Letters NCN fears |
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George Dash |
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| An old maxim suggests that
given any amount of details and facts one can by the use of skillful innuendo and
unverifiable statements, dress the truth up to look like anything. In these days of
electronic manipulation, creative editing and so on, black can be made white and vice
versa. The one reality of our high-tech times is that reality is not what it used to be.
Ever since the ADFL government headed by President Kabila came to power NCN has been
trying to fit them into all manner of conspiratorial boxes. If the invaders who now
pillaging the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo needed a propaganda
arm, they could have no better servant than NCN website. Conspiracy theories abound in
your pages, some amusing several slanderous, all skewed against a government that is
besieged by two rogue neighbours who have not garnered any overt support from the rest of
African countries ever since the Congo War began. Over a dozen nations overtly support the
Kabila government, several more have lent their moral and logistical support. Even South
Africa under the leadership of the morally unassailable Mandela is considering throwing
its weight in behind the SADC. No African countries have openly lined up behind Uganda and
Rwanda. You are right in one aspect of your speculations. Uganda is important to the US.
This nation has served as a strategic hub for US penetration into the Continent. As a
result, it is a perfect vehicle to execute destabilization of the region. The US uses
Uganda to listen in on Sudan and Libya and other states that do not toe the line. The end
of the Cold War did not abort the US quest for global hegemony. Ugandan and Rwandans are
trained at US Special Forces schools . The US using its own criteria[ which no one can
question since the US is the sole superpower in the world and intends to maintain that
hegemony] to designate sovereign nations ‘rogue states' which legitimizes any action
covert or overt against these same sovereign countries. As Africans have learnt and still
experience to this day, demonization justifies all manners of actions which would normally
be considered crimes by rational people. To justify the enslavement of Africans for 500
years, European and American whites demonized black people, removing them from the human
family, the better to get away with the atrocities perpetrated against them. The white
South Africans demonized the African, using the Christian Bible, claiming that this book
relegated the African people as "sons of Ham to be hewers of wood and drawers of
water" for whites. Liberation struggles and the defeat of the myth of white
superiority have made such pronouncements today terribly politically incorrect. The
killing of these white tourists is a perfect opportunity to create the hysteria in the
West necessary to facilitate Western intervention which, of course, will be used to remove
the threat of Kabila's nationalism and the inevitable military and economic coalescing of
his allies. The Massacres of 1994 and the ensuing war of attrition by the Interhamwe
remnants is not the responsibility of the Congolese people. No matter the outcome, the
Tutsi overlords will have to reckon with the Hutu majority. No one seems to remember that
since the 1960s Tutsis massacred hundreds of thousands of Hutu to maintain their control.
How long can they hope to maintain their armed grip over the majority of Rwanda and
Burundi's peoples? This Western worship of the graceful ‘Watutsi' ignores their
centuries of despotism in the region. Pinning the blame for their own peoples' righteous
anger on the Democratic Republic of the Congo is a blatant manipulation of the facts. The
tourists are an unfortunate by-product of a war that has not ceased for forty years and an
impartial reckoning would reveal that the Hutu butchered by Tutsi[ who started their
killing as soon as the Belgians left] over this forty year period far outnumber the
400,000 Tutsi killed in 1994. I hold no brief for either Hutu or Tutsi who are after all
two socially disparate elements of a single people. They share the same language and
culture and traditions in a society where a minority elite exercise all the power. What I
resent is the manipulation of the facts. Kagame has skillfully exploited the 1994
Massacres for his own political benefit as he will now exploit the death of these
unfortunate outsiders to evoke Western sympathy and political support. The death of
hundreds of thousands of Rwandans in 1994 and the
ensuing hemorrhage of people and resources in the region did not, nor will not engender as
much press coverage and diligent investigation as the death of these war casualties will
elicit. You imply conspiracy in your articles and editorials. The only conspiracies are
the ones that have been intrigued against the Congo since the Middle Ages. In the 1500s in
a large part of the present-day Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola, there was a
Kingdom of the Kongo. This state was flourishing enough to exchange embassies with the
Vatican and European countries. The young king was naive enough to believe the association
with Europe would bring benefit to his country through trade and technological innovation
and allowed himself to be persuaded to permit Catholic missionaries to proselytize in the
kingdom. The Catholic Church, naturally had other ideas and before long intrigue,
dissension, military oppression from Europe fragmented and destroyed the Kingdom. The next
great disaster to beset Congo was King Leopold of Belgium, who declared the country his
own personal fief and proceeded to extract its wealth by enslaving the population and
using all kinds of atrocities from slavery to mutilation to outright large-scale
executions to force the population to dig the wealth out of the ground. All in the name of
stealing the region's resources. The same game prevails today, the players may have
changed, become more subtle and sophisticated but the game is the same. The wars and
instability in Africa today did not spring up overnight, nor are they a result of African
atavism -they have a long and ugly genesis in European greed for and exploitation of
African resources, both human and mineral and it has not ceased. The ADFL government is
trying valiantly to resist this neo-colonialism so naturally it becomes a threat. Can one
really believe that the Congo rebels are a genuine indigenous movement bent on democracy?
