Kabila defeats millionaire with ties to Mobutu

After the official results of Congo’s election were announced Nov. 15, supporters of victorious candidate Joseph Kabila danced in the streets and waved big posters with his photo. One of them told French television, “It’s joy! Joy! At this victory.”

Kabila got 58 percent of the vote to 42 percent for his rival, Jean-Pierre Bemba. Two television networks that supported Bemba announced he was going to use every means legally possible to challenge the vote and the Catholic archbishop of Kinshasa denounced electoral “fraud.” But the people’s reaction showed otherwise.

This election was the first after a terrible war that raged from 1997 to 2002 and led to some 2 million to 4 million deaths. Bemba, described in the media as a former “rebel” leader, is the son of a wealthy business owner who shuttled back and forth between the Congo and its former colonial master, Belgium. Like his father, Bemba was close to the former dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko.

The small European country of Belgium became prosperous in the 19th century largely through its intense exploitation of the people of the Congo, millions of whom died under Belgian rule.

Kabila is the son of a different kind of rebel leader. His father was an opponent of Mobutu who became leader of the Congo after Mobutu was overthrown.

Bemba has a few thousand soldiers in Kinshasa. The European Union has about 2,500 heavily armed troops in and around the capital of the Congo, backed by 17,000 or so U.N. troops. At this point, the EU says it will suppress any attempt to overturn the elections. The ability of European and U.S. companies to exploit the tremendous wealth of the Congo requires political stability.

Kabila has allies like Angola, which has troops in Kinshasa and could quickly move in more. He is also the current president, was a former military commander and has significant support in the Congolese Army.

Beyond all the calculations of military force and political support lies the war-weariness of the Congolese people.

Even NGOs from imperialist countries that presume to have the last word on human rights have raised the issue of the role of foreign companies in stoking the civil war. Three years ago, a joint statement by a dozen major human rights groups charged that multinational corporations had developed “elite networks” of key political, military and business elites to plunder the Congo’s natural resources. (Jim Lobe, “Global Businesses Profit from Congo War, Groups Charge,” OneWorld U.S., Oct. 28, 2003)

A U.N. Panel of Experts in an October 2002 report had named 85 companies, including eight from the U.S., that bought key natural resources from parties engaged in fighting in Congo. While a terribly poor country, Congo has vast mineral wealth that could fund its development if its resources were not stolen by exploiting multinationals that give virtually no compensation to the central government.

Kabila will have to face big challenges. It is common for families in Kinshasa and other large cities in the Congo to eat every other day because they don’t have enough money to buy food every day. The Congo lacks the means to provide public services, from water to health, from education to garbage collection.

The treasury is empty and the foreign companies that are operating in the country generally smuggle their products out to avoid paying taxes and export duties.

The elections were just a small step in solving the Congo’s vast problems.