The War In Congo:

Transnational Conflict Networks

And The Failure Of Internationalism

Laurence Juma*

Cite as: Laurence Juma, The War in Congo: Transnational Conflict Networks and the Failure of Internationalism, 10 Gonz. J. Int'l. L. 97 (2006), available at http://www.gonzagajil.org.

I.        Introduction........................................................................ 98

Part One

II.       Transnational Conflict Networks and the Business of War 102

A.    Lifting the Veil of Sovereignty........................................... 104

B     Transnational Conflict Networks: What are They?............... 106

C.    The Reach of International Law........................................ 108

1.   Curbing Excesses of Non-State Entities........................ 108

2.   The Human Rights Dimension..................................... 110

3.   The Moral Issue......................................................... 113

Part Two

III.     Internationalism and the ‘Formation' of the Congo Nation State    114

A.    The Creation of Congo Free State..................................... 115

1.   The Berlin Conference and the Legitimization of Colonial Adventurism           117

2.   The Arab War of 1892-1893....................................... 118

B.    Leopoldian Congo and the African Holocaust...................... 120

C.    Katanga: The Jewel on the Crown..................................... 122

IV.      Congo's First Republic and the Guise of Freedom............... 124

A.    Political Party Activity and the Path to ‘Independence'........ 125

1.   Mouvement National Congolais (MNC)......................... 126

2.   Moishe Tshombe and Conakat..................................... 127

B.    The Assassination of Lumumba: The Stifling of a Nationalist Cause         129

C.    Mobutu's Zaire and the Collapse of a Nation....................... 130

V.       The Wars of ‘Second' Liberation........................................ 133

A.    Reclaiming Zaire and the ADFL Factor.............................. 134

1.   Regional Dynamics..................................................... 135

2.   A Fractured Mobutu Regime....................................... 138

3.   The Question of Wealth Control................................... 139

4.   The War and the Ineffective Peace Process.................. 142

B.    The Kabila Regime and Botched Expectations..................... 144

C.    Asserting Sovereignty and Territorial Integrity.................... 147

1.   Alliance of Friendly Nations......................................... 148

2.   Peace Process........................................................... 150

a.   The Lusaka Peace Accord of July 1999................... 151

b.   The Sun City Agreement April 2002: Towards A Transitional Government            153

c.   The Pretoria Accord July 2002............................... 154

d.   The Gbadolite Agreement December 2002............... 155

3.   Legal Measures.......................................................... 156

Part Three

VI.      Legacy of the War and the Murky Face of Internationalism 157

A.    Ethnicity and the Culture of War Phenomenon.................... 159

B.    The Influx of Light Weapons............................................ 160

VI.      Conclusion.......................................................................... 162

I.  Introduction

Until recently, scholarship on transnational networks that shape the patterns of internal wars in Africa has been scant.[1]  While resource exploitation, ethnicity and competing claims to political power constitute the main thrust of the discourse on African conflicts, the idea that these factors could be indicative of the ‘economic and political complexes' that links local conflicts to global network of trade, ideas and power often eludes attention.  The reason might be historical just as it is political.  The rise of capitalism after the First World War, and the concomitant support by the western world of the major African polities during the cold war, produced in its wake a bunch of institutions faithful to the neo-liberal agenda.  And when capitalism triumphed over communism in the 1990s, the neo-liberal agenda became widespread.  Its influence, spread through the rhetoric of human rights, democracy, and free trade, encouraged revolts and uprising against systems that were opposed to its hegemony.  So entrenched did it become that for a long time, its epistemic strongholds in the western hemisphere and their surrogates in the south were unwilling to examine the contradictions of the ideological frame in which its agenda was carried even when the same was delivering underdevelopment, poverty, and conflict to the poorer nations.[2]

The disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of the United States of America as the sole superpower drove into maturation the neo-liberal orthodoxy consistent with the ideas of deregulation, privatization of enterprises and the limitation of governmental control.  World attention is now drawn to the systems of corporate globalization and free trade that have fashioned a new understanding of a ‘modern empire'-not as a single powerful entity but as a global system of interlocking states, international institutions and multinational corporations.[3]  With the divergence of power and the diminution of the United Nation's role as the sole source of international legitimacy, especially after its poor performance in Rwanda, Bosnia, Croatia and even Somali, these ideas have become the benchmark for limiting participation of states in international politics.[4]  The ‘new world order' envisioned by George Bush or ‘assertive multilateralism' of Bill Clinton resonate these ideas and implies both political acquiescence from the holders of power and the placement of normative architecture that allows for their implementation.[5]

The neo-liberal agenda has infused world politics with a sense of multilateralism which on the surface appears to pay homage to democracy, human rights, and other liberal theories, but on the inside remains comfortable with ‘global networks' that feed systems of resource exploitation, and political mismanagement in poor countries.  Through bilateral arrangements, multilateral financial assistance programs, and international legal order, the neo-liberal agenda has taken an international dimension that entraps poorer nations in a systemic dance to which they have no control.  The extent to which nations have disintegrated, regions flared up in war, genocide, ethnic cleansing and all the horrors of mankind have become widespread, affirms the failure of the neo-liberal enterprise.   The optimism of neo-liberal theorists that the world would be a better place after the cold war has badly floundered.  The reason, in my view, summarizes the thesis of this article.  The forces of liberalization, and the trends by which globalization has become an inherent feature of international commerce and politics, fostered the evolution of transnational networks that survive on ruthless extraction of resources from weak nations.   These networks have encumbered the rise of nationalism by localizing their pursuit for wealth and providing material support to groups willing to challenge the authority of the state.  Thus, the study of the nexus between conflicts and transnational institutions borne out of the so-called ‘new world order' provides a necessary point of departure in the exploration of Africa's endemic disorder.  Local conflicts, according to a one scholar, "involve a myriad of transnational connections so that the distinction between internal and external between aggression (attacks from outside) and repression (attacks from inside the country) or even between local and global are difficult to sustain."[6]  Thus, internal wars are not really internal in nature.   They are as much a product of international linkages as trade, ideology and culture. Nordstrom observes,

We may speak of internal wars but they are set in vast global arenas.  We may speak of contests within or between states, but a considerable part of war and post conflict development takes place along extra-state lines.  War and peace unfold as much according to these extra-state realities as they do according to state based ones.[7]

In Africa where most states are weak and impoverished, there has emerged a formidable network of actors that operates independently of the government and maintains close links to the global markets, and other transnational monetary institutions.  These actors have forged transnational networks that propel the war agenda.  They, according to one writer,

Cross territorial boundaries monetary trade zones link diasporic transnational non-governmental and ethnic communities include international and regional organizations and have a global reach.   Some like the small arms trade networks are violent and clandestine while others such as the transnational network of human rights activists are more transparent but all are social structures with independent components.[8]

It is in this context that this article discusses the war in Congo.  My contention is that the civil war in Congo can only be understood by examining the array of international factors and actors, their interconnectedness with local agents and their symbiotic modes of operations.  The linkages between these actors cannot be viewed in isolation to the overall structure of the international system-what I call "internationalism."  Local profiteers, gunrunners and smugglers can only survive if they have a linkage to the international capital.  Thus, the United Nations, powerful member states and their predatory corporations, rebel or military outfits, corrupt government officials, down to the individual dealer in the streets of some remote African town, are all part of a system that wittingly or unwittingly support violence.  My argument is that international law is part of this system, too, or at least improperly positioned to deal with this murky face of internationalism.  Ultimately, the point I propose to make in this article is that resolving African conflicts will require a complete reordering of the international system because the current arrangement is certainly compromised.

This article is in three parts.  The first part discusses the conceptual issues that frame my main argument on the relationship between transnational forces and conflict in Africa and particularly in the Congo.   The second part is an in depth analysis of the paradigmatic influences that these factors have imparted on Congo's political life from colonial days to the present.  The analysis takes the form of a historical narrative that highlights events within the trajectory of changing phases of internationalism that impinged on Congo's efforts to develop a cohesive nationalist government.  The conflict that began in 1996 and the Kabila factor are presented as consequences of these paradigmatic influences.  The third part sums up the discussion by suggesting some steps which the international legal system could take to stymie activities of international networks that propel war and conflict.  It also analyzes some of the tragedies that the conflict has bequeathed to the people of Congo.  In whole, this article is about the failure of the international system; the limits of international law on curbing transnational activity that promote war; and the immorality of those who propagate the profit motive at the expense of humanity, however defined.

