRC intensifies.

In the China-IMF-DRC equation there is another factor: the Tenke Fungurume copper project.  The Tenke Fungurume concessions are twice the size of the Chinese Sicomines project and encompass an area of over 1,500 square kilometres in Katanga province.  The DRC government wishes to re-instate provisions of the initial concession granted by Mobutu Sese Seko which gave the government a 45% stake in the project instead of the current Freeport agreement of a 17.5% share.  Over the life of the mine, the difference amounts to the revenue from 5 million tonnes copper worth at least US$30 billion.  In addition, certain undeveloped portions of the Tenke Fungurume reserves may be reallocated to the Chinese project.  Canadian-based Lundin Mining owns a 24.75% share of the Tenke Fungurume project.

Canadian Mining Companies - In on the Action in a Big Way

With US$5 billion invested, Canada is reportedly the largest non-African investor in the DRC mining sector.  Conflictminerals.org states that 22 Canadian mining companies are active in the DRC.  The TMX (Toronto Stock and TSX Venture stock exchanges) boasts that it is the top stock exchange for mining on the African continent.  In 2009, a record CDN$22.3 billion (34% of total global mining equity capital) was raised by TMX-traded mining companies.  The TMX lists 1,428 mining companies which represent 55% of the world’s public mining companies.  Alone the DRC has 20 TMX-traded mining companies operating on its territory.  In November 2007, Canadian company First Quantum Minerals Ltd. began operations at its Frontier mine in the DRC.  Reuters reported on May 22nd that the DRC’s Supreme Court had revoked First Quantum’s right to minerals at its Frontier and Lonshi mines.  First Quantum was already in a dispute with the Kabila government in Kinshasa after it closed the company’s Kingamyambo Musonoi Tailings mining project in September 2009.

In a May 18th article by Michael J. Kavanagh, Bloomberg news agency reported that under protest mining companies in the DRC are paying a new tax on exports of concentrated copper and cobalt ore.  To encourage companies to refine minerals, the Kabila government has also prohibited the export of unrefined minerals beginning April 8th.  The DRC’s Ministry of Mines also wants to boost its revenue from the greater value of refined copper and cobalt.

UN Security Council - Complicit Behaviour and Failed Humanitarian Intervention

As a result of the Belgian-inspired Katangan secessionist revolt in July 1960, the UNSC adopted Resolution 143 on July 14th which called for Belgium to remove its troops from Katanga province and for the UN to provide military assistance (UNOC) to the new Republic of Congo.  On August 9th the Security Council passed Resolution 146 which forbade UNOC to “intervene in or influence the outcome” of the so-called internal conflict.  In September 1960 faced with UN reluctance to provide military assistance, the Lumumba government requested and received support from the Soviet Union which airlifted Congolese troops fighting secessionists.  Subsequently, the UN closed all Congolese airports under its control along with the radio station in Léopoldville.  This halted the Soviet-supported airlift.  With CIA help, Gen. Joseph Mobutu seized power in a military coup, suspended parliament and the constitution, and arrested Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba.  Lumumba was placed under house arrest with a guard of UN troops.  After Lumumba’s murder in Katanga in which many feel UNOC was complicit, UNOC remained in the Republic of Congo until June 30, 1964 just before Moїse Tshombé, leader of the Katanga secession, became Congolese Prime Minister.  The Congo intervention created a financial crisis in the United Nations with France and the Soviet Union refusing to pay any of UNOC’s cost.  Canada contributed about 400 troops to UNOC.

The United Nation’s second military presence in the Congo (MONUC) was initiated by the Lusaska Ceasefire Agreement of July 1999 and followed UNSC Resolution 1258 of August 6, 1999.  The initial MONUC mandate was to monitor the ceasefire agreement which included the withdrawal of Rwandan and Ugandan troops from eastern DRC.  Since that time, the Security Council has adopted progressively interventionist policies toward the DRC.  The UNSC increased the number of MONUC troops, military observers, police and civilian personnel in the DRC to about 20,500 and authorized EU-led (non-UN) troops to support MONUC on several occasions in 2003, 2006 and 2008.  MONUC’s October 2004 mandate, which remains valid to this day, authorizes the use of “all necessary means” to promote the re-establishment of confidence and discourage violence in the DRC as well as to ensure the protection of civilians (including humanitarian personnel) under imminent threat of physical violence.  MONUC’s protection of civilians has come under severe criticism as Congolese and others have accused it of not adequately protecting the civilian population and even participating in the rape of Congolese women which has become a hallmark of warfare in the DRC.  Some 41,000 Congolese women have been violently raped in eastern DRC.  A review of reports indicates that nearly 7 million Congolese (47% of which are children) have been killed while MONUC has been present in the DRC.  Fabienne Hara, vice-president for multilateral affairs of the International Crisis Group, in an article posted in The Christian Science Monitor on May 14th says that while the UNSC and MONUC may have believed their tactics would stabilize eastern DRC, so far MONUC has failed to effectively deter armed groups and in fact, the “humanitarian situation is worsening.”

