(Note: Here only that call in English and an intro comment)

7. CONGO: A SPLENDID VICTORY! 18.05.1997 (3)

The issue of 06.11.96 of "Solidaire", weekly paper of the Parti du Travail de Belgique (PTB, Party of the Labour, Belgium), has some interesting background information on the situation in Zaire, in particular concerning the anti-government forces there. I cannot say how reliable it is, and in general, I'd advise caution as far as any judgement by the PTB is concerned.

Anyway, here I shall bring in translation two articles, which at least are informative, from that issue of its paper.

The PTB is a party of "mixed blessings", it appears. It says that it supports the line of Marx and Lenin, but it doesn't advocate Mao Zedong Thought. It maintains that the vile revisionist regime in China is "socialist", that the social-imperialist Soviet Union was so too, and in other respects, it acquieses in some dirty dealings of the US imperialists. It does support some correct things too. This perhaps because it's a comparatively large party, with some 20 contact addresses in Belgium, and thus its leadership cannot offend the masses of members too much.

Among other things, it in early 1995 brought the important El Diario Internacional article "Operation Capitulation" (on Peru etc). - So far a scetchy evaluation by me of the PTB.

The chairman of the PTB is a namesake (no relation) of mine, Ludo Martens, and its paper (in French) has the address:

Solidaire

171 bd Lemonnier

1000 Bruxelles

Belgium

Tel: +32 - 2 - 513 26 66

Fax: +32 - 2 - 513 98 31

E-mail. solidaire@gn.apc.org

Here are some extracts from the 06.11 issue [commments by me, if any, in square brackets]:

[Interesting above all are two articles on p. 9 by Tony Busselen, accompanied also by a photo of Laurent Kabila, leader of the Zairean "rebels". I'll reproduce both in full. Here's the first:]

ZAIRE: NEO-COLONIALISM TREMBLES IN ITS BASES

*The Muelists are directing the democratic revolution against Mobutu*

The guerilla groups of the "Alliance des forces démocratiques pour la libération du Congo-Zaïre" (AFDL) have liberated Bukavu and Goma. Laurent Kabila, the leader of the AFDL, intends to march also to Kinshasa in order to bring down the corrupt and illegal government of Mobutu. The racist myth which presents events as a clan struggle between hutus and tutsis is being shattered...

The AFDL is an alliance between four Zairean organizations. The main one of these is the Parti de la Révolution Populaire (PRP) of Laurent Kabila (see photo). The PRP is associated with three other groups of resistance.

These are, firstly, L'Alliance démocratique des peuples, created in late 1995, after a year of ethnic persecutions perpetrated by the Zairean government and the hutu militias; it's an organization for self-defence of the Banyarwanda and the Banyamulenge in northern and southern Kivu.

There is, secondly, the Mouvement Révolutionaire pour la Libération du Zaïre, created in 1994 by Masasu Nindaga, in the Bukavu region.

Finally there's the Conseil National de la Résistance, created in 1993 by André Kisase Ngandu in the province, quite nearby, of Kasai. (Article's Source Note 1: La Libre Belgique, 24.October)

After Bukavu and Goma were taken by the AFDL, the myth of the racist war between hutus and tutsis has been shattered completely. Laurent Kabila, who isn't even tutsi himself, is leading a coalition of different Zairean groups. He has declared that it is not a question of an ethnic war.

After Uvira had been taken, he called on the thousands of people present to overthrow Mobutu's regime. "We must throw it on to history's scrap heap. This is your movement, a movement against tyranny and corruption." (Note 2: NRC Handelsblad, 1 November)

Several eyewitnesses have noted a striking difference between the behaviour of the looting and murdering soldiers of the Zairean army and the fascist militias, on the one hand, and that of the rebels, on the other.

The Retuters photographer, Corinne Dufka, was present during the liberation of Bukavu. She reports: "In contrast to the Zairean soldiers, the rebels politely explain the reason for their presence and are calling on the citizens to stay instead of fleeing." (Note 3: De Morgen, 3 Novemeber)

The correspondent of the International Herald Tribune reports: "Many hutu refugees say that the rebels are behaving in a very disciplined and honest manner. They have given them food and shelter. It is the Zairean army that has looted and maltreated them." (Note 4: International Herald Tribune, 1 November)

*Imperialism and Zairean big bourgeoisie in panic*

>From the capital Kinshasa, 1600 km away from Kivu, Colette Braeckman writes: "The war in Kivu is on its way towards making all the contradictions of Zaire explode, and the criminal behaviour of the army is only one reflection of the general malady. This is why the political class, with all tendencies mixed in, is now trying to channel the enormous discontent of the people into a patriotic unanimity, in order to make the wave of the accumulated frustrations break in nationalism." (Note 5: Le Soir, 2 November)