Should they ever come to power [the Ancestors forbid!] you would see how quickly mining
dealers and carpetbaggers will flock to the region to forge lopsided deals. And how come
the "rebels" have been unable after a year to gather any popular support even in
the regions they control? These "rebels" have to daily contest the territory
that they claim they have come to liberate. Even their leaders admit that they are not
making headway in garnering popular support. The stakes are greater for the African people
than the lives of any eight tourists. These dead Westerners have now become the pawns in
this high-stakes game. In 1939 Hitler manufactured an incident to justify his invasion of
Poland. Is it not possible that Rwanda, through the machinations of the devious general
Kagame[ with his gueule de conspirateur!] has sent its own people to commit this atrocity,
conveniently blaming it on the so-called Hutu rebels? After all, which outsider can tell
the difference between Hutu and Tutsi or Ugandan? If the number of Ugandan and Rwandan
troops are so heavy on the ground in that border region, supported by the anti-Kabila
rebels, how is it possible for the Hutu to have infiltrated so successfully even after
they allegedly sent a warning letter to the Ugandan Defense Forces of their intent? In a
region as unstable as that how come the Musuveni and Kagame governments did not have
tighter security at the borders? This is chillingly convenient and suggests a ploy to give
the US the window of opportunity to intervene against the Kabila government. The US is
quite skilled at convoluted arguments when it wants to having its way. The danger is,
though, that if the US intervenes or is seen to intervene, the whole continent will go up
in flames. Rwanda and Uganda are seen as invaders [Rwanda consistently lies about its
motives and involvement in the Congo] and any US alliance carries the seeds with it of
long-term anti-Americanism and the relegation of Uganda and Rwanda to pariah status among
Africans. And given the racial atrocities still committed against African people in
America [ remember the innocent Ahmadu Diallo killed by 41 NYPD bullets and Byrd in
Jasper, Texas dragged to pieces? No words of vengeance and justice from President Clinton
there ] it will be by far the ugliest anti-Americanism ever. The war in Congo is about
nationalism, ultimately as is the one in Angola. Savimbi who never fought the Portugese
during the independence war, but sold his brothers to the enemy, collaborated with
apartheid South Africa and was the darling of right-wing US conservatives is not an
Angolan nationalist and Rwanda and Uganda and the Congo "rebels" are associated
with this war criminal. Rwanda, Uganda, Unita and the Congo "rebels" are
Africa's Gang of Four. Thus the wars in Angola, in Congo and attempts at destabilization
in Zimbabwe and Namibia become ONE war. The governments of Angola, Congo, Zimbabwe and the
other members of the alliance are determined to chart their own fate. Whatever their
faults or shortcomings, they are trying to build sovereign nations in their own way. War
has been thrust upon them to inhibit or cripple their attempts to achieve full
independence. The clamour for Western "democracy" must be viewed with suspicion.
Experience suggests it masks a sinister motive. Where was this cry for democracy when
Mobutu was in power or apartheid whites were killing African schoolchildren? The deaths of
eight tourists will make no difference to this ongoing struggle. Many more will surely
die, perhaps all across the continent caught up the fires of different conflicts if they
chose to put themselves in harm's way, believing foolishly in the inviolability of their
white skin. Are we going to blame Kabila and the SADC for this? Perhaps you had better go
back to 1963 and see if you can find a way to involve Kabila in the death of President
Kennedy. Africa will NOT lose the war being fought to defend the Democratic Republic of
Congo. This is not 1964 when the West precipitated the massacre of 300 whites at what was
then Stanleyville and used the excuse to bring in white mercenaries and European troops to
butcher Africans. Pouring oil on the deaths of these unfortunate tourists and trying to
summon the US Fireman is dangerous. The flames could very well consume you.
George Dash |
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