Part One

II.   Transnational Conflict Networks and the Business of War

For over two centuries, conflicts in Africa have depicted a complex interconnectedness of the local and the international actors through trade, military adventurism and ideological leanings.  The actors, diverse as they are, have functioned within networks of institutions that operate in the international arena.  African leaders have proved powerless over these institutions, and in certain instances, relied on them for survival.  For example, during the civil war in Sierra Leone, President Ahmed Tejan Kabba and his ruling coalition sought the help of Executive Outcomes, a mercenary outfit to prevent the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) of Foday Saybana Sankoh from attacking Freetown, and yet his country was a signatory to the OAU convention that outlawed mercenarism.[9]  The RUF on their part secured arms and ammunition through trans-border networks secured by Liberia's dictator Charles Taylor.[10]  In Angola's civil war, the US government for a long time covertly supplied arms to UNITA rebels to fight the Marxist government of Edwardo Dos Santos.[11]  For the most part these arms were delivered through a network of dealers with dubious credentials, but with the blessing and assistance of the friendly regime of Mobutu in Congo.[12]  Hidden within the military adventurism has been the trade and lucrative exploitation of natural resources that feed these networks and sustain their momentum.  The symbiosis, though tilted towards the benefit of the northerners, has remained a permanent feature of the African political landscape, and thus a malignant threat to peace in the continent.

The civil war currently raging in the Democratic Republic of Congo is a product of these networks.  Any analysis that would be favorable to the resolution thereof must be underpinned by the understanding of ‘internationalism': the complex relationships between the networks and the international systems; the interactions between the networks and local political groups seeking autonomy and a share in the mineral wealth; and the internal manipulation of ethnicity and other differences by these networks to placate local resentments and fears.  The history of the country reveals how these networks have over the years positioned themselves strategically within the local economy and systematically reaped the vast mineral wealth while controlling all political institutions.  The process began long before the country became independent.  Some analyses have suggested that the civil war in Congo arose from the regional political competition of the mid 1990s.[13]  These events may have ignited the war in 1996, but the conditions for instability were laid from the day the early Portuguese traders first landed on its coast in the 1400s.

An accurate typology of the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo is revealing of the nature of the international system: its inherent weakness and its acquiescence to the predatory characteristics of some of the institutions that have taken advantage of globalization and other neo- liberal ideas to undermine Africa's economic and political development.  This war demonstrates, perhaps more than most, the tragedy of a history of subjugation, alienation, political domination, corruption, and racism, all these immortalized in the outbreak of an internecine war and the ultimate collapse of a nation.  The war in Congo illustrates rather starkly how globalization engenders what Nzongola-Ntalaja calls the "logic of plunder," and which he defines as the "growing tendency for states, Mafia groups, offshore banks and transnational mining companies to enrich themselves from crisis."[14]  Thus, whereas the role of the international system may be conceived as that of erecting a buffer between elements prone to war and pursuits of peace, the Congo civil war unveils its ineffectiveness when confronted with entrenched economic interests.  In Congo we see how war becomes business and business becomes war: a fusionary modus vivendi that minimizes the prospect for peace as globalization and the race for profits becomes the operating mantra of the wielders of power.

What is striking about this war is how the past has connected to the present and perhaps, to the future, too.  King Leopold's annihilation of the eight million people resonates with the current massacre in the Kivu region.[15]  Leopold might not have set foot in the Congo, in the same way gun manufacturers and diamond merchants in the western world may not be able to locate Katanga in the world map.  Similarly, the users of the end products, those who purchase the diamond, or the cell phone and computer manufacturers who use mineral products from these war ravaged regions, have the least concern about where their raw materials come from.  Of King Leopold II and his modern equivalent, Adam Hochschild wrote,

Unlike the great predators of history from Genghis Khan to the Spanish conquistadors, King Leopold never saw a drop of blood split in anger.  He never set foot in the Congo.  There is something very modern about that, too, as there is about the bomber pilot in the stratosphere, above the clouds who never hears screams or sees shattered homes or torn flesh.[16]

This is the tragedy of globalization: that as long as it is not in my backyard I have no cause to worry about it.  At the international level, it explains the climate of passivity and sometimes hostility, which characterizes responses to the need to create more elaborate regimes for universal criminal sanctions against those whose activities across borders cause harm to others.

A.  Lifting the Veil of Sovereignty

The realist perspective of world politics is tempered by the proliferation of many non-state entities whose voice on issues of international concern, be they human rights, environment, global peace and security, religious tolerance or even free trade, has become crucial to the international processes of norm creation and supervision.  The basis for international relation is sovereignty, territorial integrity and the legal equality of states.  That is why international law is commonly referred to as the ‘law of nations'-a definition based on the idea that states are the sole participants in the international legal system; that they respect each others sovereignty; that they do not intervene in the internal affairs of another; and that they consent to international obligations.  As already mentioned, this classical postulation of international law is increasingly becoming frivolous.   The global society is no longer an exclusive domain of the nation states.   Since the Second World War, various actors have emerged as ‘supra national legal personalities' and the international legal order has shown considerable willingness to accommodate the interests of these actors by allowing them to participate in the normative process.  Though the non-state actors still suffer what scholars have called ‘procedural disability', their contribution has been key to the development of international law either through ‘soft law' enactments, or by offering expert advice to various organs of the United Nations.

The manner of interaction between the international system and these non-state entities is often characterized by the latter's collective approach to policy issues and the paradigmatic influence they have on the international norm creation process.  Collectively, these non-state entities function as ‘transnational networks' capable of instigating change and transforming international practice and norms.  The ‘network' concept infers complex and fluid patterns of interrelationships between internal and external actors engaged in fields of common interest and which respect no territorial borders.  Networks function as institutions "characterized by voluntary and reciprocal and horizontal patterns of communication and exchange."[17]  From the vantage point of a social constructionist, a ‘network' is a social structure that brings together actors who are interdependent but linked together through complex social, economic and political interactions.  They are trans-border agents or structures, closely linked, and acting in concert with one another.  In the realm of economics, networks are perceived as the third mode of economic organization, removed from the mainstream, and yet efficient in the "exchange of commodities whose value is not easily measured".[18]

Sovereignty implies that states have a monopoly on political, economic and social programs within their borders.  However, this is no longer the case.  Transnational networks exert considerable influence on state affairs, merging its politics, economy and even culture with the international system.  You no longer need to go to China to enjoy Chinese cuisine, or to the United States to eat a McDonald's hamburger.  Similarly, rebels in the heart of tropical forests in Africa watch the latest of Hollywood movies and communicate via satellite phones, not to mention their access to email and the ability to post information on the internet.  Transnational networks have broken down borders, making international regulatory polities look like charlatans in the realm of social and political control.  Certainly, international law has been slow to react to these new phases of internationalism, and as we shall argue later, this raises moral as well as legal issues to the manner in which the its legal system has aided or abetted predatory practices of multinational corporations who today constitute the most formidable part of the international system.

B.   Transnational Conflict Networks: What are They?

In this article our concern is with the transnational networks that propel war and conflict.  Primarily, such networks are linked to, but do not entirely comprise of what Carolyn Nordstrom calls the ‘shadow economy.'[19]  She defines ‘shadows' as the "large scale system of affiliation and exchange that occur apart from formal state structures."[20]  The ‘shadow economy' represents, in her view, an intricate system of political economic and socio-cultural forces, not just the ‘black markets.'  The networks' formations within the shadow offer three basic characteristics: they operate outside the formal state systems, are international and they "function not only by exchange and alliance but by internalized norms and cultures of exchange and alliance."[21]  Because they operate outside local governmental structures, shadow networks are not encumbered by local laws, police or courts.  But still, they source their legitimacy from the international system through a complex array of ‘institutional dependencies' and corporate manipulation.[22]

"Conflict networks" on the other hand, comprise of the whole spectrum of transnational entities, legal and illegal; visible and invisible.  Like other forms of transnational networks, the "conflict networks" have been successful because of their ability to "mobilize information strategically to . . . pressure and gain leverage over much more powerful organizations and governments."[23]  They are often linked to the "illegal extraction of natural resources and the exploitation of civilians."[24]  These networks are sustained by a complex system of economic and political alliances that involves powerful political establishments, multinational corporations and many other visible and invisible institutions functioning in the international realm.

