Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Washington Aims to Turn Congo Military Mission into a U.S. Proxy Force
06 Mar 2013
🖨️ Print Article

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

The new agreement in the Democratic Republic of Congo – which has already been violated by U.S.-allied forces – would field a peace-enforcement mission. However, “if the U.S. and the Europeans pay for this nominally African force, and train and equip it, as they do in Somalia, then the U.S. will actually be running the show in Congo.”

 

Washington Aims to Turn Congo Military Mission into a U.S. Proxy Force

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

“It will be up to Angola and South Africa to ensure that the new peace-enforcement brigade does not become a front for the United States.”

Renewed fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo has left hundreds dead and added thousands to the list of nearly two million displaced persons. Congolese government troops are again battling so-called rebels backed by neighboring Rwanda and Uganda, two of the United States’ closes allies whose seizure of much of eastern Congo is the primary cause of the death of six million Congolese since 1996, half of them children under the age of five.

Only last month, Uganda and Rwanda and eight other African nations signed an agreement promising not to interfere in Congo’s internal affairs. The accord was brokered by the United States, the United Nations and the African Union, but Washington holds most of the cards in the region.

The U.S. arms and finances the Ugandan and Rwandan regimes, and has staunchly protected its African allies from sanction at the United Nations. In that sense, the genocide in Congo is a U.S.-sponsored holocaust. The UN, whose 17,000 peacekeeping troops have done nothing over the years to protect Congo’s territorial integrity, is so deep in the United States’ pocket, it is considering inviting U.S. drones into the region. And the African Union has hopelessly compromised itself by lending its name and legitimacy to an 18,000-troop mission in Somalia that is, in effect, a proxy force for United States policy in Africa. The same thing is likely to happen in the Democratic Republic of Congo if the recent agreement leads, as planned, to creation of a peace-enforcing brigade with the authority to actually use its guns. If the U.S. and the Europeans pay for this nominally African force, and train and equip it, as they do in Somalia, then the U.S. will actually be running the show in Congo.

“The U.S. has been destabilizing Congo since the Clinton administration.”

Washington already stations Special Forces troops in Congo, Uganda, Rwanda, the Central African Republic and South Sudan – all signatories to the Congo peace accord, along with Burundi, Angola, South Africa and Tanzania. It will be up to Angola and South Africa to ensure that the new, peace-enforcement brigade does not become a front for the United States, like the Somalia operation.

The U.S. position towards Congo can be gleaned from a talk given, last month, at the Brookings Institution, in Washington, by outgoing Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Johnnie Carson. Members of Friends of Congo were in attendance, and reported that one would not be aware, from listening to Carson, “that a substantial portion” of eastern Congo “is still under occupation” by the Rwanda-backed rebels. The truth is, Rwanda’s proxies in Congo are also America’s proxies. The U.S. has been destabilizing Congo since the Clinton administration –fomenting chaos and genocide as a weapon of foreign policy, as it has done in Somalia, and is now doing in North Africa and Syria. The U.S. objective is to bring the whole of Africa into the American military orbit. Washington’s version of “peace” is submission, dependence and surrender of national sovereignty, and there is no limit to how many Congolese they are willing to kill.

For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.



Your browser does not support the audio element.

listen
http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/20130306_gf_CongoAccord.mp3

More Stories


  • Lessons from Eldridge Cleaver and the Black Panther Party
    Ahjamu Umi
    Lessons from Eldridge Cleaver and the Black Panther Party
    16 Jun 2021
    Just like we glorified the black leather jackets, black berets, and guns in the 60s, we still romanticize African people with guns and mouths that fire more inaccurately than the guns they carry.
  • Walter Rodney’s Death Records to be Amended and Children’s Books Placed in Schools
    Denis Chabrol
     Walter Rodney’s Death Records to be Amended and Children’s Books Placed in Schools
    16 Jun 2021
    The martyred revolutionary’s assassination has finally been acknowledged by the Guyana state, and his works will become part of the educational curriculum. 
  • BAR Book Forum: Jerrilyn McGregory’s “One Grand Noise”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Jerrilyn McGregory’s “One Grand Noise”
    16 Jun 2021
    To break cyclical, systemic oppression requires a functionality that rejects reified notions of governance, global capitalism, and accommodation.
  • BAR Book Forum: Cisco Bradley’s “Universal Tonality”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Cisco Bradley’s “Universal Tonality”
    16 Jun 2021
    Jazzman William Parker’s work is a bold art of resistance to capitalism, colonialism, racism, and the runaway train that is our present-day America.
  • NYT’s Africa: A Place of Failure and No Leadership
    Siyanda Mohutsiwa
    NYT’s Africa: A Place of Failure and No Leadership
    16 Jun 2021
    Ruth Maclean’s article, like countless others in Western media, took place in an Africa without leaders, without public health officials or activists.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us