KINSHASA––Africans in the Democratic Republic of Congo came together to protest the extended neocolonial ruling of President Joseph Kabila on Monday, September 19, 2016. What began as a peaceful demonstration turned deadly as police shot at protestors with live ammunition.
The government of Joseph Kabange Kabila is always quick to militarize his response to any peaceful protest against his rule. This is a practice that is used by other neocolonial governments throughout the region.
A commando suspected to be at the service of Kabila’s rule torched offices of the political oppositions partie such, FONUS ( Forces of Union and Solidarity), MLP (Lumumba Progressive Movement) and UDPS (Union for Democracy and Social progress).
In the office of the latter organization, at least four people were burned of which two were burned alive.
There are reports from opposition parties and activists who claim a minimum of 50 to have been murdered by the neocolonial state.
Flames erupted, dozens killed
Kabila has been in power for over 15 years. He became president in 2001, after his father [president] Laurent Kabila was assassinated. He was officially elected as president in 2006 and re-elected in 2011.Both electoral victories have been vehemently disputed by the vast majority of the people in the Congo.
According to the Congolese Constitution, a president cannot serve more than two terms. Kabila––reaching the end of his second term––has shown no signs of stepping down.
The Congolese people have a legitimate fear of Kabila’s disregarding his term limits, and trying to hold on to power. This has been done by other neocolonial leaders throughout Africa such as Paul Kagame, Yoweri Museveni, Sassou Ngessou in Congo Brazaville and pierre Nkuruziza in Burundi.
Demanding democracy, the people gathered at a statue of revolutionary leader Patrice Lumumba––the Congo’s first democratically elected prime minister, who was assassinated in 1961.
The plan was to have a peaceful march, sending emissaries from a slum in downtown Kinshasa to the election commission with a letter asking for clarity regarding the Kabila’s presidency.
In their justified anger, the Africans began to express their anger towards the pigs. They were met with water cannons, tear gas, rocks and live ammunition. The people fought back by disarming some police and killing two of them.
Kabila Facilitates the attack on Congo
The Congo has been engaged in war and subject to genocide for the past two decades due to the looting of their ‘conflict’ mineral resources by foreign governments and the exploitation of the Africans, by major parasitic capitalistic corporations.
There are over 100 proxy militias in eastern Congo. Between 1994 until present day, Over 8 million people were wiped out and another 2 million are displaced.
At the height of U.S. sponsored occupation of Congo led by Rwanda and Uganda proxy groups, a study published by the American Journal of Public Health in 2011 found that 48 women are raped every hour and 2.9 million children are doing forced labor.
These acts of terror are committed to keep the Africans oppressed while neocolonial armed groups at the service of Europe and U.S. multinational companies loot Congo’s diamonds, tin, copper, gold and other minerals such as the coltan used in electronic devices. Kabila has done nothing to end this, because he was put in power by the same imperialists parasitic powers under U.S ruling class leadership.
Congo is a pivotal country in Africa. It is one of the richest parts of Africa in terms of its mineral wealth and natural resources. It has the largest landmass, south of the Sahara. Any political outbreak there can easily affect the surrounding African countries.
The imperialist governments––like the United States––have pleaded to Kabila, asking him to honor the term limits and announce the end of his presidency, in hopes of avoiding uprisings.
These imperialist Sates have mixed responses to the Congolese government meeting with the opposition to establish a compromise, for the simple reason that the imperialist powers are opposed to genuine democracy and social justice in Africa.
The Congolese government claims not to have enough money to hold an election, while Kabila’s family and key members of his regime are known to have amassed billion of stolen resources in foreign overseas accounts as revealed in the Panama Papers, and this is not an exhaustive list.
Elections will not save Congo!
Simply voting for another president will not put an end to the oppression faced in the Congo.
What we have before our eyes is the possibility of winning impoverished African to African Internationalist revolution by building a revolutionary party to end: the proxy war of Occupation; and the domination of the African petty bourgeoisie over the African working class and peasants.
The formulation and application of working class demands that expose the African compradors and bureaucrats as the enemy of the people in DR Congo, Uganda and Rwanda, and identify the U.S. intervention in the Congo as the number one source of genocide and absence of democracy in the Congo today.
These are some of points that make it necessary that Congo’s revolution is essentially an African revolution in depth and scope. The Congo will not be free until all of Africa is free! We must continue in the manner of Patrice Lumumba and struggle for one Africa.
One Africa! One Nation!
Join the African People’s Socialist Party!