On May 14th a UNSC delegation headed by French Ambassador to the United Nations Gerard Araud landed in Kinshasa to discuss the future of MONUC with Congolese officials.  The UNSC delegation also visited Rwanda.  In a May 27th article by Bill Varner, Bloomberg reported that a panel of UNSC experts accused the Kabila government and Congolese army of being involved in mining and timber operations that violate UN sanctions.  The UNSC report came as the Security Council was determining the future of MONUC.  On May 28th, the UNSC unanimously renamed its force in the DRC the United Nations Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) and authorized it to stay in the DRC until June 30, 2011.  AngolaPress reports that the Security Council resolution authorizes MONUSCO to have over 22,000 troops, military observers, police and civilian police personnel (an increase of about 1,500 from the current UN force) concentrated in eastern DRC.  MONUSCO will include a special force capable of rapidly deploying to other parts of the country.  The “humanitarian” mission has been replaced by a “stabilizing” one.  The UNSC resolution states, “future reconfigurations of MONUSCO should be determined on the basis of the evolution of the situation on the ground.”  Commenting on UN withdrawal, Gerard Araud has said, “We won’t leave if we are not sure the Congolese authorities are able to do the job.”

What’s Next – Failed State Status and Permanent UN Presence?

The call by President Joseph Kabila for UN troop withdrawal from the DRC by summer 2011 has resulted in a profusion of calls for the UN presence in the DRC to continue.  Liberal Senator, Roméo Dallaire, and New Democrat MP, Paul Dewar, are arguing for a serious Canadian military presence in the DRC.  Not surprisingly, mining companies in eastern DRC have expressed concern that withdrawal of the UN will make their operations vulnerable to armed groups and deter investment.  The International Crisis Group (formed in 1995 by World Bank vice-president Mark Brown, former U.S. diplomat Morton Abramowitz, and foreign aid expert Fred Cuny) says that while the UN cannot stay in the DRC forever, President Joseph Kabila’s decisions on MONUC, delayed elections, and stalled governance reforms prove his government is “heading in the wrong direction.”  In an interview with Voice of America on May 5th, Didier Bitaki, a leading member of a coalition of rebel groups in the DRC, says that Congo will become a failed state if the UN leaves.  Dr. Eugenia Zorbas, former official of the UN Mission in the DRC, in the May 2010 bulletin Canadian Policy Towards the Democratic Republic of Congo published by the University of Ottawa’s Centre for International Policy Studies, concludes: “Already Canadian companies are suffering from adverse consequences from DRC’s weak governance and rule of law.  As a world leader in mining, it is time Canada rally other countries and effect real change with a coherent, cohesive and innovative DRC policy.”

Canadian Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean’s visit to the DRC this April raised much speculation about Gen. Andrew Leslie heading the MONUC force and Canadian troops returning from Afghanistan being redeployed to the DRC.  On April 19th, Alexander Panetta in the Globe and Mail reported Canadian Lt.-Col. Robert Cormier, who acts as liaison between MONUC and the Congolese army, as saying that despite the situation in the DRC being complex and challenging, Canadian troops would be greeted warmly in the DRC with their many French-speakers and absence of colonial baggage - unlike the French and Belgians.

The Canadian government has rejected a UN request for Gen. Andrew Leslie to lead the MONUC force.  Perhaps, the DRC is ‘the wrong place at the wrong time’ as the conflict continues and allegations of rape and wrongdoing swirl around MONUC.  Or maybe, Prime Minister Harper wants to judge opposition to Canadian involvement in the DRC and provide impetus to those supporting intervention before authorizing troops and police to the new and improved “stabilizing” MONUSCO force.

Gerald Caplan in a May 27th article for the Pambazuka News has a message which all those calling for a large Canadian troop presence in the DRC should read carefully: “This largely unregulated struggle for minerals is at the heart of the country’s brutal wars.  It’s a perfect storm of betrayal for the Congolese people: governments like Canada’s protect mining companies that collaborate with venal Congolese elites in looting and hollowing out the country, if necessary colluding with raping, murderous militias to do so.” 

People of the Congo – You Are Not Alone

Friends of the Congo rightly says that only a “social justice agenda” will end the world’s deadliest conflict since World War II.  The DRC does not need more militarization.  It needs peace and justice.  The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad refers not to the Congolese, but to the white colonialists who so brutally exploited the Congo.  The last 11 years have demonstrated the ongoing role of the Great Powers on the UN Security Council in plundering the DRC.  MONUC should be converted into genuine diplomatic and developmental support for the Congolese government and people rather than being militarized into a so-called “stabilizing” force.  The Congolese are due compensation for colonial wars and slavery.

Canadians should demand the federal government to pass Bill C-300, An Act Respecting Corporate Accountability for the Activities of Mining, Oil or Gas Corporations in Developing Countries, introduced by Liberal MP John McKay on February 9, 2009.  Bill C-300 responds to the urgent need for a stronger regulatory framework to hold Canadian mining, oil and gas companies accountable, in Canada, for human rights, labour and environmental violations overseas.  The Canadian Investment Fund for Africa should be used to provide capital to African companies as originally intended, not Canadian companies that have ready access to capital markets.

Rwanda and Uganda are members of the Commonwealth.  Canada should leverage its position in the Commonwealth to pressure these two countries to cease their destabilization of the DRC and halt the illegal appropriation of its minerals.

No Canadian troops or police in the DRC.  Congo for the Congolese!