Maravi

(PLP) Imperialist Holocaust In Congo Massacred Millions

COMMENT - I'm beginning to believe more and more that the villification of Zimbabwe is about the protection of these massive Western/Israeli diamond and logging concessions in the DRC. It all about the threatening of western ownership by nationalisation of mines and redistribution of land in Zimbabwe setting a positive example to end exploitation of the DRC, while the DRC also happens to be the key to African development and security, because of it's massive size and central location on the continent. We need to unite and end the misrule and exploitation of the DRC.

Imperialist Holocaust In Congo Massacred Millions

A statue of Belgian King Leopold II, erected in the heart of Congo’s capital city of Kinshasa, mysteriously disappeared the day after it appeared early this month, removed by the same workers who had installed it. Perhaps the anger of the city’s inhabitants over the fact that Leopold was responsible for the slaughter of ten to fifteen million men, women and children had something to do with it.

Leopold’s enslavement, kidnapping, rape and murder of half the country’s population, one of history’s most horrible holocausts, is perhaps the world’s least known examples of genocide. When the novelist Joseph Conrad journeyed up the Congo River, he described what he saw as "the vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience." It all stemmed from the genocidal, exploitative nature of capitalism and imperialism.

In 1884, Leopold maneuvered to seize the Congo and make it his personal fiefdom, creating an immensely profitable business. In 1890, the demand for inflatable rubber tires for automobiles and bicycles created a huge market for natural rubber. It grew wild in the Congo. Retrieving it necessitated climbing high trees, cutting vines, collecting the sap and bringing it back to a central location. Workers had to be forced to stay in the forests "for days at a time to do work that was…arduous — and physically painful." ("King Leopold’s Ghost," by Adam Hochschild, 1999)

Leopold’s "solution"? A militarized system of terror, taking women and children as hostages, releasing them only if men brought back their quotas of wild rubber. Resisters had their hands, ears, noses, breasts, and heads chopped off, killing them along with their families. Leopold established a slave labor regime: if a village failed to meet its quota of rubber, all adult males, women and children were executed.

From 1897 to 1900, 3,000 Congolese soldiers revolted, uniting across all ethnic lines to fight the colonialists (who had organized a Congolese army to enforce Leopold’s "laws").

A worldwide movement developed protesting Leopold’s holocaust. Mark Twain was a leader of its U.S. branch. He charged that Leopold was the slayer of 15 million Congolese, labeling him "greedy, grasping, avaricious, cynical, bloodthirsty…"

An Englishman, E. D. Morel, organized the Congo Reform Association, backed by Liverpool businessmen who opposed Leopold because he had kept British capitalists out of his Belgian colony.

Once the Belgians had exhausted wild rubber supplies, they began cultivating it on plantations, using forced labor. Copper, gold and tin mining were developed. Miners were routinely whipped. "Safety conditions in the mines were abysmal." (Hochschild) Thousands of workers died every year. "More than 80 percent of the uranium in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki [atomic] bombs came from the heavily guarded Congo mine of Shinkilobwe."

Eventually exposure of the holocaust forced Leopold out — but only after he had amassed a huge personal fortune. He died in 1909. During his rule, Congo’s population declined from 20 to 30 million to nine million. Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the Sherlock Holmes stories, labeled it "the greatest crime in all history." Soon the U.S. and Britain developed vast investments there, in copper, cobalt, diamonds, gold, tin, manganese and zinc, sucking huge profits from this super-exploitation.

In 1960, Belgium was forced to grant independence to the Congo. An anti-colonialist — Patrice Lumumba — was elected the country’s first president, hoping to reduce this imperialist carnage. Nearly immediately the U.S. had him assassinated. When Hochschild was visiting the Congo as a student, "A drunken CIA agent was boasting how they had organized the murder of Patrice Lumumba." (London Financial Times, 4/4/99)

They then installed a loyal puppet, Joseph Mobutu, who had served in the Belgian’s colonial army. He ruled on behalf of U.S. imperialists for 35 years, amassing a fortune of $4 billion while poverty ravages the population. When the Cold War ended, the U.S. interest in Mobutu waned, but the French developed ties with him. Since then U.S. and French capitalists have vied for control of the Congo, supporting one or another of neighboring African rulers’ armies that have been warring over the country’s rich natural resources. The UN reports 3 to 3.5 million people have died since 1998 because of the conflict in the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Global capitalism/imperialism is the source of racist genocide and exploitation in Africa. It cannot be reformed because the drive for maximum profits, the intense competition for control over raw materials, markets, and cheap labor is inherent in the capitalist system. The working class of Africa is paying for the absence of a communist movement to organize a fight against all imperialists and their local henchmen. Join PLP to build a new revolutionary international communist movement and end this imperialist hell.

Labels: DRC, GENOCIDE, KING LEOPOLD, PATRICE LUMUMBA

posted by MrK @ 8:35 PM