It is critical to understand that "conflict networks" may be excluded from the mainstream of the discourse on international commerce, not because they are separated from the international structure, but because they bear a label of illegality.  Individuals or groups that carry out the dirty business of legitimate functionaries within governments, or the clandestine wings of multinational corporations are often dismissed as criminals, but with little effort to trace their principals.  This is because they are a vital part of internationalism.  Marvel Castells explains that "complex financial schemes and international trade networks link up criminal economy to the formal economy . . . the flexible connection of these criminal networks constitute an essential feature of new global economy."[25]  Good examples are the gun merchants, or merchants of death as they are have been called.   Guns and weaponry that support war in Africa and other poorer regions of the world are manufactured in the developed world.  These guns find there way into the hands of rebels, most of them under-age children, in the deepest jungles of Angola, Sierra Leone, Congo, and many other remote parts of the world, through a coordinated system of gun trade that connects the industrial complexes of the western world to rebel outfits in the poorer nations.[26]  According to Jose Vegar, gun merchants are not just anybody.[27]   They are people with good connections to their governments and often move back and forth through nations without much difficulty.  Governments are aware of their activities but ignore them; some even shield them.  Jose writes,

The international market operates on a number of levels-legal, quasi legal, and nowhere near legal-and employs a network of manufacturers, dealers, middlemen, politicians, military officers and others in every part of the world.  While most transactions are not surrounded by spy-novel intrigue, the market remains one of the least understood of the world big business.[28]

Several observations can be made in reference to this scenario.  The first would be the generalized supposition that the "shadow networks" are a necessary and almost inevitable phenomenon of the elitist and comprador trade systems.  As far as gun smuggling is concerned, the international system would be hard placed to phase them out because they (networks) stimulate the lucrative gun trade by accessing markets that in the ordinary course of business, legitimate systems may find very hard to reach.

Second, war is big business and yet the most catastrophic.  While nobody wants to be associated with the horrors of war, those with power and money see no harm in reaping its benefits.  And since these wars take place far away, in places that the public in developed nations may occasionally only visit through their television screens, the moral obligation to end them is often overshadowed by the benefits that are reaped out of them.  The concern that the manufacturers should take blame is often dismissed with a callous naiveté: the intentions of the manufacturer are honorable-blame the illegal gun merchants![29]

Third, the need for more intrusive international norms is undercut by the obscurity of such networks.  We cannot regulate what we don't see, or maybe, what we have decided not to see.  The complicity of international media in this respect makes it hard to mobilize public opinion in favor of demanding more accountability.

C.  The Reach of International Law

1.  Curbing Excesses of Non-State Entities

International law functions on the basis that nation states, signatories to the United Nations Charter, will abide by certain uniform standards of behavior.  But as already mentioned, states are not the only entities that are governed by international law.  Today, wide ranges of participants perform on the international scene because the law has imputed upon them a "legal personality."[30]  These include states themselves, international organizations, NGOs, public and private companies, and individuals.  The idea that only states are subject to international law has been overtaken by practice and the evolution of branches of international law such as human rights, the law relating to armed conflicts and international economic law; all of which recognize the participation in the international realm of entities other than states.  The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has also recognized corporate personality as a subject of international law in the Bercelona Traction Case.[31]  But the law of treaties and its jurisprudence has not proclaimed rules on standards of behavior for transnational corporations, or established any surveillance regime over their activities.[32]  Seidl-Hohenveldern argues that because of the "suspicion" on transnational corporations, the search for international rules "better adapted to cope with economic realities of the activities" of these corporations will continue.[33]   Contrary to Seidl-Hohenveldens observation, transnational corporate malfeasance is not just a "suspicion."  Environmental and human rights abuses are a common feature of transnational corporate activity in less developed parts of the world.[34]  Thus, the principle of transnational corporate criminality should have been incorporated into international law long before.  After the Second World War, the international judicial community showed the willingness to do so in the I.G. Farben trial at Nuremberg when they affirmed the principle that companies can be held liable for breach of international crimes, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity.[35]  With the International Criminal Court's jurisprudence currently developing, the ambit of criminal culpability is bound to expand from the narrow limits of I.G. Farben to encompass issues of corruption as well.[36]

Currently, in absence of any laws or accepted guidelines governing different aspects of TNC's operations, their conduct of business is beyond third party scrutiny even though some of them clearly go beyond what could be considered morally unacceptable.  The question that has arisen with regard to the developing world is whether transnational corporations trading with corrupt entities can be subject to international sanctions.  More recently has been the issue of minerals from conflict zones.  For example, there are questions whether Charles Taylor, the former Liberian dictator now living in Nigeria, and his consort of armed groups and companies should become a subject of deliberations at the International human rights court in Sierra Leone for his dealings in diamonds during that country's civil war.[37]  Taylor, who continues to "threaten peace" from his exile in Nigeria has been indicted by the court on charges of crimes against humanity.[38]

In 1974, the United Nations, responding to the need to fill this vacuum, established the United Nations Centre on Transnational Corporations (UNCTC).[39]  One of UNCTC's broad objectives is to further understanding of the political economic and social and legal effect of TNC activity especially in developing countries.  In 1976, UNCTC formed an intergovernmental Working Group to develop a code of conduct for TNCs, but the draft code has not come into effect yet.[40]  So far, the only semblance of a United Nation's regulatory regime is the ILO guidelines.[41]  Also, the UN has indicated a ready willingness to apply the OECD guidelines.[42]   When the UN Security Council established a panel to investigate the linkage between conflict and resources in Congo in 2000, it found that 85 international companies had breached international norms and the OECD guidelines as well.[43]  The OECD guidelines enjoin member nations to ensure that companies trading within the member nations' territories comply with ethical standards.  They invoke municipal law as the basis for enforcement, a fact that makes them less useful as instruments of international control.

2.  The Human Rights Dimension

In most internal wars human rights is often the first casualty.  The war in DRC is no exception. Described as Africa's "most African war" in the postcolonial era, the war has killed well over 3.3 million people and caused the displacement of millions of people.  According to 1999 figures, the UN estimated that about 221,000 Congolese citizens had fled their country and about 775,000 had been internally displaced.[44]  These figures do not include Rwandan and Burundian refugees on either side of the borders.  The New York based International Rescue Committee estimated that about one third of those who have died are children under five.[45]  Most of the deaths have resulted from starvation, disease and depravation.[46]  According to The World Health Organization, 70,000 people die avoidable deaths in Congo every month.[47]  In Congo, like in many other regions of conflict, there have been reports of mass killings, rape, torture, slavery, mutilations and other forms of human rights violations as well.  For example, a Human Rights Watch investigative report released in July 2005 has unveiled the depth of the human rights catastrophe in the North Kivu area by detailing the killings and rape of civilians by the Congolese national army.[48]

The responsibility for human rights violations falls on all entities that have been involved in the war either directly or indirectly.  The successive governments in Congo, right from the time of Mobutu to the present bears the first mantle.  Though the tragic human conditions have been exacerbated by the war, the consistent pattern of human violations in Congo mirrors the climate of political instability that has rocked the entire region since the 1960s.  Political rivalry has taken advantage of ethnic differentiation and identity cleavages nurtured by colonialism to perpetrate what many today see as ethnic conflicts.[49]  The topology of Congo's conflict shows that human rights violations have followed the path of such ethnic schism.  The AFDL soldiers, most of whom were drawn from the Tutsi units, led a savage campaign to wipe out the over 300,000 Hutu refugees in Congo.[50]  A UN investigative team to eastern Congo in 1997 identified about 40 massacres sites where about 100,000 Hutu refuges were believed to have been buried.[51]  The massacre was probably committed by the AFDL as they fought to remove Mobutu.  However, when AFDL took over power, the tide turned against the Tutsis and many of them suffered torture and even death at the hands of the Kabila regime.[52]  And as will be discussed later in this article, it was this change in policy that led to the beginning of 1998 Rwandan offensive against Kabila.

