The rot of the neocolonial government and its traitors in Congo is so deep that nothing short of the complete liberation and unification of Africa under the leadership of the African working class can change the situation for our people there.
On March 10 the first case of Coronavirus appeared in the country. As of April 8 we have 207 cases with 20 deaths.
Outside Kinshasa, the capital with a population of 10 million, provinces in the north and south Kwilu, along with north and south Kivu and Ituri also have cases of Coronavirus.
The COVID-19 virus arrived in Congo even as the country is still struggling with the tail end of the most recent U.S. instigated, 20-month long Ebola epidemic scheduled to be officially ended on April 12. Ebola killed 2,200 Africans in Congo out of the 3,400 people who were sickened.
We call these illnesses the colonial viruses! They are not a medical problem. They are a political problem because African people do not have control over what happens to us, our African Nation, our stolen labor and our trillions of dollars of stolen resources that belong to us.
There is no way a moribund neocolonial government in the service of U.S. imperialism could combat the colonial Coronavirus, Ebola or any other colonial terror waged against African people, including the decades-long U.S. backed war stealing people’s precious resources which according to reports kills over 45,000 people a month!
The State and government in Congo exists only for the repression of the people who resist, as well as for plundering public funds and facilitating the looting of the country by foreign powers.
The national budget of Congo has nothing to do with the needs and aspirations of development of the people.
It is more like an ATM machine for the ruling class with State power using our stolen labor and resources to make them rich.
Congo under near permanent war status under neocolonialism
Congo has been put on Level 3 emergency status by the U.S. controlled United Nations, the highest crisis point. This is the same status that has been imposed on Yemen, Syria, Iraq and other countries under direct U.S. sanctions and bombing.
The vast majority of our people in Congo live in subhuman conditions even though the wealth of this part of Africa is so great that the U.S. estimates that there is still 24 trillion dollars worth of resources buried under the ground.
The U.S. imposed war in 1996 to overthrow the regime of Mobutu, the brutal neocolonial thug that imperialism backed in 1959 to replace our African hero, Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, following his brutal assassination by the U.S. and other imperialist powers.
In 1998 the U.S. backed the vicious Paul Kagame and Yoweri Museveni and their U.S. proxy armies in Congo. This is the political arrangement that created the current political class that has deepened the colonial conditions in the lives of African people.
Let’s examine the 2020 national budget for FC (Congolese Franc) 18.545 trillion ($10.845 billion in U.S. dollars) as presented in the Congo National Assembly. By February, this budget was corrected and reduced to $7bn. Would the government of President Tshisekedi be able to raise enough funds to meet this budget? That is another question.
Now it’s Tshisekedi and Kamerhe’s turn to steal without restrictions
In the power sharing deal between former president Joseph Kabila and Tshisekedi, it’s Tshisekedi that is playing catch up in terms of enriching himself.
According to the Bloomberg website, Kabila and his sisters and brothers are richer than the entire population of Congo. They control a network of about 70 companies. Joseph Kabila’s fortune is estimated to be $15 billion.
One thing that is certain, it’s time for Felix Tshisekedi and his chief of staff, Vital Kamerhe, to lead their cronies to the “ATM for new rulers” where they can fill up their pockets and stomachs as fast as possible.
Kamerhe was arrested on April 8 on charges of graft.
According to the news site Jeune Afrique, one of the leading petty bourgeois magazines across Africa:
“As of May 31, 2019, the presidency has already consumed almost 98% of the budget allocated to it by Parliament for the whole of 2019. According to the ‘budget monitoring reports’ from the Budget Minister that Jeune Afrique was able to consult, the presidency spent nearly 132 billion Congolese Francs (75.55 million dollars) out of the 134 billion it has for 2019.
“The ‘linear forecast,’ which projects the expenditure that the presidency should have spent by the end of May, was for 56 billion Congolese Francs (32.12 million dollars). Clearly, the budget was exceeded by 235% as of May 31.” (Jeune Afrique, Stanis Bujakera Tshiamala, 26 June 2019)
Colonial conditions means subhuman conditions
In Congo every aspect of the lives of African people are in extreme danger zones.
