Congo
The area now called Democratic Republic of Congo (Congo for short) has been the plaything of Western powers for 150 years. It is the second largest country in Africa, with a population of over 112 million. Even though the country has been decolonised, its political and social institutions have been too weak from the start – and deliberately kept that way – to achieve functioning self-government.
The western world has always secured access to the vast wealth of mineral resources through direct interference; first through military occupation (Belgium), and after decolonisation through manipulation (financial, political and economic), enforced concessions, and targeted weakening of the government through corruption and helping to arm local militias – especially in the most resource-rich provinces (Katanga, Ituri, Kivu).
And the Congolese people are always victims of this exploitation, to this day.
In one of the world’s richest countries in terms of resources (rubber, copper, oil, cobalt, gold, diamonds, tin, coltan, etc.), the welfare of the population is at the bottom of UN lists of health, infant mortality, education, violence against women, malnutrition, internally displaced persons, and attacks by militarised groups.
This history makes the work of Action for Congo more than necessary!
Brief overview of history in the last century and a half:
- 1870-1885: first colonial interest in Central Africa
- 1885-1908: Congo personally owned by Leopold II of Belgium
- large-scale forced labour
- exploitation of ivory
- rubber exploitation for emerging automobile industry
- 1908-1921: first phase of colonial rule by the state of Belgium
- copper exploitation for munitions in First World War
- 1921-1940: second phase colonial rule by the State of Belgium
- 1940-1955: independence drive and colonial opposition
- 1955-1960: hasty decolonisation, weak democratic institutions, covert foreign interference
- 1960-1965: first republic of Congo
- assassination of first prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, supported by Belgium and CIA
- 1965-1975: first phase (nationalist) rule of Mobutu
- 1975-1990: second phase (terror) rule of Mobutu
- 1990-1997: democratic opposition and repression
- 1997-2002: Kabila’s regime (warlord), arms trade and civil war
- 2002-2006: neo-colonialism by international companies
- 2006-now: fragmentation of democracy, militarisation, continued exploitation
- coltane exploitation for the production of mobile phones and computers
Sources:
- David van Reybrouck, ‘Congo, the epic history of a people’. 2015 Ecco Press (translated from Dutch)
- Wikipedia