The other connection to human rights violations that seems to be drawing much international attention is that of corporate organizations, especially multinational corporations, carrying on business in Congo and invading forces of Uganda and Rwanda.  In eastern Congo, the UN has estimated that about 3 million deaths can be directly attributed to the external occupation and illegal mineral trading in those areas.[53]  And with the UN affirmation that corporations dealing in minerals from Congo are helping perpetrate the conflict, human rights organizations have turned their focus to the activities of these corporations and their linkage to human rights violations that may be carried out in their names.[54]  In October 2003, Human Rights Watch and a group of human rights organizations working in Congo including the International Human Rights Law Group, Global Witness and International Peace Service issued a joint statement calling on the UN and individual member governments to hold the companies mentioned in the report to account.[55]  In the climate of member states complicity, some directly like the Rwandan and Ugandan governments, and others indirectly, there is little hope that the UN Security Council can move beyond mere acknowledgement of the report.[56]

In my discussions elsewhere about the nexus between peace and human rights in a civil war context, I contended that human rights enforcement should be part and parcel of the peace building process.[57]  Before the Rome statute, United Nations intervention was limited to the ad hoc criminal tribunals such as the one in Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone.[58]  With coming into force of the statute and the establishment of the ICC at the Hague in July 2002, new possibilities have arisen for punishing international criminality that may affect entities engaged in areas of conflict.[59]  The statute in article 8, gives the court jurisdiction over war crimes, which is defined to encompass "extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully or wantonly."  The exploitation of Congo's minerals is unlawful and certainly amounts to wanton destruction of property within the meaning of article 8.  It would thus be desirable for prosecutor of the court, Luis Moreno Ocampo, to exercise his rights under article 15(2) and commence investigation of the companies alleged to be illegally benefiting from Congo's natural resources.  Under this article, the Prosecutor can initiate investigation on his own accord based on information of any impropriety within the courts jurisdiction.[60]  But any ambitious pursuit of this right may, in the short run, appear unlikely because of the United States continued pressure to water down the ICC's overall mandate.[61]

3.  The Moral Issue

In absence of any tangible steps being taken against those responsible for human rights violations and other violations of international law, the viability of the international legal order is cast into serious doubt.  One cannot help but question the propriety of international law that governs the relationship between the rich nations in the north and the poor ones in the south.  To the southerners it may appear that the international systems of laws and polities have remained as tools at the disposal of the northerners, in the construction of a political agenda that favor the rapacious activity of their corporate enterprises.  The immorality belies any gestures or rhetoric of good will that occasionally come out of governments, or their paltry handouts channeled in the form of loans and grants, and which to their credit feed the elite networks of political dictators and thieving bureaucrats.[62]  While the UN is left to churn out a series of resolutions calling on parties to stop fighting, or even send a paltry number of peacekeepers to the conflict arena, the networks that ensure profit for war mongers and their foreign supporters hardly come under any serious scrutiny.  This is the problem that confronts Africa today and it is the problem of the Congo.  It is also the problem of international law in as far as conflict resolution is concerned.  Congo provides a good example of how the regime of international law provides the rich nations of the north with a climate of impunity when their nationals ruthlessly loot natural resources of the poorer nations and in the process ignite factional wars.

Indeed, an argument may be made that the regime of international law has never been morally fair, and probably never will.  This may be a preposterous statement to make in view of the fact that the UN was founded upon the foundations of peace.  Clearly article 2(4) of the Charter of the United Nations which prohibited war and other forms of aggression by one state against another, also forbade other forms of interference or the disruption of peace.  But for over half a century that the UN has been in place, its organs have been very ineffective in enforcing the principle of peace.  While the Charter has remained in force, UN members continue to wage wars against one another, invade others, and seek corporate enrichment from illegal extraction of resources from their weaker counterparts.[63]  Whereas the logic of humanitarian intervention is not contested, the bias that enshrouds its implementation still enforces our argument.[64]  And so African scholarship should begin to question the preponderance of ideas and/or notions derived from the international system, its manner of composition and the political agenda it espouses and test them against the morality of common good that imbued the UN system with the prestige that it has enjoyed all these years.  Such an undertaking is crucial to the study of Africa's conflicts and especially the DRC civil war.   But this cannot be done without an understanding of how the international system has interacted with Africa since the beginning of history.  Examining the problems in DRC from a historical perspective thus provides a necessary pivotal point from which to begin configuring what the proper response to the African conflicts ought to be.

Part Two

III.  Internationalism and the ‘Formation' of the Congo Nation State

Congo's formation came about as a result of the European expansionist experiments of the 18^th and 19^th century.  Powerful nations of the northern hemisphere clamored for colonial possessions in Africa and elsewhere to help expand their economies.  But like all events of history which devastated the economic, social and political realms of African society, the imperialist project proceeded on the familiar path of international consensus, ruthless military conquest and complete economic and political domination.  By and large, the propriety of the international legal regime existing at the time depended solely on the articulation of consensual programs that would further the interest of western capitalism.[65]  Thus, the imperialist project may have been archaic, racist and brutal, but it was not illegal.  In the Congo, the project engendered great suffering to the African people: the massacre of millions of Congolese people by the King Leopold II, the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, Congo's first Prime Minister, by the Katangalese secessionists, but with the complicity of the American CIA and the Belgium government, and the rapacious plunder of natural resources by foreign companies.  All these factors and others that we shall discuss here conspired to make DRC the mess that it is today.

Considering that much of what is taking place now has its origins in the colonial history, and also, that the international system is much at work today as it was in the 19^th century, the lessons of the country's formative years offer valuable insight into causes of the war.  The early years were the most important in the establishment of international linkages that were later useful in forging trans-border networks of trade, political alliances, and social movements.  These networks have mutated and metamorphosed over the years to comprise the elite groups of key politicians, multinational corporations and military establishments, all hooked onto the rich natural resources that DR Congo has historically provided.

A.  The Creation of Congo Free State

The European political interests in the Congo became manifest in 1865 when King Leopold II took the Belgium throne.[66]  But by this time the vast area of south Congo and modern day Katanga had already fallen prey to marauding Arab slave traders coming from western Tanzania.  In the 1850's these Arab traders together with their Nyamwezi counterparts invaded the lower Congo and sold thousands of slaves to the Indian Ocean region and the Far East.[67]  Apart from the Arabs, the indigenous people of Congo had come into contact with Europeans as early as 1483 when the Portuguese voyager Diogo Cão landed at the mouth of the River Congo.[68]  Since then, a lucrative trade between the Portuguese and the King of Kongo had ensued.  The Portuguese got ivory, slaves, and copperwares in exchange for what has been described as ‘technical assistance' (guns and gun powder).  The competition for these items of trade brought about many conflicts between the Africans and the foreigners, and also between the foreigners themselves.   And as a result, African communities experienced much fragmentation and dislocation.  Even when slave trade was abolished in Europe in the mid-nineteenth century, long and enduring cleavages had emerged within these societies making them vulnerable to European culture and conquest.

