File spoon-archives/marxism-general.archive/marxism-general_1997/97-03-27.235, message 13


From: "David Bedggood" <d.bedggood-AT-auckland.ac.nz>
Date: Tue, 25 Mar 1997 10:11:29 1200+
Subject: Re: M-G: Congo: People wins! US govt., Trot etc muppets lose!


>
Rolf exclaims:

> Congo: People wins! US govt., Trot etc muppets lose!
> [Posted: 24.03.97]
> 
> To the subject line I should perhaps add: "So far, at least".

Rolfs excitement about the Kabila forces progress in Zaire is 
understandable.  He Thinks that "so far" the result is Rolf 1 Trots 0

Do the people win?  The people win if they can take control of the
popular struggle against the Mobutu regime and prevent Kabila from 
setting up another imperialist client regime. Kabila may have a long 
track record as a rebel, but he looks today like any other 
nationalist leader trying to  win control of the mineral resources of 
Zaire from the corrupt, dictatorial Mobutu clique, in order to offer 
his services to imperialism.  

In the process, Kabila is using the desire of the masses for 
democracy to win his war.  The problem will come when he turns on the 
masses having gained power.  He must do so to consolidate his rule 
and do a deal with one or other imperialist power.  There is no room 
for democracy when it comes to extracting the mineral wealth of the 
region because the mineral wealth will not go to the `people' but to 
imperialism and its local bourgeois lackeys..  We should not take the 
"troubled" US officials as evidence that the US is against the 
rebels. The US is only "troubled" because there is no 100% guarantee 
that Kabila can deliver the goods. As all revolutionaries know,  an 
armed people is potentially dangerous, even if they lack class 
organisation and independence. 

This is because any popular fight for democracy coming up against 
imperialism will unleash class forces that may get out of hand.  It 
is our job to make sure that this happens. Therefore, while Kabila is 
fighting a genuine struggle against Mobutu for democracy we can point 
our guns in the same direction. However, we cannot give him any 
political support.  To do so would be to become an accomplice in  his 
bourgeois programme for national unity and independence which we know 
cannot deliver real democracy or independence from imperialism. 
Instead revolutionaries have to fight for their armed independence 
and to mobilise  workers and poor peasants under their own class 
banner. 

Our object is such a situation should be to  form independent 
multi-ethnic militias so that Kabila cannot use the rebel forces as 
his military fodder.  When it becomes clear that Kabila is trying to 
form another bourgeois regime, then an independent militia of workers 
and poor peasants can remove him and proceed to take power.  
Otherwise Kabila, as a `left' nationalist will disarm the militia and 
do a deal with imperialism like Mandela in South Africa at best, or 
turn on the militia and destroy it like the KMT in China at worst.. 

If Rolf wants a South African solution in Zaire he should say so. He 
should also point out the probability that this will lead to another 
bourgeois regime every bit as reactionary as Mobutu's. Trotskyists on 
the contrary, fight for a permanent revolution which will put the 
workers and poor peasants in power. 

Dave.


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