Africa can only help French, north American, South African and Belgian companies exploit the oil fields and mines of Angola and Congo.
These are difficult times. But socialists and internationalists in the north should not fall into inaction and confusion. This is the moment to intensify our efforts, to do everything to favour any change in the balance of forces which will encourage a positive, global solution. We need the cancelling of foreign debt of the countries of central and southern Africa. The wealth of the region's dictators should be confiscated and returned to the population.. There should be a massive aid programme, to rebuild the region. And we should support panafricanist initiatives, as a secular alternative to ethnic chauvinism.. African racism
In the face of the recent rebellion, the authorities in Kinshasa have gradually adopted a deliberately racist policy and discourse. Tutsis (or suspected Tutsis) have been victims of selective repression (and attack in the streets).
Before the rebellion, Kabila's government had rejected "all acts of tribal hatred." By August, government leaders were inciting racial hatred, and justifying the "eradication" of Tutsis, wandans and Ugandans living in Congo. "The vermin must be crushed..." screamed the progovernment newspaper Demain le Congo. 'The Tutsis may face a sımılar, unhappy experience to the Jews." A couple of days later, the newspaper reported that "Tutsis are untrustworthy, brutal, grudge-bearing and bloodthirsty." 2
This racist propaganda was accompanied by arrests, even summary executions of Tutsis. When the rebels drew close to Kinshasa, the call to racial hatred became the cement which bound the population of the capital to Kabila's regime.
Kabila's Chief of Cabinet, Yerodia Ndombasi, called on the population to "crush this aggressive vermin." He called the Tutsis "rubbish, bacteria which must be eradicated with method and resolution." * He called on the inhabitants of the capital to "allow the Congolese Armed Forces to complete the total eradication of these vermin, these Rwandan and Ugandan invaders." s
The government incessantly exhorted the population to be vigilant and mobilised to "throw the wandan Tutsis out of the country." 6
Congo's Minister of Information, Didier Mumeng, told a radio audience that "the moment has come to put an definitive end to the manoeuvres of these inaders. They have no alternative but to flee. They
face the determination of the Congolese people, who refuse to be subject to the little Tutsi people." ?
Two Belgian journalists say soldiers in Kinshasa invited them to follow a patrol on 27 August. Their testimony is shocking. Tutsis, or suspected Tutsis, were murdered by civilians, and their bodies burned in the streets. These crimes are linked to the regime's racist discourse. Racism against Tutsis, Ugandans and Rwandans has become a patriotic duty.
According to Eric David, Professor of International Law at Belgium's Université libre de Bruxelles, this incitement to racial hatred is criminal. "It is also a recognised sociological phenomenon: by devaluing, and dehumanising the opponent, it becomes... much easier to achieve his physical elimination." s
The 1948 Geneva convention establishes a specific crime of genocide, defined as "any act committed in the intent of partial or total destruction of a national, ethnic, racial or religious group as such."
Fortunately, we are not yet witnessing genocide. But what happened in August must not go unpunished. And if the discourse of racial hatred does lead to further, greater crimes, then the top leaders of the Congo government must be considered directly responsible. The rebellion
The rebels in eastern Congo say Kabila has become totalitarian. Their campaign to replace him depends on support from the Rwanda and Ugandan governments. Although western governments have not condemned the rebellion, they, like Kabila, denounce the "outside interference" of Rwanda and Uganda.
But the fundamental problem with this rebellion is elsewhere. Unless the people themselves are the principle actors in a struggle for emancipation, what can stop a new dictator emerging? If the goal is to have more democracy, then a military struggle, with the usual tactics of war, is surely inadequate.
The RCD rebels hoped to win a rapid military victory, thanks to active support from Rwanda and Uganda. They wrongly expected that Angola would remain neutral. The rebels say that they would have introduced a transition to democracy. This emphasis on the military aspect of struggle, with the people relegated to a passive role, reflects the authoritarian conceptions which dominate the regimes in Rwanda and Uganda. And which reveals their similarities with Kabila's regime.
The rebellion was clearly dominated by military, rather than civilian groups. The political structure, the Congolese
Rally for Democracy (Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie - RCD) was only announced two weeks after the rebellion started