King Leopold's imperialist designs benefited no less from the abiding conditions rendered in the wake of European and Arab intrusion into the Congo.  In fact some accounts acknowledge that Arab slave trading prepared, unknowingly though it might be, the grounds for colonial conquest.[69]  The King, enthralled by the stories of adventure into Africa, and overcome by the ambition to acquire possessions for his country, formed the Association Internationale Africaine (IAA) at a conference of famous explorers in Brussels in 1876.[70]  The aim of the conference was stated to be "abolishing slave trade, establishing peace among chiefs and procuring for them just and impartial arbitration."[71]  But Leopold's dream had always been to exploit the vast wealth of the Congo.  His fascination with the work of a British journalist Henry Morton Stanley, who had led expeditions to the heart of Congo in 1877, was indeed the precursor to his association with the continent.  The King created a financial syndicate known as Comité d'études du Haut-Congo in 1878 and hired Stanley as the head of the African expedition.[72]  The Kings instructions to Stanley had been grandiose as was his ambition.  Stanley was to "purchase as much land as you will be able to obtain, and that you should place successively under . . . suzerainity . . . as soon as possible and without loosing one minute, all chiefs from the mouth of the Congo to Stanley falls . . . ."[73]  With the financial backing, Stanley returned to central Africa in 1879 as an agent of the King and with express mandate to lure African chiefdoms into signing treaties ceding authority of their fiefdoms to the Belgium King.[74]

Stanley's work, which included the building of roads and the opening of administrative centers along the lower Congo basin from Boma to Kisangani, established for Leopold, the basis for an expanded European empire in central Africa.  But these achievements, remarkable as they were, could not translate into direct economic benefit for King Leopold unless some form of international legitimization was achieved.  Already, the French were staking claims on areas traveled by their renowned explorer, Savor Nan Brazza.[75]  The German Chancellor, Otto von Bismark, as well as the British, were far less enthralled by Leopold's ambitions.  The latter also feared that the King's pretensions and expansionist program was likely to hinder free trade in the central African region.[76]  The period immediately preceding the Berlin Conference saw a lot of diplomatic maneuvering by Leopold, in an attempt to gain acceptance from the European community of his control of the Congo.  He realized that some form of an international legal regime needed to be in place that would give Belgium the unfettered authority to exploit all resources of these vast lands and subjugate its peoples without threat from other equally powerful nations.  Such a regime came in the form of the Berlin Act, drawn at the Berlin Conference of 1884.   The Conference offered the legal consort that European imperialism very much needed to ensure a modicum of peace in the face of the bitter jostling for possessions in Africa.  It provided Leopold with political legitimacy to his imperialist pursuits that he would have undertaken anyway.  Just before the conference, his IAA, which had by then changed its name to International Association of the Congo, transformed itself into an instrument of political administration and renamed the Congo Free State.[77]  To the African continent, the Berlin Act heralded the inflow of foreign polities interested not in the welfare of the indigenous people, but on their resources.

1.  The Berlin Conference and the Legitimization of Colonial Adventurism

The Berlin conference took place between November, 1884 and February, 1885.[78]  It was hosted by Germany and attended by Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Britain, Denmark., France, Holland, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the United States.[79]  On April 30, 1885, the conference gave to the King of Belgium the personal control of the Congo upon the ambiguous understanding that he would improve the condition of the indigenous people and shield them from the exploits of Slave trade.  While recognizing King Leopold II as the sovereign of the Congo, the European powers also agreed that there would be free trade and navigation in the entire Congo basin, neutrality in the event of war and that slave traffic would be suppressed.  The legal requirement that the King must have ‘effective occupation' of the territory meant that Congo was to be transformed into a modern state.  It assumed the name Congo Free State and immediately began to assemble the vital elements of state machinery.  An army, called Force Publique (a people's army) was immediately constituted.   It was a small force officered by Belgians, Scandinavians and Italians, but with African soldiers.[80]  A small core of Belgian administrators and a skeletal transportation grid linking the Leopoldville and the coast was also established.[81]

The penetration of the empire far into the interior proved much more challenging than had been anticipated.  Further, the state was not making any profits as had been expected.  By 1890, five years after Berlin, the Congo Free State was overspending about ₤120,000 a year.[82]  Bankers and other financiers of the imperial enterprise were losing patience with the State.  And yet in the Belgium parliament, Leopold still pushed for more assistance in the hope that the Congo Free State may soon generate income.   In 1887, he requested 10 million francs, and in 1890, he requested another 25 million.[83]  Leopold was also a ruthless and shrewd businessman.  While the Berlin Act had guaranteed a free trade zone for all manufactured products from the European sub-continent, Leopold sought to tax these goods so as to generate income for his struggling state.[84]  In 1891 and in disregard of the treaty, he issued a decree to the authorities in Aruwimini and Ubangi Uele districts to secure all ivory on behalf of the state.  The natives were also banned from hunting elephants or harvesting rubber. In the same vein he made a declaration vesting all land in the state except for minute portions occupied by the natives.  The decrees drew opposition from many quarters and threatened him with isolation.  Thus, in 1892, he divided the Congo Free State into three zones: the Domaine Privé which comprised of the area north of the equator left exclusively to the state; the middle zone which was open to traders; and South and Eastern region including the Katanga which was still controlled by the Arabs.[85]  This division deprived Leopold of income from ivory and rubber which were abundant in the south and in the Arab controlled areas and he soon abrogated his own decree and annexed most parts of southern Congo.  This brought him into conflict with the Arabs who had controlled these areas from as far back as 1840s.

2.  The Arab War of 1892-1893

The presence of Arab traders on the eastern and southern parts of the Congo presented to the Leopoldian imperialist agenda a dilemma of sorts.   Earlier, Stanley had warned that the Arabs from Zanzibar might, "with justice present a counterclaim to the territory."[86]  In the perception of the Europeans, the Arabs were men of "thought and reflection," and "capable of zealous service."[87]  This perception rested on the earlier interactions between the European explorers and Arab traders, which by all measures, were very cordial.  The explorers relied upon Arab knowledge of the hinterland and secured porters and soldiers from the ranks of Zanzibari Africans, who by association had converted to Islam.  Arab settlements along the coast such Kilwa Kivinje, Mombasa, and those in the hinterland such as Ujiji and Tabora, provided resting points for the Europeans.[88]  But as European occupation became eminent and its motley of traders, missionaries, and administrators began to pour into Africa, the balance of power shifted.  Indeed, the Europeans who had looked weak and vulnerable at the beginning were now strong and superior both politically and militarily.  With such power the Europeans began to dictate the terms of trade, and of course insisted on the abolitions of slave trade and the emancipation of all slaves, a matter that did not sit very well with the Arab traders.  The abolition of slavery also undermined the Arabs domination of the ivory trade-a trade largely dependant on slave caravans for transportation to the coast.  The Arabs also used slaves to construct forts and to carry supplies.

For Congo Free State, the Arab question seemed predicated on a preponderance of geo-political and economic considerations.  Tippu Tip, described by one author as "the symbol of Arab slavery and the spiritual leader of the Arab resistance to the Congo Free State",[89] had been largely instrumental in the ascendancy of Arab control over the entire Kasai, Kivu and Orietale regions.  The Arabs captured slaves stole ivory and established huge settlements.  Around these settlements were plantations of rice maize and cotton.  The settlement around Nyangwe was particularly impressive as Tippu had constructed roads and beautiful forts.  It was these same areas that Leopold had acquired by the letter of the Berlin Act.  It was inevitable that the Europeans and the Arabs would clash.  But Leopold being a crafty colonizer, he at first tried a delicate policy of collaboration, trading money with freed slaves and laborers.  But sooner other than later, Leopold could not withstand Arab competition in the Ivory and rubber trade.  On the pretext of a Christian anti-slavery crusade, he wedged a brutal war against the Arabs partly to expand his empire and consolidate his dominion over the Congo.

The war began with the Arabs attacking a Congo Free State caravan led a British trader Arthur Hodster and killing all its Europeans members.[90]  The Belgians reacted by sending Captain Van Kerckhoven in company of a thousand African soldiers to the Arab territory.  Though Kerckhoven was later killed, the incursion was largely successful.  The Belgians seized Ivory worth 1.5 million francs from the Arabs.[91]  After this incident, several other battles were fought for about two years.  The Arabs whose weaponry consisted mainly of muzzle-loading muskets were no match to the Force Publique whose soldiers were trained in the use of modern breech loading rifles, repeating Winchesters Krupp artillery pieces and machine guns.[92]  By 1893, Arabs had been defeated and driven out of the strongholds in central and southern Congo.  At this time Force Publique had grown to about 3 thousand African soldiers and 12 European officers.[93]  Throughout the war they were reinforced by elite African soldiers from the western African nations of Liberia and Sierra Leone.  Nyangwe was captured in 1893 by Captain Francis Dhanis and his men after six weeks of artillery fire and hand-to-hand fighting. Soon Kasongo also fell to the Belgians.  The last battle was fought just around Lake Tanganyika on October 20, 2004.[94]   There too, the Arabs suffered defeat. Most of those who were killed were African soldiers.  Only sixteen Force Publique officers and non commissioned officers had died and even then, six of them had died of disease.

