The heart of Africa

Dark clouds are gathering once again over the Congo river. The river is once again in spate, unleashing its waters violently across the land that had taken its name. Its once quiet, picturesque, meandering waters are now drowning homes, villages and towns, wrecking havoc like never before.

In a way, the Congo river mirrors the history of the country that has chosen to name itself after the river that brought sustenance to much of the country. Every now and then, marauding armies of rebels surface and challenge the puny government forces and civil war breaks out, bringing destruction and devastation similar to the fury, the river will soon unleash.

They say the Congo was plagued from its inception. An artificial Belgian created colony that overlooked tribal boundaries, its fate in the initial years was emblematic of the misfortune wrecked by naked colonial aggression. Congo was established as a personal fiefdom of the Belgian king who used all the might of his colonial enterprise of rob Congo of its rubber and its mineral resources. Congolese men and women  were maimed for life for failing to meet the colonial rubber quota. The Congo river drank the limbs that were thrown in its bosom, forced to swallow them as bitter poison.

Independence should have led to joy and national unification, but the century of Belgian rule had further exacerbated deep fissures within this artificial entity. Cold war struggles added their own complexities to what as already a boiling pot. Provinces, encouraged by the Europeans, fought for secession. The immensely popular but ideologically dogmatic Patrice Lumumba, the country's first Prime Minister was kidnapped and subsequently assassinated. They say, his remarks to the Belgian King, during the country's independence ceremony, "Nous ne sommes plus vos singes (We are no longer your monkeys)", earned him the ire of the Belgians, who were still in control of the nascent Congolese army. The Soviet attempt to create a Soviet satellite in the heart of Africa fizzled out with Lumumba's death. This paved he way for US proxy-intervention and the rise of the kleptocracy of Mobutu Sese Seko. Lip service was paid to the ideas of Lumumba but Congo was no more. In its place came Sese Seko's Zaire, corrupt and dictatorial. The river lost its identity too, it became the Zaire river and reflected the avarice and the greed of the nation as it devoured thousands in floods which it unleashed at its pleasure. 

And then the civil wars returned. Hutus fought Tutsis in neighboring Rwanda. Kabila fought Mobutu in Zaire as rebel movements sprouted everywhere. A tiny glimmer of light emerged as a government established its authority and resurrected the Congo. However, the joy was short-lived. Wars broke out in the north, the south, the East and the West. Flawed elections fueled public discontent. Rebels gained courage to declare war on the government. They resorted to violence, rape, arson and loot. Children were kidnapped, Women disappeared. The artificial calm that had existed for years was shattered again. Neighbours financed rebels as Congolese fought Congolese. River Congo wept bitterly seeing the death, the destruction and the devastation wrecked by her own children on their own land.

They say the Congo will continue to flood and devour victims till peace returns to its namesake nation. The international community cannot afford to look at the Congo conflict as an experimentation in nation hood. Democracy and the rule of law have to prevail in Congo. The international community must commit itself to that. Congo has been ravaged enough, for its minerals, for its rubber. Now is the time for Congo to join the community of nations as a truly independent nation, standing on its own two feet. The failure of Congo will be a costly affair, there is no doubt that If Congo goes, it will take most of Africa, with its borders cutting across tribal homelands and language groups,  down with it.