In fact the regime of Mobutu, rotten to the marrow, is capable of anything. The collapse of the necolonial Zairean state is causing panic in particular in certain parts of the European bourgeoisie. Thus the French daily *Le Monde* wrote, after the fall of Goma, that a military intervention was being prepared, with the participation of Belgian and French troops. (Note 6: Le Monde, 2 November)

These troops would get, it was said, the mission to protect humanitarian corridors. Leo Tindemans, quite moved, urged on the BRT radio that the government should put itself behind this plan. The real objective of the advocates of such an intervention is to save the Zairean state, necolonial and illegal, and to nip the democratic revolution in its bud. But such an operation would no doubt mean the beginning of a protracted revolutionary war of liberation.

[So far the first article, out of two, by Tony Busselen in "Solidaire", Belgium, 06.11.96 - translation from the French by me]

[Here I bring in translation the second article by Tony Busselen:]

BACKWARD TRIBALISM IS BEING INCITED BY THE COLONIALISTS

*The analysis by Laurent Kabila, who fought together with Che in the Zairean Resistance*

Laurent Kabila was, together with the now deceased Pierre Mulele, Vice-President of the Supreme Council of the Revolution, the leading organ of the Congolese revolution in the 1960:s (Note 1: Mulele ou la seconde vie de Patrice Lumumba /Mulele or the Second Life of Patrice Lumumba/, by Ludo Martens, 1988, EPO, p. 327)

Kabila at that time led the Muleleist revolution in eastern Zaire. Che Guevara during four months fought at his side. After the Belgian troops had crushed the Congolese revolution, he [Kabila] founded the PRP in 1967 and took stock of what lessons were to be learned from that defeat. For thirty years, Kabila has been active inside Zaire to prepare for the political overthrow of the neo-colonial regime of Mobutu.

In 1980, the Belgian journalist Philippe Borel walked 600 km on foot through southern Kivu, where 80,000 people lived in a territory controlled by Kabila's PRP. Borel then wrote: "Despite its operating in a relatively small territory, the PRP has a good chance of creating the basis for a political and military resistance of the people which might eventually win power in the entire Zaire." (Note 2: Press conference of the Comité Zaïre, 1 December 1980)

Laurent Kabila was one of the foreign guests present at the founding congress of the Partie du Travail de Belgique in 1979.

[!? - In another article in the same issue, there is mentioned "the experience of the PTB since 1970". It may be that the organization, or part of it, existed under another name before 1979.] In his speech in Brussels, he called on all anti-Mobutu forces to co-operate.

We are publishing below an analysis of ethnicism made by Kabila in 1973. It still has actuality.

"Tribalism is not the wish for independence, nor is it the demand for the autonomy or self-determination of a particular tribe. It is instead one of those forms which the backward and conservative forces, not traditional but capitalist ones, are using in order to resist those changes which are threatening to take their privileges away. It thus is a scarecrow being put up by this exploiting class, a manifestation of the combats it engages in in order to perpetuate its social order."

"Tribalism is essentially a backwards-struggle in which the neo-colonialists are engaging in those states which are considered as neo-colonies. In wanting to present tribalism as the supreme evil which is plaguing the societies of the independent African states, imperialism and their servants are consciously distorting the problem in order to camouflage those attacks which they are mounting in Africa, justify their pillaging of the young states. The tribalist chief has never been a traditionalist chief, but was always someone politically appointed by neo-colonialism."

"The evil of tribalism is nothing else than the state of mind of the noveaux riches, the bourgeois of all sorts and the measures of the wormy politicians naturally trying to favour the elements of their tribes, those of their clans, those of their families.

It thus is a sentiment which one disseminates by intrigues in a tribal group. By this false legitimity with which an impostor surrounds himself, playing at a supposed liberator or defender of the general interest of the entity, they are manipulating and achieving a cohesion, a torrent of blind passion... It is attempted to disperse the national consiousness in order to partition off from each other those enormous forces which are rising everywhere in the country against the mechanisms of oppression and pauperisation."

