It was 17th of January in the year 1961, when the first elected prime minister of the newly independent Congo, Patrice Lumumba was murdered. With him, the newly reached independence was murdered too. The huge country in the middle of Africa had already had an especially bloody and cruel history. At the Berlin Conference of 1884, which launched the “Scramble for Africa”, the Congo was attributed to Belgium or, to be exact, to King Leopold privately. Only after some time and with news spreading about the especially cruel action against the population did the Belgian Parliament insist on establishing an official colony. No European colonial power did a good development job. But if we look at the former Belgian colonies like the Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi, the results are particularly deplorable. Concerning the Congo, Joseph Conrad described the horrible situation there in his Heart of Darkness. In some way, at least some parts of the Congo, remained a heart of darkness. Only recently did Belgium look at its colonial history more critically, forcing itself to redesign the famous Africa museum in Tervuren at the outskirts of Brussels.
A hollow transfer of power
However, during the transfer of sovereignty from the Belgian authorities to the Congolese in 1960, there was no sign of uneasiness about the colonial mistreatment. At the respective festivities, the then Congo Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba mentioned in his speech the difficult times and the violence inflicted on many Congolese by the Belgian authorities. Today, such a speech, which was not full of hatred but in the end conciliatory, would not make a big fuss. But in 1960 it enhanced the opinion of many in the “West” that Lumumba was a communist. As the West, especially the USA and unfortunately, the UN too, did not help the Lumumba government to fight secessionist aspirations, Lumumba did indeed ask Moscow for help – with not much success, however.
The province of Katanga is rich in minerals and the interests of the Belgian and other companies were and are pretty clear. They strongly supported the secessionists and certainly, there was a lot of money available to support the politicians that they needed for their purposes. Colonialism had the pure economic profit at its root and after it ended, the economic benefit became again the center of relations between the “former” masters and the “former” colonized. I “former” in quotation marks here, as in some way the relationship between masters and the colonized the did not really change. The only difference is that new masters appear to be primarily the United States today and out of the colonized people local masters arose who participated in the corrupt relationship. One such ugly figure was the longtime dictator Mobuto, who ruled the country with Western support for many years. He was a military chief at the beginning of “independence” and ruled the country from 1965 to 1997.
Internal dictatorship and external interference
Mobuto was toppled only in 1997 by Laurent-Desire Kabila who was supported by Rwanda and Uganda. But the end of Mobuto did not end the fighting and killing in the Congo, especially in the Eastern provinces. The war inside Rwanda, with its horrible genocide, strongly affected the fighting in the Congo itself. Neither Laurent-Desire Kabila, nor his successor and son Joseph Kabila undertook serious efforts to stop the permanent fighting. The neighboring leaders, especially from Rwanda and Uganda interfered again and again and not only with a defensive purpose. It is true that Hutu mercenaries which were actively participating in the Rwandan genocide against the Tutsis fled to the Congo and tried even to continue some ugly activities from there. One of the “winners” of that chaotic situation was Ebola, which found excellent conditions to spread amidst the war conditions. And mass violations by soldiers and mercenaries were another deplorable consequence of this permanent war.
The disasters in and around the Congo also signified a failure for the United Nations efforts to bring peace into the country. From the beginning on, the UN failed to support the unity of the country. The influence of the former colonial power and other western governments, especially the US, was too big to give the UN a strong role, even as the first UN troops arrived there in July 1960. At the same time, the African Union, on its own and with its neighbors, has not achieved any breakthroughs in peace efforts in the Congo either. To be clear: it is not the mistake of these multilateral organizations but of the governments who were not willing to give them enough power and means to establish and preserve peace.
The two neighboring leaders important for peace in Eastern Congo are more interested in their own personal political career than in fostering peace. Paul Kagame, who certainly had achieved a renewal of Rwanda after the genocide, has become increasingly autocratic. He has been in power since 2000. The Ugandan President Yoveri Museveni is currently running for reelection after coming into power already in 1986. His only real opposition at the presidential election, Bobi Wine, a young and popular singer, has been beaten and shot. One cannot speak about fair election. It is incredibly sad that leaders who promoted the transition of their countries from dictatorship towards democracy turned themselves into dictators.
As long as the exploitation of mines and of the local population by Western and, in the meantime, also by Chinese companies continues - in spite of the daily killings - there will not be enough pressure and “necessity” to strengthen efforts to stop the war. Bad luck for the people in the Congo. The richer part of this world is consuming the rare metals they need for electric cars, but there is not enough money for the necessary number of peace troops and a broad economic development. There is so much interconnection between the past horror of colonialism, the ongoing one-sided exploitation of natural resources and people, tribal disputes, regional interference, and lack of determination to stop the wars. Unfortunately, there seems not much hope for an end of this multi-layered conflict and people will continue to be killed.
Dr. Hannes Swoboda, President of the International Institute for Peace (IP), started his career in urban politics in Vienna and was elected member of the European Parliament in 1996. He was Vice President of the Social Democrat Group until 2012 und then President until 2014. He was particularly engaged in foreign, enlargement, and neighborhood policies. Swoboda is also President of the Vienna Institute for International Economics, the Centre of Architecture, the University for Applied Science - Campus Vienna, and the Sir Peter Ustinov Institute.