The Democratic Republic of the Congo has been pillaged by foreign governments and corporations for more than 500 years, and this sordid pattern continues to this day. Given this history, is it any wonder that the country suffers from massive corruption, perpetual conflict, and state capture?
WASHINGTON, DC – Last month, the Belgian government returned a gold-capped tooth that was ripped from the mouth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s first elected prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, more than 60 years ago. Lumumba was assassinated in 1961 by a Belgian execution squad that dissolved his body in acid, taking the tooth as a “hunting trophy.” Now, the Belgian government has been attempting to make amends for the crimes that Belgium visited upon the Congolese people in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
But Belgium’s role is only part of this sordid history. The DRC is a case study of how greed-fueled transnational economic exploitation can continue for centuries. Companies and consumers in the United States and Europe – and more recently in China, Uganda, and Rwanda – have reaped enormous gains as a direct result of the Congolese people’s brutalization. As US Secretary of State Antony Blinken prepares to travel to the DRC in August, he has an opportunity to help prevent another chapter of devastating exploitation from being written.
This process started in the late 1400s, when the Portuguese landed on the shores of what was then known as the Kongo Kingdom. In the centuries that followed, there were periods when roughly one-third of the Kingdom’s population had been sold into the transatlantic slave trade. Ultimately, the Kongo Kingdom accounted for one-quarter of those enslaved on plantations in the American South.
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Writing for PS since 2010
7 Commentaries
John Prendergast is Co-Founder of The Sentry and the co-author (with Fidel Bafilemba) of Congo Stories.
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The arc of this article is one of tragic irony, albeit certainly unintentional. The assassination of Lumumba by the US and Belgium is put down as a key moment in the development of the corruption which followed. Contemporary DRC is then condemned for seeking to derive revenue from its own mineral assets; we must be stopped. And who is to do the stopping? Who is going to rescue hopeless black Africans from their own stupidity? Why, the US and Belgium of course! Will they compensate the DRC for not deriving such revenue? No, of course not. And meanwhile, the US legislatures the author wishes to take stern action against mineral extraction in the DRC actually SUBSIDISES the same mineral extraction in the US! Even coal production is increasing there. Mind you, it's easy to see why the author's horribly simplistic white-mans saviourism would be directed at the DRC – there is no market for white mans saviourism in racism-torn US so it has to be an export product. Well, thanks but no thanks, stupid white guy. And, hey, Project Syndicate, maybe try to apply a bit of editorial quality control over articles about Africa? FFAS.
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For four decades, rapid economic growth was the prime imperative of China’s communist leaders. President Xi Jinping, by contrast, is prepared to forego growth in the interest of cementing the Party’s political power and pursuing his Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation.
Real interest rates appear to be on a firm upward trend, because nominal interest rates will rise and inflation will fall. Together with decelerating global growth, that could mean that the recent decline in the real prices of oil, minerals, and agricultural products will persist.
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