"Tribalism can only succeed under two conditions: The first is lack of culture, the second is absence of general information and of maturity. The ways in which it appears are the most un-enligthening: hate, quarrels, jealousy, sorcery, savagery. In order to augment the mysification, petty-bourgeois intellectuals are advocating the idea that autonomy - in the contemporary european sense - of the tribe-nation is a first step towards all revolution of the people." (Note 3: La révolution des masses dans le milieu rural. Fondement du pouvoir populaire /The Revolution of the Masses in the Rural Environment. Foundation of Power of the People/, pp. 35-36)

[So far the second article by Tony Busselen in "solidaire", Belgium, 06.11.96]

2. ZAIRE: NEWSPAPER REPORTS AND AN ATTEMPT AT ANALYSIS 01.12.1996

There has been a discussion on this list {the then existing Marxism-General mailing list managed by the Spoon Collective - Rm, '98} on whether the rebel forces in eastern Zaire in reality, in part at least, represent US imperialist interests. The information so far seems to me to confirm my contention that they do not - although there are also reports indicating that the US government, as one of several strategies it's working on simultaneously perhaps, is seeking to make them its tool.

In this posting I'll quote, below, some statements in recent issues of (openly-)bourgeois newspapers, and in another, some statements in the 20.11 issue of "Solidaire" (PTB, Belgium).

Concerning the different statements on whether there still are hundreds of thousands of Rwandan and Zairean refugees in the woods in eastern Zaire, in a desperate situation and needing help, I cannot make out what is the truth. All things considered, I'm more inclined to believe what the Zairean rebels and the Rwandian government are saying, that there are not so many.

But there also is a disquieting report of a massacre of civilian hutus on the part of some of those rebel forces, which consist of four different organizations joined in an alliance.

"Revenge actions" on "ethnic" grounds would be most damaging to the interests of the peoples of course. If such a thing were typical for the four-organization alliance, that alliance would absolutely have to be condemned. I judge it, on the basis on the information so far, *not* to be typical.

Thus I still hold: The "Alliance des forces démocratiques pour la libération du Congo-Zaïre" (AFDL) led by Laurent Kabila should be supported.

As reported in one of the 06.11 articles of "solidaire" which I posted in translation on 16.11, and as also reported by "Class Struggle", who advocates only a critical support of the AFDL, with simultaneous independent worker-peasant organising, that alliance consists of:

the Parti de la Révolution Populaire (PRP) of Laurent Kabila (which has been fighting the Zairean government for decades), L'Alliance démocratique des peuples (an organization for self-defence of the Banyarwanda and the Banyamulenge in northern and southern Kivu), the Mouvement Révolutionaire pour la Libération du Zaïre (created in 1994 by Masasu Nindaga, in the Bukavu region), and the the Conseil National de la Résistance (created in 1993 by André Kisase Ngandu in the province, quite nearby, of Kasai).

According to today's Sydsvenskan (Malmoe, Sweden), some people are saying that the Zairean government (of Mobutu) would probably want and support that outside intervention which still is being discussed, since this "might neutralize the rebel forces".

And the insurrectionists themselves, for the same reason, are against intervention.

Kabila yesterday (Sat.) said that no more than five foreign soldiers would be allowed in, to guide air drops of supplies.

He opposed unguided "food bombing" since this "would only feed the enemy". "Only if we get information of some larger group of refugees will we allow food bombing, but on the whole this is a bad idea."

As others too have reported, it was after the insurrectionists' victorious offensive in October that the refugees from Rwanda got the possibility of returning home. (Which of course speaks strongly in favour of the AFDL forces.)

On 27.11, another Swedish daily, Svenska Dagbladet, carried a report from correspondents near Goma about a massacre of some 300 civilian hutu refugees that took place on 17.11 and was perpetrated by "Banyamulenge soldiers", according to a surviving eyewitness, a female teacher, who said that men, women and children were lined up and then simply fired on. It would be in the interest of various bourgeois forces to fake such reports, but this one to me appears genuine. The survivor blamed Kabila.

In my judgement, the PRP forces of Kabila himself, at least, would be unlikely to perpetrate such a crime. They are likely to have a rather high political consciousness. If the report is true, perhaps some of the "Banamulenge self-defence" forces are the guilty party. There was also another report, by a UN aid organization, of a similar massacre, or perhaps the same. The possibility that to a greater or lesser extent, reactionary "ethnic warfare", of the "ex-Yugoslavian" model, is taking place in Zaire cannot be discounted. But as I wrote above, I don't think

that this is what in the main is taking place.

3. ZAIRE: RECENT INTERVIEW BY LUDO MARTENS, PTB 03.03.1997

[Here are, in translation by me, some excerpts of an interview with Ludo Martens, chairman of the Parti du Travaille de Belgique (PTB) - and, btw, no relation of mine -, which appeared (excerpts, not the full interview) in the 19.02.97 issue of that party's weekly (in French), "Solidaire".]

[On important points, I don't agree at all with the views of the PTB, which i.a. states that the present revisionist and in fact fascist regime in China is a "socialist" one, but concerning the present situation in Zaire, I basically agree with my namesake, and have made propaganda in this direction since last November.]