The zeal with which the Belgians fought the Arabs demonstrated their perception of the Congo as being their land or country.  Indeed, the two years of brutal military campaign reinforced this view.  When the war was won, the task of administering the vast land became but an epicurean undertaking flowing from the ‘hard won independence'.  Captured by the words of a young Force Publique officer Emile Lemery, who had been assigned to administer Nyangwe after its capture from Arabs,

Vive le Congo, there is nothing like it. We have liberty, independence and life with wide horizons. Here you are free no more a slave of society...I hope that later on they (Congolese) will be grateful for all the efforts I have made here for the good of the state.[95]

The war also demonstrated that as far as the Europeans were concerned, Arabs, Africans and others were not subject of international law.   There was no need to negotiate with them in the manner of the Berlin Conference.  Their interests were subject to the higher good, that of European dominance and cultural subjugation.  Defeating the Arabs allowed for the establishment of a colonial state whose brutality was to "exceed the worst horrors of Slave trade."[96]  The subjugation of the African and the destruction of Islamic dominance were presented as a form of civilized compassion, an idea of which we see some correlation today.

B.  Leopoldian Congo and the African Holocaust

The enterprise of the Congo Free State illustrates in many ways the essence of the economic and political systems established in colonial Africa.   The CFS was a hegemonic entity run by the King himself, and a bunch of companies such as the Baron Empain Banking Group, Société générale de Belgique (SGB), Campagnie du Kasai and Anglo Belgian India-Rubber Company (ABIR), and solely concerned with the generation of wealth.[97]   The race to extract rubber made officials of CFS inflict torturous demands on the Africans.  They (Africans) were required by law to supply the state with free labor, ivory and rubber.  Those who could not meet these demands were raped, lashed with the deadly hippopotamus hide, cicotte, and even murdered.  Other companies established under Leopold included the Compagnie des Charmins de fer du Congo Supérieur aux Grands Lacs (CFL), floated in 1889 with a 10 million Franc loan from the Belgian government; Société Internationale Forestiére et Miniére (Forminiére); and the Compagnie du Chemin de fer du Bas-Congo au Katanga (BCK).   Leopold used these private enterprises to improve infra structure and to strengthen his administration of CFS.  For example in between 1889 and 1898, he built the railroad connecting the port of Matadi and Leopoldville using funds he solicited from a consortium of companies that sought to do business in CFS.[98]

Leopold's rule over Congo resulted in heinous crimes against humanity.  Adam Hochschild's book, King Leopold's Ghost- A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa published in 1998 is a convincing narration of how the agents of CFS annihilated millions of Africans through murder, starvation, exhaustion, exposure and disease.  He describes the brutality of CFS officers in such passionate terms that arouse even the most malevolent of minds to the catastrophe of the imperial enterprise in early Congo.  Take for example the account about one officer called Fievez, whose manner of punishing those who failed to collect enough rubber to meet their quota was particularly cruel: "I made war against them.  One example was enough: a hundred heads cut off and there have been plenty of supplies ever since.  My goal is ultimately humanitarian.  I killed a hundred people . . . but that allowed five hundred others to live."[99]  Though details of Leopold's murderous rule over Congo have been widely documented and its profoundness and sheer illegality generated extraordinary expressions of anger and opprobrium, the atrocity committed to a people still begs some kind of international acknowledgement.  Ntalaja-Nzongola has observed that although Leopold's massacre of the Africans "did not meet the definition of genocide under international law . . . it resulted in a death toll of holocaust proportions that is estimated to be as high as 10 million people."[100]

The brutality of the CFS attracted the attention of the international community initially through the work of missionaries.  An American Southern Presbyterian missionary, William Shephard, an African American from Waynesboro, Virginia, left United States in 1890 to spread the gospel to the African natives in Congo.[101]  His encounter with the African people and the brutality of the CFS administrators made him write an "open letter" to both Leopold and the New York Herald.[102]  In it, he blamed the King for not spending enough on African education, and for the unfair trade practices.  He noted that the natives he had encountered were "humans of unexplained patience, long suffering and forgiving spirit" against "the deceit, fraud robberies, arson murder, slave raiding and general policy of cruelty."[103]  Together with other missionaries, such as William Morrison, they wrote extensively about the agents of CFS and the devastation that the natives were subjected to.  This attracted the attention of the British Consul for Congo, Roger Casement who conducted an investigation and prepared a report.[104]  Though largely contested by Leopold, the report created furor in international circles prompting the formation of an international commission of enquiry to investigate the charges made by Casement.[105]  Unfortunately, the commission confirmed all the findings of the casement report.  In August 1908, after an intense debate, mostly acrimonious, the Belgian parliament voted to annex CFS.  On November 15, CFS became Belgian Congo.[106]

C.  Katanga: The Jewel on the Crown

Katanga Province is part of the central African copper-belt which extends from Angola through Congo to Zambia.  It is the seat of 34 percent of the worlds Cobalt reserve and 10 percent of the world's Copper reserves.   Originally, Katanga was part of the larger Luba Empire founded by the legendary Chiefs Mkongolo, Ilunga and Kalala, in the 1400s.  Weakened by internal dynastic struggles and the pressures from neighboring Lunda and Kuba polities, the Luba Kingdom was unable to resist the invasion of the Arab slave traders coming from the eastern African region, especially Tanganyika.[107]  By 1856, a Nyamwezi trader named Msiri had conquered it and set up a kingdom in the area.  It was a Belgian expeditionary force headed by Captain Grant and sponsored by the CFS that defeated Msiri and killed him on December 28, 1891.[108]  That paved the way for the control of the area by King Leopold's Congo Free State. Leopold extended the CFS hegemony southwards to cover the entire present day Katanga province.   Then, the province had no significance in terms of economic wealth, except for rubber and ivory that CFS obtained through forced labor.  The demand for rubber rose after the discovery of pneumatic tyres by Eduoard Michellin in 1891.  Prior to this rubber was only used for water proof clothing and elastic products.[109]  This changed dramatically in the early 1890s when the Europeans discovered and began to exploit the large copper deposits in the areas of Northern Rhodesia and across the border into the Katanga region.   The discovery of the mineral wealth in Katanga has been accredited to René Jules Cornet, a Belgian geologist who traveled into Congo in 1892 as part of a mission sponsored by the Compagnie du Katanga.[110]  The discovery of copper coincided with the expansion of electricity use and electric companies in Europe.  King Leopold granted a concession to CCCI to begin prospecting for minerals and to establish CFS hegemony over mineral resources.  CCCI later formed another subsidiary company called the Compagnie du Katanga, "to ensure effective occupation administration and mineral exploration of Katanga."[111]

In 1900, just eight years before CFS relinquished its rulership over Congo, Leopold and the company formed a joint venture company to mange the Katanga both administratively and its minerals.  The company was called Comité Spécial du Katanga (CSK).[112]  In 1906, the Katanga Special Committee in which Leopold had significant interests, the Tanganyika Concessions and Société Générale de Belgique founded the great Union Minière du Haut-Katanga (United Mines of Upper Katanga, UMHK).[113]  The company began to extract copper in 1911 and by 1928, it was producing about 7 percent of the world's total.  UMHK, the largest single corporation was at the helm of international corporate venture in Congo and probably the most lucrative enterprise for the colony.[114]  It carried business through a conglomerate of trusts and subsidiaries, the oldest being the Compagnie du Congo pour le commerce et I'industrie CCCI established in 1928.  It was this subsidiary together with its other subsidiary, Compagnie du Chermin de fer du Congo (CFC), that later financed the building of the lower Congo railroad to speed up the development of mining activities in the entire copper-belt zone.  This venture received monetary support for the British as well as German private groups, all of them interested in the exploitation of the mineral wealth in the region.

