No US aid to the Congo!

It isn’t possible to understand what’s happening in the Democratic Republic of the Congo from the scanty & episodic media reports. A nearly 20-year conflict comparable in carnage to the two World Wars & it never makes the nightly news! Ten million people killed since 1996, millions of women raped as a weapon of war, millions of refugees displaced, made homeless, made orphans without a coherent narrative not sodden with white supremacy & the usual quotient of deceits.

Most of the infrequent news accounts are about unidentified militias & rogue soldiers fighting the Congolese army & UN “Peacekeepers.” We are told the conflict has to do with control over mining 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 over 28 mining companies in the Congo. The militias, mercenaries, & military of the Congo, Rwanda, Uganda are fighting for these companies & for spheres of influence. It isn’t “tribal” conflicts between irrational black Africans but a barbaric, violent, unsparing conflict driven by western corporate plunder & greed. It’s about blood diamonds, blood gold, & the blood minerals in our cell phones, computers, & play stations & it’s called colonialism & imperialism.

US law prohibits military financing, training, & other assistance to governments using child soldiers but Obama repeatedly issues waivers allowing the Congolese military to receive aid despite their forcible & violent conscription of thousands of boys & girls under 15-years old. He defends his waivers claiming it is a matter of US national interest--by which of course he means corporate interests plundering the Congo. (The more you know about Obama, the more his name is synonymous with abomination.)

This crying child is one of 66,000 Congolese refugees who crossed into Uganda just since last week to escape resurgent fighting between the Congo army & a paramilitary group named Allied Democratic Forces (a group with unverifiable politics).

No US aid to the Congo! US out of Africa! We stand with the people of the Congo in their fight against corporate plunder.

(Photo by James Akena/Reuters)