[I'm bringing the below as further argumentation why the AFDL in Congo/Zaire absolutely should be *supported*, which some other subscribers to this list have recently once once more, wrongly, argued against. In Nov '96 and also later, I posted some other IMO good things on this subject from "Solidaire" to this list. - RM]

LUDO MARTENS: FROM MULELE TO KABILA

- "The revolutionaries must act when the reactionaries are divided" -

Ludo Martens, the author of "Pierre Muluele ou la seconde vie de Patrice Lumumba" ["Pierrre Muluele and the Second Life of Patrice Lumumba"] and chairman of the PTB, compares the revolutionary experience in the '60:s and the present situation in eastern Zaire. Here are some extracts of an interview:

(Note: The complete interview will appear in the next issue of "Solidarité Internationale". To order it or to order a copy only of the interview, you can contact the secretariat of the LAI [Ligue Anti-Impérialiste]. Phone: [+32] - 2 - 513 53 86.)

*What is the importance of the experience of Mulele for the struggle of today?*

Ludo Martens:

Even at that time, there were two lines: that of Mulele and that of those who were conducting the armed struggle with the only aim of chasing away Adoula, Tshombé or Mobutu in order to take their place. That's the line that was followed by Kanza, Gbenye and Soumialot Mandungu. Since they didn't have any other perspective, those three "leaders" of the revolution in the East, when seeing that the revolution had been defeated, said that they could do nothing else than join Mobutu and the Western camp.

Only the road taken by Mulele could change the system itself. Only he had a quite clear ideology and applied it to the situation in the Congo. He politicized and organised the masses, created a vanguard party and waged a protracted people's war.

The others only waged armed struggle in order to get as quickly as possible into Kinshasa and reconcile themselves with those who, for various reasons, were opposed to Mobutu. Despite the Lumumbist verbiage, their project was to take Mobutu's place and...to do the same as he. Those two roads you can see appear again in the present movement in the East.

*What will Kabila do?*

Ludo Martens:

Kabila and the people of his entourage, could they come to repeat that which Gbenye or Mandungu said and did at that time?

There are fo far only few elements that bear evidence of a real will to build a revolutionary project, to organise, to politicize the masses, to accept the perspective of a protracted people's war in order to found the basis for a fundamentally different system.

There exists a tendency to wage the war and the armed struggle with the aim of knitting together, as quickly as possible, an alliance with Tshisekedi and other candidates for power. That's Gbeny's orientation. One cannot say anything yet and one shouldn't make a too hasty judgement, but it's necessary to know history and keep in mind different hypotheses. It would be a haughty and petty-bourgeois attitude to say: "I'm not certain, therefore I shall stay aside and not particiate."

A Congolean who's revolutionary must be with the masses. He must be with Kabila and the Alliance [the AFDL]. He must prove that he's closer to the masses, that he understands them better, that he can educate them better than those who will make halt at a certain moment.

It's necessary to gain the confidence of the masses and to go further, in a movement that's to be really revolutionary, that is, that would destroy the very basis for the imperialist power and for the Zairian big bourgeoisie.

*Some people are presenting the war in Africa as a game of chess between the American and the French imperialisms. The peoples of the region would be nothing but dupes in this war, and one should thus neither support the Rwandan government nor the Alliance, since this would mean supporting the American imperia-

lism, according to them.*

Ludo Martens:

I judge this standpoint to be entirely wrong. One must first of all correctly define the central problem of the region. In eastern Congo, that's the presence of the Rwandan fascists, who are murderers such as have been rarely seen in history, braced up by the fascist Mobutu, who likewise is a murder of a kind rarely known in Central Africa.

Every Congolese revolutionary, whichever language he speaks, has the task of getting rid of those two burdens which are lying heavily on the people. It's necessary to contribute towards destroying the war machine of the Rwandan fascists and that anti-people war machine which is Mobutu's army.

For this, a revolutionary project is necessary: how to build a revolutionary power of the people? It's on this basis that the Congolese revolutionaries must work and must judge people. The revolutionaries must act when the reactionaries are divided and weakened, and create the basis for a people's power and army.

It's true that the Americans are there and that they have their strategy. But he who doesn't struggle against the main enemy today and who doesn't have any revolutionary project, how could he struggle against the Americans?

[So far the interview excerpts in "solidaire", Belgium, 19.02.97]

4. CONGO: PEOPLE WINS! US GOVT., TROT ETC MUPPETS LOSE! 24.03.1997

To the subject line I should perhaps add: "So far, at least".

I'm sending this to some newsgroups too, in addition to the Marxism-General mailing list managed by the Spoon Collective.

