How many more must suffer in DRC before the west stops enabling Tshisekedi?Despite its vast mineral wealth, corruption keeps the Congolese poor – and western governments help the regime stay in power
Provisional results in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) presidential election have indicated Félix Tshisekedi is the winner. As his regime secures another five years, the incumbent will once again be looking to the west to help keep him in power, as the US government did in 2018.
The DRC has lurched from crisis to crisis for more than 20 years. This is in part because the west has blocked the creation of an international criminal tribunal for the country, which is needed to end the culture of impunity fuelling violence, famine and the climate crisis killing and displacing Congolese people.
The US has supported Tshisekedi by, among other things, facilitating international grants and credit, and yet, according to the World Bank, 73% of the population live on less than $1.90 a day, and things are getting worse. The UN says 26 million Congolese are facing “very high acute malnutrition and excess mortality”, an increase from 13.5 million, or 28% of the population, in 2019.
Five years ago, Tshisekedi was humiliated by the Congolese people, coming third in the presidential race. Yet, against all available evidence that Martin Fayulu had won by a landslide, he was declared the winner – a decision the US supported. Huge international grants and credits to his regime followed, including $750m from the World Bank and a $1.5bn loan from the International Monetary Fund. Some success for a man whose record might be judged incompetent and who was rejected by voters.
In return, Tshisekedi said he would end China’s control over the DRC’s rare minerals, which poses a strategic challenge for the US and EU’s clean-energy ambitions. The DRC supplies, mostly via China, 73% of the world’s cobalt – an essential component in wind turbines, solar panels and electric vehicle batteries. In terms of untapped mineral reserves, the DRC was estimated to be worth $24tn (then about £15tn) by a 2011 UN study, which is more than the current GDP of the 27 EU member states combined.
Since 2018, Tshisekedi has subverted the last vestiges of free and fair elections that the DRC still had, increasingly suppressing dissent – including of journalists, religious leaders and former allies and acolytes turned critics – and putting his allies into key posts.
Tshisekedi made Denis Kadima – who comes from the same Luba ethnic group and Kasaï region as the president – head of the electoral commission. He also appointed three new judges – also Luba – to the Congolese supreme court, which would hear any electoral dispute.
Unsurprisingly, opposition leaders calling for a rerun of the the most recent “sham” election, including the 2018 Nobel peace laureate Dr Denis Mukwege, Fayulu and Moïse Katumbi, have said they will not take their case to the supreme court because they have little faith in it.
To keep the military on his side, Tshisekedi has promoted army officers who are facing UN, US and EU sanctions for human rights violations. There has been an increase in violence, including by the Rwandan-backed M23 militia, which has displaced nearly 7 million Congolese (up from 4.5 million in 2018), making the DRC one of the world’s biggest humanitarian crises...
Entire article:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/jan/02/how-many-more-must-suffer-in-drc-before-the-west-stops-enabling-tshisekediRelated:
Belgian CongoThe Belgian Congo (French: Congo belge, pronounced [kɔ̃ɡo bɛlʒ]; Dutch: Belgisch-Congo[a]) was a Belgian colony in Central Africa from 1908 until independence in 1960 and became the Republic of the Congo (Léopoldville). The former colony adopted its present name, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in 1964.
Colonial rule in the Congo began in the late 19th century. King Leopold II of the Belgians attempted to persuade the Belgian government to support colonial expansion around the then-largely unexploited Congo Basin. Their ambivalence resulted in Leopold's establishing a colony himself. With support from a number of Western countries, Leopold achieved international recognition of the Congo Free State in 1885.[7] By the turn of the century, the violence used by Free State officials against indigenous Congolese and a ruthless system of economic exploitation led to intense diplomatic pressure on Belgium to take official control of the country, which it did by creating the Belgian Congo in 1908.[8]
Belgian rule in the Congo was based on the "colonial trinity" (trinité coloniale) of state, missionary and private-company interests.[9] The privileging of Belgian commercial interests meant that large amounts of capital flowed into the Congo and that individual regions became specialised. On many occasions, the interests of the government and of private enterprise became closely linked, and the state helped companies to break strikes and to remove other barriers raised by the indigenous population.[9] The colony was divided into hierarchically organised administrative subdivisions and run uniformly according to a set "native policy" (politique indigène). This differed from the practice of British and French colonial policy, which generally favoured systems of indirect rule, retaining traditional leaders in positions of authority under colonial oversight.[clarification needed]
During the 1940s and 1950s, the Belgian Congo experienced extensive urbanisation and the colonial administration began various development programs aimed at making the territory into a "model colony".[10] One result saw the development of a new middle-class of Europeanised African "évolués" in the cities.[10] By the 1950s, the Congo had a wage labour force twice as large as that in any other African colony.[11]...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_CongoSee also:
https://trueleft.createaforum.com/colonial-era/colonization-of-africa/ https://trueleft.createaforum.com/colonial-era/colonialism-as-viewed-by-westerners/ https://trueleft.createaforum.com/colonial-era/colonial-crimes-dw-documentary/ https://trueleft.createaforum.com/colonial-era/western-neo-colonial-mentality/ https://trueleft.createaforum.com/issues/china-and-united-states-relations/ https://trueleft.createaforum.com/issues/economic-entanglement-and-systemic-rivalry-germany-and-china-at-a-crossroads/Congolese should be emigrating to the West ASAP!
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