In the 1950s, copper production from the Katanga mines neared about 250,000 tons, thus placing Congo among the four largest world producers.[115]  In the same years, cobalt from Congo represented over 75 percent of the entire world production.  In the same period, UMHK registered profits of between 2.5 and 4.5 million Belgian francs a year.[116]  This company dominated the political, social and economic affairs of the province because it controlled the exploitation of all the minerals: cobalt, copper, tin, Uranium and zinc.  No wonder it became a major political player in the events that were to plague the country immediately after independence and later on.  But as far as this discourse is concerned, it signaled the internationalization of Congo's wealth and the effective political influence that transnational organizations were to exert on the future of the country.  As suggested by one analyst, the impact of the colonial plunder and exploitation of natural resources through organized corporate entities engendered the "the complete transformation of the African societies by subjecting them to capitalist relations of productions."[117]

IV.  Congo's First Republic and the Guise of Freedom

The characteristics of the Belgian rule over Congo was in many ways similar to any other colonial hegemony in Africa.  The exploitation of the wealth in the colony was to feed the expanding industrial infra-structure and the war efforts in Belgium.  Already, Katanga was providing the bulk of minerals, including uranium from the Shinkolobwe mines.[118]  The grid of transnational networks in the region expanded beyond Belgium.  Leopold and his successors could be credited with directing the bulk of wealth from the colony to benefit their citizens, but other European nations benefited as well.  In fact, it was during this period that transnational networks entrenched themselves in the region to create such powerful and exploitative conglomerates with tenterhooks in all European and northern American countries.  To understand how this network began, one has to envision the entire mineral rich zone stretching from the southern tip of the continent, across Transvaal to the southern parts of present day Zambia and then into southern parts of Congo, as having been completed dominated by European interests by the mid-seventeenth century.  In 1889, the British had established British South African Company (BSAC) based in South Africa but with a charter to exploit all mineral wealth north of the Cape.  Cecil Rhodes, the Boer leader of South Africa, had extended his hold to Zambia using his company Tanganyika Concessions Limited (TCL) which by 1899 was already prospecting for minerals there.  Thus, when UMHK came into the scene, TCL and a number of British banks, including Barclays, acquired shares.  The Americans joined the race for exploitation of Congo in 1940 through the Rockefeller group.  Its interest was mainly in diamond mining.[119]

There was no question that under the Belgian rule, Congo had been internationalized, and the race for exploitation of its resources superseded any concerns for the establishment of a viable political unit within its borders.  Every administrative action, addict, or policy orientation, fed into this agenda-profiteering.  And not the welfare of African peasants who participated in the agricultural sector, or the infra structure that could uplift their life, was a priority.  In all counts the Belgians presided over one of the most exploitative regimes that catered for international interests at the expense of local communities.  Yet the integration of the indigenous systems of local communities to international realm never really occurred, except that the former were alienated from their wealth and culture when the later flourished by reaping all the benefits.  Historians now document how in the process, the colonial system dismantled social and political cohesion of indigenous groups by subjecting them to serve the capitalist exploitative networks.  Thus, early African resistance did not take the form of organized political action, but sporadic uprisings within the colonial structures of administration such as, "the colonial army, workers camp and compulsory labor camps."[120]  Such uprisings were crushed in the normal cause of colonial rule and did not make any significant dent on their hold of power.

A.  Political Party Activity and the Path to ‘Independence'

Ironically, the birth of the decolonization process in Congo is credited to a Belgian professor, A.A. J Van Bilsen who in 1956 published a report entitled ‘Thirty year plan for the Political emancipation of Belgian Congo.'[121]  The report castigated the Belgian colonial edifice as subversive and lunatic and called for his fellow countrymen to prepare for the emancipation of the Congolese people.  While this report infuriated the colonial administrators, its publicity evoked African nationalism in the form of Alliance des Bakongo (ABAKO) of Joseph Kasa-Vubu, grandson of a Chinese laborer who helped Stanley build the railroad.  It also brought the future of Congo to the forefront of Belgian national political debate.  But, while the Belgians were still debating the merits and the demerits of the report, Joseph Kasa-Vubu, rejected the thirty year plan calling for the immediate withdrawal of Belgians from Congo.[122]  ABAKO thus became the first political party, and its success as seen in the election of Kasa-Vubu as a mayor of Dendale commune in 1958, spurred the formation of other parties such as the Mouvement National Congolais (MNC) of Patrice Lumumba, and Conakat of Tshombe and Munongo, that were to play a role in the independence movement and the political fiasco in the immediate post independence period.

1.  Mouvement National Congolais (MNC)

This is was the first truly national party.  It was formed in October, 1957, under Patrice Lumumba, a prominent leader of the independence movement. Lumumba was born on July 2, 1925, at Katako Kombe in eastern Kasai.[123]  A prolific nationalist and gifted orator, he joined other African nationalists like Tom Mboya of Kenya and Nkuramah of Ghana to the Pan African Conference in Ghana in December, 1958.  When he came back he convened a huge rally in the heart of Kinshasha to report to the Congolese peoples the events in Ghana and to call for total independence of Congo.  In his moving speech, he asserted that independence was not a gift but a "fundamental right of Congolese people."[124]  By this time, the mood in the country was generally opposed to the continued Belgian authority.  In January 1959, there were widespread riots in Kinshasha after the Belgian authority cancelled Kasa-Vubu's planned rally.[125]  The mass riots and state of insecurity continued year long. MNC called it congress in October 1959 in the wake of these riots that had now spread to Kisangani and as far as Rwanda.  Lumumba was arrested and detained at a Likasi prison.  While in prison, his popularity soared, and his name became the symbol of the independence movement.  The Belgians, unable to resist the pressure, called for an independence conference in Brussels on January 20, 1960.  All the African parties rallied behind Lumumba and insisted on his release.  Congo obtained its independence on June 30, 1960.  Patrice Lumumba's MNC-L had captured most of the seats in the pre-independence elections in May.   Thus, with a loose coalition of radical nationalist parties, mainly Antoine Gisenga's PSA, Anicet Kashamura's Cerea and Jason Sandwe's Balubakat, Lumumba formed the government and became Congo's first prime minister.   Joseph Kasa-Vubu became the nation's first ceremonial president.

Lumumba's government did not have time to settle.  Apart from inheriting a country where the average yearly income of the population, then about 15 million, just about $ 95 per person,[126] the infiltration of external influence, and their monopoly of all the wealth, made Lumumba less able to consolidate and assert his government's authority.  The political differences fanned by the external cold war cleavages denied MNC an opportunity to forge any meaningful political alliance, and thus effectively assume full leadership of the country.  Soon these differences began to precipitate violence and open rebellion.  The widespread mutiny within the army and the secessionist revolt in Katanga, both of which occurred only two weeks after Lumumba came to office, demonstrated the fragility of the African government in Congo.  The mutiny led by General Emiles Janssens, a colonial officer retained by the new government, began on July 4.[127]  The soldiers demanded promotions and better salaries.  As a result of the mutiny many Belgians left Congo and the Belgium government under pretext of the protection of its citizens intervened militarily.  As we shall show, it was not by coincidence therefore, that Moishe Tshombe proclaimed Katanga's secession on July 11.  However,  these two events, the mutiny and Katanga secession, reflected the context in which Congolese politics were carried at the time, the irreconcilable differences between the progressives nationalists like Lumbuba and the moderates like Joseph Kasa-vubu, and the dominance of western political influence that was to become anathema to the emergence of benign and autochthonous nationalist leadership in Congo.  That is why Tshombe's revolt in Katanga is a particularly significant factor in the understanding of Congo's political history.  It was undoubtedly the prelude to the chaos and instability that external interests and influences have wrought upon the nation while competing for its natural wealth.

2.  Moishe Tshombe and Conakat

Conakat was founded in 1956 by Moishe Tshombe, a Lunda, and Godefroid Munongo, a grandson of the famous Nyamwezi King Msiri.  Conakat's political activity was much influenced by the European settler ideology which favored Katanga's secession from Congo.  Originally known as the Union Pour la collaboration des classes moyennes au Katanga (Union for the collaboration of the middle classes in Katanga), the party had advocated for the continual immigration of Europeans in Katanga.  Notable was a declaration on the introduction to its manifesto that denigrated the black people as being a people "without writing, without history, without philosophy and without any consistency."[128]  Thus, Conakat had opposed the creation of a unified government.  It was not so much of this party's politics that brought about the secessionist movement, but the conflict between the unitarist aspirations of the Lumumba government and the entrenched European bourgeoisie interests maintained and propagated by the management of UHMK and SGB companies.  These external interests were politically represented by the Union Katangaise, a party of white settlers.  Among the constellation of interests that favored the declaration of an independent Katanga were the white dominated South Africa, Britain, France and the Belgian ruling class.  Union Katangaise needed a nationalist outlook that would mask its racist overtones.  Thus, they recruited Tshombe and Munongo.  The UMHK paid 1.25 billion Francs into Tshombe's account.  Without this money, the secession could not have survived.[129]  This was the tax money that the company was supposed to pay to the government in Kinshasa.