On the latter, a debate on the situation in, and recent history of, Rwanda and Zaire / the Congo has been going on and off since last November, between above all Angie, <uls@msn.com> - to whom

I'm grateful for her pointing to the importance of that topic in the first place and for forwarding quite a number of reports and articles on it, and arguing "her" case in a materialistic manner - on the one hand and myself, who knew very little on the subject initially but who've had access to some additional, Belgian, French etc sources which I've studied and quoted from to that list, on the other.

WHAT DID WE DEBATE?

They main question we debated came to be: Does the AFDL (or AFDLCZ) - the Alliance des Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Congo/Zaïre, led by Laurent Kabila, aka "the rebels in eastern Zaire" - basically represent the interests of the people of the Congo? Since last November, I've more or less consistently argued that the answer to that must be YES, and have urged that these forces be *supported* internationally, while at the same time recognizing that it's still an open question in which direction they will develop, and not forgetting, I hope, the considerable difficulty there is of course for us "outsiders" of seeing through the whole situation in that country and that region.

The theory behind the "NO" to that question, argued both by Angie and by several other people I think are sincere such as Karl Carlile, has been the one saying that "behind the rebels" there in reality all along "has stood US imperialism", the main imperialist force in the world, which has been "playing a double game", "indirectly supporting the AFDL" because of an interest which it has of "replacing" (the of course much weaker) French etc imperialists as "main force of influence" in the Congo/Zaire.

Reports, in US etc media, of "foreign troops" intervening on the side of the rebels, this supposedly "explaining" their military successes - and, as it happens, making the fighting a case not of a just insurrection against a reactionary regime but, if true, one of an assault on the territorial integrity of a country - have made up one part of the basis for this theory. At least formerly, up until a week ago or so, these media were constantly talking about such troops "from Rwanda", "from Uganda", "from Burundi" and, more recently, also "from Angola" - all countries which in fact, it seems, i.a. have held thousands of exiles from Mobutu's Zaire.

And here the role of a whole number of phoney"left", phoney- "Marxist" publications and "experts" comes in, all chiming in with the openly-reactionary media in maintaining that, yes, there was such intervention in favour of, or at least an important influence on, the AFDL on the part of the Rwandan, Ugandan etc governments, and describing these governments as, basically, "obedient tools of the US imperialists", whose "tool", then, the AFDL in fact had "long been" too - these last-mentioned purported "facts" making up the rest of the basis for the "pest-or-cholera" theory concerning the present civil war in the Congo, the one saying that there was, and is, "NO" reason for people elsewhere to support the AFDL.

WHY HAS NOBODY EXCEPT ME ON THIS LIST SO FAR SUPPORTED "THE REBELS"?

It obviously has been not least the "weight" of those reciprocally agreeing "analyses" in all those phoney"Marxist" and above all Trotskyite publications, such as the "Militant" and, lately, for instance, one called the "Workers' Voice", Detroit, that has influenced Angie and, I imagine, quite a lot of other people into thinking that "none of the sides in that war deserves our support".

And Angie herself recently put her thinking this in part down to a doubt that the people of the third world, those obviously quite destitute masses of people in backward, economically even declining Central Africa, for instance, would ever "be allowed" by the US and other imperialists, armed to their teeth, really to get out of their grip on these countries. An understandable idea, but all wrong!

"Imperialism is a paper tiger", is a famous and very correct saying by Mao Zedong. Experience shows it!

To maintain in people's heads the idea that this isn't so, that's what the imperialists have all their ("own") media for.

That's what they have their Trotskyite (*etc*) muppet organizations for too.

(By this I *don't* intend to say that all who today regard themselves as Trotskyites are basically insincere or stupid. There are some explicable reasons why this in reality bourgeois ideological trend, for instance, continues to have some adherents in several countries.)

LOOK WHAT'S HAPPENING IN THE CONGO / ZAIRE JUST NOW! LOOK HOW VARIOUS FORCES ARE REACTING TO IT!

Then you'll see, I think, the correctness of what I wrote in the second-last paragraph above.

What do you say, Angie and others?

Doesn't the situation look quite favourable to the people? Of course, much may still happen either way. I don't want to advocate "selling the fleece before the bear has been shot". But recent events, as all know, have been that Kisangani (among whose population, one Swedish reporter wrote, some at least would prefer renaming it "Stanleyville" again, since the Mobutuist /etc/ "Kisangani" "has no real basis in history", they say) was liberated a week ago (Sat. 15.03), a crowd of some 15,000 people most joyously greeting Kabila, when he later arrived in that city, and massively answering the US imperialists' miserable - and revealing - "ceasefire" proposal with: "No! We want the whole country to be liberated!" Recent reports also show that most people in the capital Kinshasa too want the corrupt and reactionary government of Mobutu out and the AFDL in.

