The United States, in the interest of imperialism, along with their puppet governments Rwanda and Uganda, is violently and savagely looting the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) of its raw and precious natural resources. This large-scale theft includes that of coltan—a mineral used to make cell phones, iPhones and iPads, computers, other electronics, and modern military weapons. The DRC has 64 percent of the world’s coltan. Not only that, but the DRC is rich in gold, diamonds, copper, tin, cobalt, uranium, among other resources.
Current estimates value the untapped potential mineral resources in the DRC at around $24 trillion, easily making it one of the wealthiest nations on Earth. This is the value today—after several centuries of brutal wealth extraction. The DRC contains almost as many minerals as the periodic table. It is for these reasons the DRC is being targeted, invaded, dominated and looted.
Countless armed rebel militias and rogue government forces have been terrorizing the people in pursuit of ethnic vendettas, amassing greater personal power and wealth. The current conflict in the DRC has been raging for decades, with estimated death tolls of 6 million since 1996 alone. This is genocide, yet we hear nothing. Ghanian Prime Minister and President Kwame Nkrumah referred to the Congo as the heart of Africa. Communist Party of China Chairman Mao Tse-Tung is quoted as saying that "whoever controls the Congo, controls the world." Thus, when the Congo is free, the world will be free.
U.S. Out of Africa: Voices from the Struggle
AFRICOM Watch Bulletin speaks with Ann Garrison, who is a Black Agenda Report Contributing Editor based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2014, she received the Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize for her reporting on the conflict in the African Great Lakes region. She can be reached at ann(at)anngarrison.com. Please support her work on Patreon.
AFRICOM Watch Bulletin: You have reported a great deal on the Great Lakes Region of Africa, which includes the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Many describe it as the world's most neglected displacement crisis with some 5 to 6 million displaced due to conflict. To what do you attribute the lack of media attention on what is going on in the DRC?
Ann Garrison: Racism and class prejudice for starters, of course. Most Congolese are poor Black people in the heart of Africa, far away from the industrialized world’s centers of power. Most Americans still couldn’t find Iraq on a map, but even fewer could find the Democratic Republic of Congo.
And though the U.S./EU/NATO nations have had everything to do with the chaos and catastrophe, it’s never cost them much. Its costs don’t begin to compare to those of the wars in Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Ukraine. Americans at least know that those wars happened or that they’re ongoing.
Big bombs don’t fall out of the sky, and neither U.S. nor other Western troops serve there, aside from special advisors, military trainers and the like. If the Russian Wagner Group shows up in [the DRC], as it has in Mali and the Central African Republic, we’ll probably start hearing a bit more about [the DRC]. And, of course, we hear a bit about U.S. and Chinese competition for [the DRC]’s vast natural resources.
What the U.S./EU/NATO nations have done in [the DRC] has been largely covert or at least under the radar. In 1997, Newsweek published a piece, in which they acknowledged the U.S. operation to overthrow Congolese President Mobutu Sese Seko—a puppet they’d tired of—and establish dominance in the region.
I recommend this excellent 1997 report to anyone trying to understand [the DRC] as it is now, but it’s an obscure historical note of interest only to researchers and journalists who try to engage with the region in depth. Big bombs didn’t fall from the sky, so it’s little remembered, even by conscious people who might at least know that the U.S. collaborated with Belgium to assassinate Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba in 1961.
AWB: According to a recent Human Rights Watch report, the Rwandan M23 militia, has re-emerged in the [DRC] and has been cited for widespread crimes, from rape to summary executions and looting. In spite of Public Law 112-239 from the 2013 U.S. Defense Authorization Act, which supposedly imposed sanctions on M23, they seem to operate with a degree of impunity. What conclusions should one draw from their continued pillaging in the region?
AG: Several. First and foremost, the U.S. has never honestly objected. In fact, they have enabled the Rwandan militia, which assumed various acronyms over the years but finally became M23. The history of this covert support is as cynical as anything I’ve ever seen. It’s complicated and difficult to explain, but let me see what I can summarize.
In 2009, on the very day of Obama’s inauguration—when no one was paying any attention—it was announced that the [National Congress for the Defence of the People] CNDP, a Rwandan and Ugandan militia pretending to be Congolese, would be incorporated into the Congolese army, as though they were Congolese. U.S. officials applauded this hair-raising development as a step towards peace. But even Human Rights Watch admitted that it was, in fact, a surrender of territory to Rwanda and Uganda. The final agreement legalizing it was signed on March 23, 2009.
In 2012, the CNDP militia members rebelled, claiming that they had not been given all they’d been promised in that agreement. Hence the name, M23, a reference to March 23, 2009. They infamously ravaged eastern [DRC]’s Kivu Provinces, committing one massacre after another, until [U.S. President Barack] Obama finally felt compelled to pretend to do something. The UN Force Intervention Brigade was organized to drive M23 back into Rwanda and Uganda and, after it did, Obama and the rest of the West claimed a humanitarian victory. However, in the ensuing “peace talks” organized by Western powers, victory was handed back to the losers of the war—Rwanda, Uganda, and their militia, M23. I pulled up the document formalizing this and linked it into my report on the website of the San Francisco Bay View newspaper: “‘Declaration’ would contract DRC to concede to M23.” Again, it was all as cynical as anything I’ve ever seen.
M23 re-emerged in 2022, once again committing massacres and seizing territory. It became so apparent that they are under Rwandan command that Western officials have felt compelled to speak to it and call on Rwanda to stop, but nothing’s been done. Rwanda continues to enjoy the support of the West. Uganda’s involvement more or less flies under the radar.
