Congo: The Story of Africa
The story of Congo is fascinating, with a mix of beauty and ugliness, wealth and poverty, abundance and lack, joy and pain, hope and fear, and life and death. It is the story of Africa in its totality. It is the story that breaks your heart when you realise that a people can be so abundantly blessed with all resources that you can think of but still somehow are made to live like beggars and paupers who are daily seeking aid and loans from the very people who keeps them as beggars and paupers.
Congo, as a people and a nation, has been raped over and over and over again for centuries by the very people she has made fat with her resources.
Before the falsehood called independence, the Congolese people of what is now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo were enslaved, beaten, butchered, raped, dehumanised, and made weak by the wicked rule of imperial Belgium and its wicked king Leopold II or many years. Congolese children’s legs and hands were cut off if their fathers or mothers refused to work like slaves for the enforcers of King Leopold, who claimed for himself Congo as his personal property.
Even after the horrors that Belgium carried out in Congo, even till the present day, no words of apologies or reparation have been extended to the Congolese people by Belgium. But instead, in this present day of democracy and the global noise about human rights, the killing, the raping, and the pillaging continued even by those who say they are the creators and protectors of democracy and human rights in the world.
The killings, the rapes, the dehumanization, the pillaging of natural resources, and the destruction of families, communities and people are still going on as we speak. Still, the international community seems to be very quiet about it all.
Our question is, when will the people of Congo get justice for their ancestors who were killed, maimed and dehumanized by the king of Belgium because of their natural resources? I am speaking of no less than ten million Congolese killed by the Belgian authorities under the rule of Leopold II, and all for the greed and insatiable quest for the riches of another nation.
When will the people of Congo get justice for the killing of their first prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, by America’s CIA and the other high-profile killings that have been going on in Congo? When will Congo and its resources be free for use by the people of Congo? When will they be allowed to live in peace, enjoy the fruit of their natural resources, and be enriched by it? The questions are unending.
It’s all about the wealth
Without mincing words, Congo is one of the wealthiest nations on earth in natural resources.
Congo is massively blessed with mineral resources. She sits on an estimated $24 trillion worth of natural resources, including 3.2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
Congo has oil, diamond, coltan, copper, platinum, gold, uranium, tin, cobalt, a vast forest cover, 106270 square kilometres of arable land for agriculture, wildlife, you name it. It is the uranium from Congo that was used in the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in 1945 by the US. Today, its massive coltan reserves are used to make everyday electronic devices like cell phones for the global market.
This means that while the people of the world and even in Africa are standing in those long queues waiting for Apple and the other phone makers to open their shops to allow their customers to buy their new phones and other products, millions of Congolese children, men and women are also queuing in the cold mines, not to get new phones, but to receive the peanuts that they are paid in those mines that could only make sense in horror movies.
So, Congo makes the world rich, but the sad reality is that, with all the wealth of Congo, it is considered one of the poorest nations in the world, with 63% of the people living under the poverty line. The question is, why?
The answer to the question of the so-called poverty of Congo is the same answer to the so-called poverty of Africa. Congo, just like Africa, is not poor; she is just made poor. And that is a fact.
And not to sound like one is trying to blame others or to put the responsibility for the poverty in Congo on foreigners and foreign agendas only, but just like Africa, Congo is deliberately kept poor by those who profit from her poverty or, let me say, her wealth.
Even the media is complicit
When Congo is mentioned in Western media, it’s always about local rebel groups fighting themselves or at war with the state or killing their fellow citizens. They don’t ever mention the role of the Western nations who are funding the chaos, carrying out training for the terror groups, and supporting the armed groups with weapons. They never mention the foreign multinationals who use their influence and money to shape local policies in their favour and who also back the chaos and unrest. They never say that the so-called turmoil and unrest are kept in place by external forces who use them as a distraction for their evil agendas. While the Congolese people are in a state of unrest and destabilization, they, the creators of the mayhem, are busy stealing natural resources from Congo and shipping them out of the country.
The intentionally created internal conflicts, the proxy wars, the political instability, the stealing of resources, the corruption among Africa’s puppet government officials, the greed among individuals, both foreign and local, and the inability of Africans to unite to use Africa’s natural and human resources for common continental developmental goals are all part of what has made Africa poor.
Another fact to consider is this: the world sees Congo and Africa as its farmland or mine for natural resources and nothing more. So, when they make global policies about global prosperity, Africa is always viewed as a farm or a mine for that global prosperity and not the recipient of the same.
But here is the thing: for a group of different nations to sit and agree that an entire continent is meant to be its mine or farmland or dumping site and to set their faces to systematically oppress, undermine and oppose that continent and keep them subjected to slavery… for their selfish interests… That is pure evil. Having said that, for a people so great in number and strength, with access to such abundant resources and rich in ideas and wisdom, to remain subject to such an atrocious agenda is also evil. The agenda is no longer welcome. Enough is enough.
You may be asking, what are we Africans going to do to stop all foreign agendas and military incursions in Africa? It starts with building sound defense systems that no foreign agenda will want to joke with. You will be a servant under their boots if you cannot defend yourself from nations with great military power. Africa needs to use the uranium it sells to the world to create its defense system. Then she can speak, and the world will listen.
It’s as simple as that. We know for a fact that the only reason why the West cannot play games with a country like North Korea, even though they label its leader a dictator, is because North Korea now has its own nuclear weapons arsenal. No matter how strong you are militarily, you think twice before attempting to control or oppress a nation with a nuclear arsenal. This is the same reason why South Africa’s nuclear arsenal was scrapped when power shifted from White South Africans to Black South Africans. It’s all about power play, and we can see it clearly.
As Africans, the various events going on globally can make us not see or even pay attention to what is going on in Africa, especially in Congo, where people are dying daily from internal conflicts. We must not forget our brothers and sisters in the DRC. The time to act is now.
A few years ago, we shared a video on our YouTube channel titled: The Deliberate Under-development of Africa and What Africans Must Do To Change Things.
The video gives clear clues about how and why Africa is kept poor. You can watch the video with the thumbnail at the end of this article.
Christmas and the festive season are over, the new year has come, and the journey to another December has started. So, as Africans, as we take our steps into 2024 with all our plans and New Year resolutions, can we also put in place plans and resolutions that speak to the various issues hailing Africa, especially Congo? Think about it…please do something about it.
As for us, We Stand for Congo; We Stand for Africa.
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