Main Index | Africa Index

Laurent Kabila came to power after the ouster of Mobuto Sese Seko, who had long been a client of state-capitalist countries of the "West". Under Mobuto Sese Seko's rule, Zaire-Congo had been a staging area for Western intervention in central, southern and eastern Africa against Soviet client regimes or "African Socialist" regimes in Africa. Zaire was widely reported to be a staging base, according to mainstream media reports, for American supplies and logistical support to Jonas Savimbi's UNITA movement. With the end of the "cold war", and neo-liberal's ideological triumph world-wide, Mobuto Sese Seko's regime was no longer deemed essential by his Western masters.

Accordingly, when Kabila's rebels overthrew Mobuto Sese Seko, his former Western "allies" did not lift a finger to preserve his regime. In his quest for power, Kabila was supported by ethnic Tutsi militia who live in the eastern part of Zaire-Congo, their ethnic brethren in Rwanda/Burundi, and Angola's Museveni. It is widely believed that the Tutsi army of Rwanda (the minority tribe that has always dominated the majority Hutu tribe since Belgian colonial days) is the most proficient in the area. This is significant because they have proved the new power-brokers in the region.

Mobuto Sese Seko's downfall was spurred by his allowing the Hutu refugee camps in eastern Zaire-Congo to be used as bases by Hutu militias expelled by the Rwandan Tutsi army, to mount attacks against the Rwandan Tutsis. In 1994-1995, the Rwandan Hutu's, long oppressed by Rwandan Tutsi's (an arrangement fostered by the Belgian colonialists) mounted a savage genocidal campaign against Tutsi's within the country. The Tutsi army (effectively the "Rwandan" army, as Tutsis have always been the post-colonial rulers of Rwanda) regrouped and swiftly defeated the Hutu militias. Many Hutu's, many of whom were embroiled in the campaign of ethnic slaughter, fled to neighbouring Zaire where they languished in refugee camps. It is estimated that the refugees that fled the Rwandan civil war to surrounding countries, but mostly to Zaire/Congo, numbered 2 000 000. Over 500 000 Tutsi were butchered, usually at close range with machetes, during the civil war. The population of Kigali, Rwanda's capital, dropped by 120 000 due to the civil war.

It was Mobuto Sese Seko's (widely-believed) support for the Hutu's that led the Tutsi warlord (leader ?) Paul Kagame to instigate a rebellion in eastern Zaire-Congo under the leadership of a non-Tutsi, Laurent Kabila. This rebellion was not hard to instigate as the kleptocracy of the Mobuto Sese Seko regime had led to the breakdown of what pretensions Zaire had had, to be a state. Most "Zairians", in reality a few hundred ethnic groups had had enough of Mobuto's "rule", and genuinely welcomed Kabila's ascent to power. Laurent Kabila took power with the assistance of the Rwandan Tutsis and the Zairian Tutsis who formed the bulk of his "rebel army" in a quick campaign of 6 months in 1997.

Kabila has proved himself to be just another "big man" in the style of African dictators. Any opposition has been repressed, and his "government" has been as much a joke as Mobuto's was. As a result, "Zairians" have lost faith in his "government". Aware that he came to power with the help of "foreigners", he has attempted to shore up his legitimacy by trying to expel his Rwandan "advisors", and replace ethnic Tutsis with other "Zairians" in his government. They have not taken kindly to this, and a rebellion has broken out in the eastern part of Zaire-Congo which wil take Kinshasa very soon.

Kabila had recently retreated to Lubumbashi which is the regional capital of the area where his tribe (the Baluba) comes from. He has returned to the capital, Kinshasa, vowing that the rebels will be crushed. It is believed by mainstream media sources that this could presage the break-up of "Zaire-Congo" as a coherent "state"/country. The "new" rebels have of course styled themselves the "democratic forces" etc etc in the usual fashion of African bandit/warlord armies masquerading as "national liberators".

Comment: The events in Zaire-Congo show that the destinies of the African countries in this immediate region are interlinked. The lack of development and the reliance by Africans and western state-capitalists on warlords and "big men" as vehicles of "self-rule" and "independence" have been an unmitigated disaster. These regions do not have any structures that can be remotely dignified by the term "economy". They are large holes in the ground out of which the "civilised" West plunders raw materials. In this they are aided and abetted by the Africans themselves and the kleptocrat sociopaths African peoples look to for "guidence". A large part of the blame lies with the African population itself, with its superstitious tribalism and penchant for warlordism, its craven dependence on outside support and sustenance.

An even greater part of the blame must lie with the world capitalist and inter-state system which in its extreme cynicism puts into place, and fosters, this recurrent cycle of war and plunder, operating a divide and rule system through a comprador class of African "elites" to suck the raw material from the African soil for the "world economy". Africa is probably the most exploited continent in the world by the international system of private profit. The profits of this "trade" find their way into the Swiss bank accounts of the comprador class, none of which is used to develop the people of these "countries".

Zaire/Congo is a country in name only, like "Rwanda" or "Angola". The central fact of African life is the tribe. Stratification is "vertical", and not "horizontal" as in industrialised countries. There no economies in African countries except for South Africa, and a few others, so there are no "classes" in the industrialised sense of the term. The ruling "class" is usually the ruling "tribe" or coalition of ethnic groups. Where there is a "middle-class" it is usually insignificant or non-indigenous: the Asians in central and east Africa, the Lebanese in Angola. Chomsky has made the observation that the difference between the "developed" and the "undeveloped" world is greater now than in the 18th or 19th centuries. In Africa, north of South Africa this is true.

If by some miracle, the advanced capitalist countries were to go "anarchist" overnight, the degree of non-development in this region is so vast that "Africa" would not be able to be absorbed into an anarchist world economy. This region would remain peripheral for a considerable period of time, perhaps with migration even being controlled between this desperate zone and an anarchist confederation. If this were not so, I have no doubt that the African continent would be deserted in droves by a population at the developmental level of 18th century peasants or in worse cases, medieval serfs. In any case, it would take generations for an advanced anarchist confederation to repair the damage inflicted by the world-sytem and African "leaders" on the African peoples. This is to give the Reader some idea of the extent of the problem.

Joel

EMAIL COMMUNITAS