● “For every 1,000 children born, 58 die before their first birthday and 105 die within the first five years of life. Chronic malnutrition affects 43 percent of children under five, one of the worst rates in the world.” (GlobalFinacingFacility.org)
● 70 percent of the population is below 30 years old and over 80 percent of the workforce is unemployed!
● Less than ten percent of the population is connected to the national electrical grid.
● Agricultural production has been undermined by the constant turning over of African land to the parasitic capitalist mining interests.
● Out of 80,000 km of roads, only 3000 are paved.
● At least three quarters of the population do not have access to safe drinking water.
● In urban areas, the water supply infrastructure is derelict. One third of treatment plants are inoperational, and in the rural areas, 60 percent of rural water systems are not operational.
● 90 percent of the DRC’s rural population is dependent on groundwater and springs for drinking water.
● Water and electricity are regularly disrupted for hours and even days.
How can you fight the colonial Coronavirus without removing first the colonial conditions and power stifling people’s lives? And this is in one of the richest places on the planet Earth in terms of natural resources being stolen from us day after day!
Genocide in Congo is the pedestal of the wealth of major tech companies in the world
What are the petty bourgeoisie in power for? No water or electricity, public healthcare system with colonial diseases everywhere
Up to a third of cobalt production to produce coltan is done by at least 250,000 impoverished miners, know as “creusers” with their bare hands.
The miners include at least 40,000 starving children as young as six years old, carrying bags of cobalt rocks for 65 cents a day! It does not matter if you work for the white, Chinese or Indian exploiters.
This is how the coltan for your smartphone and laptop are made. This is how copper and cobalt for “green” cars are produced! They make the environment safe for white people at the expense of African children and adults enslaved in mines!
This is the pedestal of the wealth of Facebook, Samsung, Huawei, Microsoft and others.
There are no national institutions with the abilities and the mission to provide health, education and social programs to all the people.
There are no national social programs for women, youth and eldery, the people have been abandoned to their own fate.
This is why we need power in our own hands under the leadership of the African working class. We need to unite Africa and get rid of the colonial-imposed borders. We need our own resources in our own hands.
Not one cent of the $1.8 million promised by Tshisekedi to fight Coronavirus has been seen by the people
We are not facing just COVID-19! In Congo there are countless colonial transmissible diseases: AIDS, measles, cholera, yellow fever, Ebola, river blindness, denutrition, malaria, polio, tuberculosis, typhoid, hemorrhagic fever and chronic conditions such as diabetes, cancer, heart and respiratory diseases, all vying for domination over our people’s lives in Congo.
An estimated 3.3 million children have unmet basic health needs and 9.1 million children across the country (nearly one in five people under the age of 18) require humanitarian assistance.
An estimated 15,000 children died of measles in the last 12 months!
Congo is one of the places where conditions are extremely favorable for the generation of life: plenty of sun, fresh water, fertile land, about half of all African forests is in Congo, etc.
But because of colonialism, Congo is the poorest country on the planet with the most corrupted and servile petty bourgeoisie class.
The Democratic Republic of Congo situated in the heart of Africa bears deep bloody scars of U.S. relentless colonial assaults on Africa.
Military invasions, biochemical warfares, pillaging and plundering, rape and torture, slaughter, U.S. funded missionaries, balkanisation — we experience it all every day!
Coronavirus is just the latest colonial mosquito sucking our blood. Without defeating neocolonialism and liberating Africa we are powerless.
That is why we have all the colonial viruses in Congo.
It is neocolonialism that paves the road for the colonialvirus to penetrate in Africa.
Neocolonialism is the door of entry for all colonial viruses. They don’t even need a key. Neocolonialist leaders will invite them. They always brag about it: they are in partnership with the white bourgeois rulers.
It is through the African People’s Socialist Party’s initiated The People’s War campaign that a real leadership of the African working class will emerge to complete the struggle for the eradication of all viruses from Africa, including the human ones!
A socialist revolution and the unification of Africa is the natural vaccine to stop colonial viruses. The imperialists will never produce a cure that will end their own lives and their thirst for profit. Only Black Power can do that. That is the mission of the international black proletariat.
The revolution needs the Party of the African proletariat to actively organize across the planet for a speedy and victorious socialist revolution that will change the course of history.
Build the African People’s Socialist Party!
Build International Black Power to kill all colonial viruses!