The West essentially chose the Rwandan and Ugandan Tutsi elite to manage the resource wealth of eastern DRC in their interest, as [Rwandan and Ugandan Tutsi elite] have since first invading [the DRC] in 1996.
Last year, in a move that made no sense whatsoever, [DRC] joined the East African Community—a common market like the [European Union]—even though two of its members, Rwanda and Uganda, had been ravaging and plundering the country for nearly three decades. This allowed the resource looters to formalize and legalize their operations, but that still wasn’t enough for them. Rwanda and Uganda also have territorial ambitions served by killing and displacing millions of people in the Kivu provinces, and the West shows no sign of pulling its support from either regime.
I should add that neither Russia nor China object, so long as they’re getting the deals for resources that they need. All the international powers benefiting from [the DRC]’s resources welcomed the country’s entry into the East African Community, which legitimized and legalized the exploitation.
AWB: The U.S. Africa Command’s (AFRICOM) espoused objective is to combat terrorism on the continent. It has literally trained both Rwandan and Ugandan troops. How should one reconcile this with the re-emergence of M23?
AG: This is more evidence that the U.S. doesn’t care what Rwanda and Uganda do in [the DRC], no matter how horrific. Their soldiers serve U.S. foreign policy purposes in Africa.
AWB: The DRC holds about 70 percent of the world’s supply of coltan, which is needed for manufacturing cell phones and computers. It also holds about 80 percent of the world’s cobalt reserves, which are needed for developing aerospace and renewable technologies. Would it be overly simplistic to say that at the root of all the conflict in the region is the desperation of multinational corporations to control these resources?
AG: No, that would not be overly simplistic at all. And there’s much more—gold, timber, oil, natural gas, arable land, and more mineral wealth.
AWB: What 2 to 3 things are necessary for a path forward to peace and sovereignty in the region?
AG: That’s a tough question. A global cultural and political revolution that puts human needs before profit would help. [The DRC]’s resources are, as you said, so essential to the world’s industrial engines that everybody wants a piece of [the DRC].
Short of that, Rwanda and Uganda should get out of [the DRC], but there’s no sign of that happening anytime soon.
The Congolese people need space to organize and elect leaders who truly represent their interests. The last presidential election [in the DRC], in 2018, was blatantly stolen by Félix Tshisikedi, but the world chose to legitimize it.
NEWS AND ANALYSIS
Anniversary Report: Six-Day War, Democratic Republic of the Congo
June 14, 2023 by Friends of the Congo
Uganda and Rwanda began their incursions into the Democratic Republic of Congo 23 years ago. Full reparations to victims have not been paid and the two invader countries still act with impunity.
African Unity and the New Cold War
June 7, 2023 by Abayomi Azikiwe
These remarks were made by the author at the Pan-Afrikan Society Community Forum (PASCF) Afrikan Liberation Day webinar held on May 27, 2023. The event was hosted by PASCF organizers in Britain under the theme, “Acknowledging Our Shared Struggles and Celebrating Our Achievements.”
Imperialism in Sudan and Libya: Implications for the African Continent
June 7, 2023 by Black Alliance for Peace
The Black Alliance for Peace’s African Liberation Day discussion, "Imperialism in Sudan and Libya: Implications for the African Continent," featured Abayomi Azikiwe, Abdiwahab Abdisamad, Essam Elkorghli and Yolian Ogbu.
Unveiling Truth and Inspiring Change – Survivors Uncensored
June 5, 2023 by HMG Press Office
A hybrid event with testimonies from survivors of atrocities in Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and African Great Lakes region as a whole, shedding light on the role of the U.S. and the West. This book talk and discussion featured Delphine Yandamutso, Claude Gatebuke, Salome Ayuak, Dismas Kitenge, and Steven Nabieu Rogers.
Unity Is an Imperative: Reclaiming African Liberation Day, 60 Years On
May 26, 2023 by Tanupriya Singh
African Liberation Day marks the founding of the Organization of African Unity in 1963. While the idea of “liberation” has since been removed in letter—and even in spirit—from official commemorations of the day, radical forces have held onto it in their fight against capitalism.
Breaking the Colonial Grip on African Journalism
May 24, 2023 by Toward Freedom
This discussion took place on May 24—the day of Eritrea’s 32nd independence anniversary and one day before African Liberation Day—to hear from African journalists about how they best see to break the colonial grip on African journalism. Panelists included Washington, D.C.-based Ivorian journalist, professor and author Gnaka Lagoke and Nairobi-based Kenyan journalist Erick Gavala, the operations manager at digital Pan-African media outlet, African Stream. Toward Freedom editor and BAP Solidarity Network Co-Coordinator Julie Varughese moderated this discussion.
The Roots and Consequences of African Underdevelopment
May 21, 2023 by Walter Rodney
The Black Agenda Review published for the first time historian Walter Rodney’s presentation at the May 1979 symposium titled, “The Political Economy of the Black World.” Rodney’s talk built on his classic study, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, musing on how theories of underdevelopment had developed, as it were, over the recent past, especially when it came to understanding the core-periphery metaphor and the nature of classes in Africa.
Liberia and the Challenges of U.S. Imperialism
April 26, 2023 by Djibo Sobukwe
Liberia, like many African countries, suffers from devastating poverty as a result of a history of colonialism and neocolonialism.
If you are interested in getting more directly involved in the fight to liberate Africa, please consider joining the U.S. Out of Africa Network.
No compromise, no retreat,
BAP’s U.S. Out of Africa Network
P.S. Freedom isn’t free. We are doing this work with no full-time staff and no big foundation support. Consider giving today.
Banner photo: A RPF troop that advanced into the DRCongo on May 14, 1997 (Courtesy reddit.com).