By AMOS KAREITHI
The cries of the people that started more than 128 years ago continue to echo across the continent. From the day Henry Morton Stanley, the Welsh trained journalist-cum-explorer set foot in Congo to carve a kingdom for the king of Belgium in 1878, this part of the world has never known peace.
Its people dread Stanley’s nickname Bula Matari in Kikongo, which means breaker of rocks, as their hearts, bodies and land has been ruthlessly broken, leaving a trail of mass graves torrents of tears and grinding poverty. Historian Martin Meredith in his book, The State of Africa, credits Stanley for establishing a one million square mile empire in five years with ruthless efficiency after duping 400 chiefs to give up their freedom to be under the Belgium King, Leopold 11.
This, Meredith remarks, marked the beginning for the scramble for Africa after the king established his empire, which was 75 times bigger than his native Belgium and consisted of one thirteenth of the entire continent. And thus the Congo Free State was established, marking the birth of the biggest and the most traumatised country in the continent, whose people have since lived under the shadow of the long dead king.
For 23 years, the king enslaved the Congolese, whom he conscripted into forced labour to extract ivory, palm oil, timber and copper. Those who questioned or refused to work as slaves were flayed to death with hippo leather whip. Others had their hands chopped off. Conservative figures put the number of Congolese who died at the hands of King Leopold’s slave drivers at one million, although Meredith estimates that by the time the king relinquished the empire in 1908 the number could be over five million. Researchers Hans-Peter Wotzka and Koen Bostoen believe that long before HM Stanley visited, the Congo had been home to some Bantu-speaking people for 2,400 years. The creation of the Congo Free State coincided with the discovery of the pneumatic rubber tire, a great invention that revolutionalised transport and was used on bicycles. This exacerbated the suffering of the locals, who were allocated quotas to gather the wild rubber by agents of the king. Besides rubber, Congo was rich with copper, timber and ivory.
By the time King Leopold handed over the Congo after 23 years to a committee comprising the Catholic Church and some private companies, he had turned it into “the vilest scramble for the loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience,” according to an author, Joseph Conrad. The plunder of the country continued as the people were even more brutalised by a cartel of multinational companies and the Government whose only interests were the vast natural resources. In the 1950s, Congo was undoubtedly the richest colony producing 10 per cent of the world’s copper, 50 per cent of cobalt and 70 per cent of the world’s industrial diamond.
Denied education
Despite its wealth, the people were impoverished and denied education: natives were not allowed to further their education beyond primary school and were also banned from seeking higher education anywhere else in the world. The underdevelopment in Congo is captured by Derek Ingram who in a story published by Gemini News in 2000 observed that during the country’s 75 years of colonisation, it had less that 30 Congolese graduates and no Congolese army officers, engineers, agronomists or doctors. When the winds of change started blowing across Africa culminating with Ghana’s independence in 1957, the fortunes started to change in Congo, where the Africans dared to hope for a better life.
The country and indeed the whole continent was ecstatic when in1960, the charismatic leader Patrice Lumumba was released from prison to participate in the hurriedly arranged election that saw him become the Prime Minister on June 30, 1960. During the celebrations to mark independence, the great grandchild of King Leopold II, King Baundoin described his ancestor as a genius who had done a lot for Congo and condescendingly warned the new leaders not to hastily replace structures Belgium had left in place for hasty reforms. This annoyed Lumumba, prompting him to dismiss Belgium’s legacy as nothing more than slavery that had led to the suffering, death and exploitation of his people for 75 years. His candid speech touched off a diplomatic row that saw the sulking king and his entourages boycott the celebrations for two hours, finally settling for a cold lunch before jetting out of the country. From that moment on, the mercurial Lumumba was a marked man as Belgium and other western countries started planning his assassination at whatever cost, for they feared under his watch, Congo’s resources would be out of reach.
There was a grand conspiracy by Western countries allied to America to get rid of Lumumba. Meredith details one instance when a senior CIA scientist, Dr Sidney Gotlieb, assembled an assassination kit that was dispatched through the diplomatic bag in September 1960. The poison was to be administered to Lumumba’s food and result in an infection that would be mistaken for a tropical disease. At this time, the 29-year-old army chief of staff Joseph Mobutu, with CIA backing, had already deposed Lumumba. The assassination bid flopped as Dr Gotlieb could not access Lumumba and the poison expired and was thrown into the river.
The West worked tirelessly until they cornered Lumumba, who was finally arrested on December 1 in Kasai and handed over to Mobutu on January 17, 1961. In a record 67 days as Premier, he was deposed brutalised and finally killed by Mobutu’s men. Investigations would later reveal that Belgium and the US were involved in the plot to kill Mobutu for in some documents, President Dwight Eisenhower, the 34th President of the US was quoted addressing the National Security Council where he described Lumumba as a mad dog who had to be eliminated at whatever cost. Two days after his killing, his body was exhumed by some Belgium and Congolese officers, ferried from Kasenga to Elisabethville where it was hacked into tiny pieces and dissolved in a drum of sulphuric acid. “Then they ground the skull and scattered the bones and teeth during the 120 mile journey so that no trace of Lumumba could be found,” writes Meredith.
State of anarchy
After the killing, Congo degenerated into a state of anarchy as western multinationals, including the US, pumped in millions to finance warring factions in Congo as they secretly secured concessions that allowed them to exploit the numerous minerals for a song. Mobutu, the darling of the US, took over the country in 1965 and allowed it to be used as the launching pad for attacking Communism. In the process, Mobutu turned into a dictator and amassed wealth valued at billions of dollars, with the full knowledge of the West.
After 32 years of misrule, plunder and dictatorship, Mobutu too was ousted in 1997 by rebel Rwandan backed rebels who helped install Laurent Kabila, in what turned out to be the beginning of a vicious circle of violence that has turned Congo, now Zaire, into the World War of Africa. The conflict has sucked five countries – Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia, Uganda and Rwanda, amidst reports these foreign countries have been exploiting Congo’s natural resources unfettered.
A United Nations Security Council report of 2000 incriminated Ugandan and Burundian rebels in looting and smuggling of coltan, using illegal monopolies, forced labour, prisoners and even murder. Columbite-tantalite also known as coltan that is readily available in Congo, when refined produces tantalum, which has huge impact as it is essential in the manufacture of mobile phones, computers, stereos and videocassette recorders. Rwandese troops have been accused of illegally smuggling and estimated to have smuggled coltan worth $250 million in 18 months between 1999 and 2000. So precious is the mineral that a kilo of $200 goes for having bought it from dealers at $10. The conflict that is described as the world’s deadliest conflict since World War II has had devastating effect and according to the International Rescue Committee, an estimated 5.4 million people have died since 1998 and displaced an estimated 1.5 million people.
Amnesty International has recorded some of the worst exploitation in Congo where children as young as 12 years have been conscripted as soldiers and others forced to work in labour mines. This explains why African and Western countries have preyed on Congo like vultures, never seriously pursuing peace. Congo drove the world economy with its wild rubber in the 1890s and continues to propel the global communication and information technology, although its people are hopelessly poor and continue to slave for foreign masters just as their ancestors ever since 1878.
akareithi@standardmedia.co.ke