HOW HAVE THE US IMPERIALISTS REACTED?

On 16.03, I sent a brief posting to the M-G list, headed: "Kisangani liberated! Now what will US media say?" I thought that a look at this might now be quite informative, to many.

Would there be comments reflecting a secret rejoicing, at this success of " that in reality US muppet" the AFDL? Wouldn't there in fact, on the contrary, be visible at least a little bit of

*foaming at the mouths* of the US imperialists, of rage at that quite important *setback* which they had now suffered?

No "rejoicing" at all, but some very clear and heartening "foaming" there was. For those who haven't seen it already, I shall quote some passages from a CNN report on Mo 17.03 - to be found on <http://www.cnn.com> - on a press briefing held that day by US State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns.

The CNN:s headline at once sets the tenor: "U.S. troubled" [sob!] "by reports of aid to Zaire rebels". No joy here! - Well, perhaps, in view of what recent events have shown even more clearly, there isn't much need for me to bring any details on this, but I shall bring some anyway - they're still instructive.

'WASHINGTON (Reuter) - The United States is troubled [once] by reports that rebels in Zaire are getting help and weapons from the governments of neighboring Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda and Angola...'

'"This is an extremely troubling [twice] development ... that Zaire is threatened [sob!] on all sides," State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said at a briefing. "The territorial integrity [just think of it!] of Zaire, its sovereignty [you see], is terribly important for stability [a codeword probably nobody knows we use for "oppression and exploitation"!] through-out Central Africa," he said.' [Foam!]

'"We're still concerned [a variation on "troubled"] by the flood[!] of reports that there is assistance flowing to the rebels by the government in.......' [Floods of tears! Foam!]

'Burns' comments followed the rebel takeover Saturday of Zaire's third largest city, Kisangani. The central government based at Kinshasa told its citizens not to panic[!] despite the military defeat.' [That's a good one too: When "your" people are *rejoicing*, tell them "not to panic".]

'Burns reiterated U.S. calls for a cease-fire...' ["time out", when you're losing, that figures] 'but also said: "The fall of Kisangani over the weekend is an extremely troubling [third time, and now with feeling] indicator of instability [i.e. the opposite of "stability", see above] in Zaire."'

In brief, the US imperialists are "hopping mad".

Now what has later happened to those "foreign troops" about which there was such a "flood" of reports? In later CNN reports, there's nothing about them at all; they seem somehow to have vanished. This perhaps is because none of those reporters from a large number of other countries who have since arrived in liberated Kisangani have had anything to say about such troops.

US TROOPS, WARSHIPS RECENTLY DEPLOYED NEAR THE CONGO TO PREPARE FOR "EVACUATION" ETC

The reports on this development, in the last few days, probably are known to most readers of this.

For instance, CNN Fri 21.03: '"Several hundred" U.S. troops are being sent to Africa for the possible evacuation of Americans from strife-torn [sob!] Zaire, the Pentagon said Friday.'

'...the amphibious assault ships U.S.S. Nassau and U.S.S. Pensacola have been "released" from the evacuation operation in Albania and will move from the Adriatic to the western Mediterranean Sea, closer to Africa.'

'The two ships carry a force of 1,500 Marines as well as helicopters that could be used to transport civilians. In addition to transport helicopters, the ships bring wih them AH-1 Super Cobra attack helicopters and AV-8H Harrier "jump jets".'

'Earlier Friday, Defense Secretary said the Zairian situation was being given a day-by-day and hour-by-hour assessment.'

And this already is rather old "news". It's quite clear that the AFDL, which has the most massive and entusiastic popular support, *by no means* is any US imperialist puppet - not that there isn't always a risk that eventually, it might be transformed into one, since those imperialists are always backing more than one horse in any given situation and always strive to work "from within" no less than "from the outside" - but is today a force which US imperialism hates and fears, and is preparing to oppose perhaps directly with military means too.

So, once more:

SUPPORT KABILA'S AFDL IN THE CONGO / ZAIRE! and:

OPPOSE US IMPERIALIST INTERVENTION IN THE CONGO!

5. CONGO: DOWN WITH US ETC NEO-COLONIALIST MILITARY THREAT! 17.04.1997

In the latest issue of "Solidaire", weekly of the PTB, Belgium - it's dated 09.04 and I got my copy yesterday - a statement by AFDL liberation army leader Kabila which I haven't seen else-where is reported.

The paper notes the well-known fact that since the liberation in mid-March of Kisangani (ex-Stanleyville), there has been a considerable deployment of US and other foreign troops near the borders of Congo(-Kinshasa). To neigbouring Congo-Brazzaville, 600 US troops have been sent, and 300 from France, which also has 600 more in another neighbouring country, Gabon. From Belgium, 550 paratroopers have been sent. Smaller British and Portugese units are giving logistic support.

