Thursday, August 9, 2012

Corporate genocide in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

It is not possible to understand what is happening in the Democratic Republic of the Congo from media accounts. Reportedly, 10 million people have been killed & millions of women raped since 1996 & they still can’t come up with a coherent narrative that isn’t sodden with white supremacy. That’s how you know it’s not news, but propaganda. Most news accounts are about unidentified militias & rogue soldiers fighting the Congolese army & UN Peacekeepers (aka as an occupying army). Expert sources cited include the Enough Project, a front group run by former officials of the Clinton administration, including John Prendergast (a likely CIA operative involved in the break up of Sudan & the same creep who prompts George Clooney in promoting US military intervention). Media also cites the UN (part of the problem) & NGOs tied in with the power establishment, like Oxfam, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International who bewail human rights crimes in the Congo & use the issue to raise money. We are told the conflict has to do with control of mining of the immense mineral resources in the Congo (gold, cobalt, diamonds, copper). They leave out however, the essential component that would make the narrative add up: the central role of multinationals who are plundering the country for its immense resources--especially Canada & the US, but also South Africa, UK, Australia, Japan, Switzerland, China. Canada alone has somewhere around 28 mining companies in the Congo. The militias, mercenaries, & military of the Congo, Rwanda, Uganda are fighting for these companies & for spheres of influence. So it isn’t “tribal” conflicts between irrational Black Africans but a barbaric, violent, unsparing conflict driven by western corporate plunder & greed. It’s called colonialism & imperialism. Those who get caught in the crossfires of this plunder are the millions murdered, raped, displaced, like this small girl waiting for aid in a thunder & lightening storm at a camp north of Goma, in eastern Congo, where the latest fighting is going on. (Photo by Jerome Delay/AP)

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