The role of the United Nations under the Dag Hammerskjold is worth mentioning.  When the situation in Katanga got out of hand in July, Lumumba and Kas-Vubu requested help from the UN.[130]  The Security Council proceeded to authorize the secretary General to send a peace keeping force to Congo.  According to the Resolution, the force was to assist the Congo government ensure the withdrawal of the Belgian forces, to end the Katanga session, and restore law and order.  While the mandate was carried out in most other parts, the UN was unwilling to aid in the expulsion of the Belgians.  The UN soldiers merely acted as a buffer between the government and Tshombe, a fact that in Lumumba's eyes lent legitimacy of sorts to the secession and bolstered the Belgian position.[131]  The Belgians welcomed the UN action which was seen as the triumph of their diplomacy and military support of Tshombe.  Its foreign minister while addressing the House of Representatives remarked, "thanks to our perseverance and I can also say thanks to our diplomatic prudence, Monseuir Tshombe has gained recognition."[132]  While such UN policy could mainly be attributed to Hammerskjold's belief that the west, as opposed to the Soviets, had had a "sacred mission towards Africa in general and especially the Congo,"[133] most of the decisions he made on Congo were influenced by Ralph Mbunche, his American aide.  It is most remarkable that after Lumumba's assassination and the US interest shifted, the UN strategy also changed towards pragmatic reintegration of the territory of Congo.  The secession quickly ended and Tshombe went on vacation to Spain only to come back to Congo in 1964 as Congo's prime minister.[134]

B.  The Assassination of Lumumba: The Stifling of a Nationalist Cause

From inception, Lumumba's nationalist government was under threat from the western powers who sought its overthrow and subsequent replacement by neo-colonial stooges who would succumb to the interests of foreign trusts and holding companies that had controlled the country's political mainstay for years.  There are numerous accounts which explain how these forces conspired to eliminate him.  The infamous US Senate investigation of the CIA's role in the affair in 1975-6, that absolved the intelligence organization from blame, nevertheless detailed how it helped plan for the assassination.[135]  The United States government appalled by Lumumba's invitation of the Soviet Union to help restore order in Congo sanctioned a plan by the CIA to kill Lumumba through lethal poisoning.[136]  The CIA delivered the poison to Larry Devlin, their agent in Leopoldville. But the plan failed because Devlin, a devout Catholic refused to "commit murder."[137]  The Belgian Barracuda plan, allegedly abandoned after Lumumba was arrested in October 10, 1961, did not mark the end of that country's involvement in the Lumumba affair.[138]  In fact, later accounts indicate how the Belgian Foreign, Minister Pieere Wigny and its African Minister, Harold d'Asperemont, gave orders for the transfer of Lumumba to Lubumbashi on January 17, 1961, where he was assaulted by Conakat leaders and later executed and his body dissolved in acid.[139]

The overthrow of Congo's first government, the elimination of Lumumba, and the suppression of the popular resistance to the neo-colonial regimes of Joseph Kasavabu, Mobutu and Moishe Tshombe undermined the prospect of forging nationalism in the Congo.  According to one analyst, the assassination of Lumumba "was the West's ultimate attempt to destroy the country's authentic independent development."[140]  It also heralded a period of uncertainty that Mobutu later capitalized on to forcefully take leadership.  He too, but with the support of western governments, proceeded along the same path-that of eliminating nationalists and institutionalizing kleptocracy and dictatorship.  And yet it is not difficult to understand why the western nations led by United States summoned all their powers to defeat Congo's nationalism.  Of course, a justification is often found in the cold war argument that the soviet influence in Africa needed to be checked.  But ensconced in this fact, were the economic contraction that the emerging nationalist movement was bound to create for the imperial powers.  Lumumba's assassination and the western government's role in it is just one example of how imperialist opportunism of the western world resulted in a myriad of political instability all over Africa.  The current war in Congo, the Angolan civil and many other conflicts in the continent are a direct consequence of the stifling of nationalism in these countries so as to allow for the free exploitation of resources.  In not a single African country was nationalism ever allowed to grow.  In Congo, nationalism was equated to communism.  And because there were a handful of African politicians already functioning within the comprador capitalist networks that had cropped up during the colonial era to exploit Congo's natural resources, it suited the west just fine to brand the nationalists as ideological misfits.  History has shown that Lumumba and other nationalists like Mulele had broken ranks with this group of comprador capitalists and "thrown their lot with the broad spectrum of the population."[141]  That is why he was killed.

C.  Mobutu's Zaire and the Collapse of a Nation

After coming to power through a military coup on November 24, 1965, with the help of the western nations, Mobutu became the undisputed leader of government and the ‘big man' of Congo's politics.  He changed his name to Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za, Banga (the all powerful warrior who goes from conquest to conquest leaving fire in his wake)[142] and his country to Zaire.  Mobutu tenaciously presided over one of the most corrupt and dictatorial regimes in the history of the sub-Saharan region.  And yet the regime lasted for a whole three decades because it enjoyed the patronage of the US and other western nations.  For example, in 1977 Citibank helped raise $250 million to help develop Zaire's mineral resources.[143]  In the words of Irving Freidman, the bank's Senior-Vice President, "there was pressure in the world for capitalist governments to support Zaire's economy."[144]  Such patronage may have encouraged Mobutu to implement ambiguous economic policies that were aimed at nothing but improving his own personal wealth.  In 1966 he passed the Bakajika law where the state took over all the ownership of all land and mineral rights in the country.[145]  Then in November 1973, he announced measures to put nationals in charge of all economic activities.  He called it the Zairenization program.[146]  He justified it thus: "Zaire is the country that has been the most heavily exploited in the world.  That is why farms, ranches, plantations, concessions, commerce, and real estate agencies will be turned over to sons of the country."[147]

Zairenization was an ill-conceived program of economic devolution where foreign-owned commercial and industrial assets were seized and distributed to patrimonial clients.[148]  Through this program, big plantations, ranches and large commercial business enterprises were given to the top political elite.  Smaller enterprises were allocated to local notables.  Army officers, judges, members of the regional administration, and ambassadors failed to qualify as potential recipients (acquéreurs).  Because of the very nature of the Zairenization program, its populist agenda and claim for African aggrandizement, Mobutu included in it an ambiguous cultural program that advocated for the elimination of western cultural influence, but with little to show for it except the encouragement for citizens to replace their Christian names with traditional ones.  The result was an economic disaster.[149]  Within months, business concerns suffered losses, there were massive lay-offs and commodity shortages became increasingly widespread, along with liquidations of assets.  Asset stripping in the retail sector became a common practice.  Efforts of the regime to introduce price controls did little to curb inflation.  The plantation sector of the economy was completely crashed.  The mining sector was affected, too.  Earlier in January 1967, Mobutu had nationalized the UHMK and a state owned company was formed.[150]  And with the closure of the Benguela Railway due to the Angola civil war, the only costly alternative was through South Africa.  While the prices of copper plummeted from $3380 a ton to $1350 a ton within a space of three months, oil and gas prices rose exponentially to heighten the country's economic crisis.[151]

The most conspicuous aspect of Mobutu's regime was its kleptocracy.  The depth of official corruption was well known even in the international financial circles.  According to one estimate, "the direct thefts" of Mobutu and his cronies in any single year amounted to at least "20% of the state operating budget (of slightly over US $1 billion in 1986), 30% of mineral export earnings (worth $200 million a year in 1980s) and as much as 50% of the state capital budget (US $500 million)."[152]  Mobutu's personal wealth at the time of his overthrow could be estimated at between $4 billion and $5 billion.