Further, the article by Tony Busselen and Dirk Van Duppen says, the USS Nassau has anchored off the harbour Pointe-Noire.

(They're calling that vessel an "aircraft carrier", but though it does look like one it of course is a considerably smaller ship than the 80-100,000 ton US carriers. A presence of any of those there so far has not been any talk of. The Nassau is a 33,000 ton amphibious assault ship with 1400 Marines in addition to Harrier "jump jets" /vertical take-off and landing/ and Super Cobra attack helicopters.)

The objective of the sending of these armed forces, the article - no doubt correctly - says, is to defend "Western" (imperialist) interests and if possible to prevent Congo from liberating itself completely from the Mobutu regime.

[Meanwhile, of course, even the US imperialists have openly called for Mobutu to step down. It seems to me that they now, in order to have a counter-force to those of Kabila, which they of course are doing what they can to subvert, are putting some of their money on ex-premier Tshesekedi and some others in Kinshasa, who arranged the general strike there starting last Monday.]

Anyway, the IMO most important part of the "Solidaire" article is a quoted statement by Kabila, reproduced from "Le Peuple" (a paper unknown to me) of 26.03. It reads (in my translation from the French):

"The sending of foreign troops to the borders of our territory is a threat to peace, to the territorial integrity. Some people have ambitions which we don't know but which we can imagine: the occupation of Kinshasa in order to exert blackmail in the old fashion. These are intimidations of the neo-colonial type which we must smash. We must continue to advance in order to liberate our people, whatever might be the nature of the pressure on the part of those who think they have the mission of regimenting the world."

[So far the quote in "Solidaire"]

Quite right! And its clear who he's talking about.

We in other countries must demand too, that this neo-colonialist military pressure is put an end to.

US and other imperialist military forces go home, away from the borders of Congo/Zaire!

6. UNITE! INFO #32EN/FR: CALL BY COMMITTEE OF AFRICAN WOMEN 25.04.1997

(Note: Here only that call in English and an intro comment)

ENGLISH:

INTRO NOTE:

Below is reproduced, in my translation, a Call which appeared in issue No. 16-17/1997, 16 April 1997, of the French-language "Solidaire", weekly of the Parti du Travail de Belgique (PTB; <wpb@wpb.be>; homepage in English <http://www.wpb.be>). This statement poses some demands that merit the broadest international support, and contains an IMO excellent basic analysis of the present situation. - RM

CALL BY THE COMMITTEE OF AFRICAN WOMEN

We demand that the armed forces that are constantly being augmented around the border of Zaire be withdrawn instantly from Africa.

We demand of the Western media that their coverage of the tragedies taking place in Africa be conducted with the greatest respect for the dignity of the African populations.

We note that when a catastrophe takes place in Europe, we are shown bodies that are covered up. We note that those news stories about Africa are being broadcast with a purpose: every time that we are shown those pictures of Africans, there follows a military intervention called 'humanitarian'. An intervention that serves to maintain some decadent regime or other in its place.

To the widows and the mothers of the Belgian and Western paratroopers who see their husbands and their sons leave for Africa in order to defend the interests of certain people: Let us react in order not to relive the same tragedies.

We call on the Belgian and Western populations to support our struggle, since we are all victims of the same mechanisms of domination and exclusion.

We are living in the beginning of a new era.

The Africans have decided to take their destiny into their own hands and we, women, don't let us leave in peace those who are trying to prevent this!

Committee of African Women, Brussels,

10 April 1997

7. CONGO: A SPLENDID VICTORY! 18.05.1997

So now it's confirmed: Practically the whole of Kinshasa, and thus the whole country, has been liberated, and the last part has been with very little bloodshed. Only at a certain military camp are some units of the old "presidential guard" putting up a last-ditch resistance; no doubt it will be broken soon.

The founding of the Democratic Republic of Congo has been announced. Congratulations!

It was fun to watch the huffing and puffing and grumping on the news broadcasts just now, at 00.00 hours GMT, by the news services of some of the imperialists. One speaker even still was calling the AFDL "the rebels" - the news hadn't yet sunk in properly there. A very positive thing, this development in the Congo, for the entire international situation.

8. "DEMO(BUTU)CRACY WE WANT!", SAY US, FRANCE 31.05.1997

Last week, there were consultations by two imperialist powers, one very big and one smaller, the USA and France, on a third country, Congo (ex-Zaire). Their leaders were quite in agreement, a communique said: They were both and jointly going to "work towards" their "being instituted democracy" in that third country.

How thoughtful of them!

And how can it be that they've hit on that great idea precisely now? Up until some seven months ago, there had been no consultations by those powers, for instance, on any such theme.

The reason is no big secret of course. The difference is that today, the former regime in ex-Zaire has been toppled by a popular uprising led by Laurent Kabila's AFDL. It was precisely that regime which they themselves, the USA and France, and some other allies (and semi-competitors) of theirs had put into power in the first place and then massively supported, against the people, for more than 30 years, as long as that was at all possible, the more and more "kleptocratic", disastrous regime of Mobutu.

So, judging by the past record with respect to Congo of those now consulting with each other, brazenly stating it as their intention to continue interfering concerning the social order in that country, what kind of regime is it that they now want there and are calling, distinguishing it from the present one, "democracy"?

It's another Mobutu regime that they want, obviously.

And so, at the same time as their leaders had their talk on this, they're organising - or at least helping organise - demonstrations in Kinshasa. Well, this they haven't said in public, and these demonstrations may well in part be caused by some genuinely popular grievances too, in that country with so many different ethnic etc groups and so many problems left over from the former, catastrophic, regime, but everyone but the very most naive must clearly see the hands of the imperialists to be involved in this.

Take the picture of a Kinshasa placard covering half the front page of one of the US and generally superpower muppet dailies published here in Malmö, Sweden, the Arbetet Nyheterna, last Thursday, 29.05, for instance. Whenever did you see that paper or a similar one here featuring, on any occasion whatsoever, and with as much as a tenth of that present space devoted to it, what some "people in the streets" of some city or other in a country in distant Africa were saying?

But here we could read, in 20-mm-high letters in that Swedish paper, the placard's text in French: "PEUPLE CONGOLAIS ATTENTION! DESIRE KABILA EGAL DESIRE MOBUTU." ("Watch out, Congolese people! Desiré Kabila equals Desiré Mobutu." - It "cautiously" didn't say "Zairian people" either.)

Where has this placard's "theory" - which by no means is true, of course, which events so far at least precisely contradict - been seen or heard before?

Actually, repeatedly since last November, on the Marxism-General mailing list managed by the Spoon Collective, a discussion forum which is one of the places to which I intend to post this. There was "no reason" for people abroad to support the uprising against the Mobutu regime, this theory maintained, since the AFDL led by Kabila was "basically of the same sort as Mobutu anyway". Some of those embracing it may well have been sincere and well-intentioned too.

But clearly, as I for instance repeatedly have pointed out and have brought information to support, this "theory" precisely *emanated and emanates from the imperialists and their muppets*.

When recently in Congo, the new government has put a temporary ban on political activity in the capital, as reported in the media, is this justified or not?

In my opinion, considering the abovementioned facts, it may well be entirely justified. On the basis of the information received here in Sweden at least, there is no reason to criticize it.

Governments actually representing the majority of people have done similar things before, and with good reason. South African president Nelson Mandela, for instance, in this case has expressed his understanding of this action, saying that in his judgement, the AFDL so far has been acting democratically in those areas which have already for some time been under its rule.

Friends abroad of the Congolese people should watch further developments, with open eyes and minds, in order to see whether the actions of the AFDL government should be opposed or supported. So far, that governemt to me absolutely seems to be a considerable improvement over the former in Congo (ex-Zaire). Recent developments in that country, the victory of the people's insurrection in only some seven months, most definitely are a very hopeful fact concerning the entire present international situation.

9. IN SUPPORT OF THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO 31.05.1998

Intro Note: This leaflet is published on the occasion of "Africa Day" in Malmö, Sweden.

In late 1996, the people of the then Zaire rose up in armed revolt against the reactionary regime of Mobutu. The insurrection was organized by the AFDL led by Laurent Kabila. After it had scored important successes, the foreign powers profiting from Mobutu's regime, in particular the USA, threatened armed intervention, for so-called "humanitarian" reasons. Here is a Call for support against that threat, from April 1997:

Call for Support of the People of Congo/Zaire, April 1997

{See reproduced posting No. 6 above, Call by Committee of African Women, Brussels, Belgium, 10 April 1997.}

*Proposing a Committee in Sweden to Support the Democratic Republic of Congo*

The above Call appeared in issue No. 16-17/1997, 16 April 1997, of the French-language "Solidaire", weekly of the Parti du Travail de Belgique (PTB; address: Bd M. Lemonnier 171, 1000 Bruxelles, Belgium; tel: +32 - 2 - 513.66.26; e-mail: <wpb@wpb.be>). It was reproduced by me (address, see below) in French and in English in an Internet posting, 25.04.1997.