Date: Tue, 20 May 97 17:46:26    
Subject: M-G: "The Downfall of Mobutu and the New World Order in Central Africa".
To: CWGNZ-AT-pl.net, marxism-general-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu


Liaison Committee of Militants for a Revolutionary Communist International  
(LCMRCI)


Resolution on "The Downfall of Mobutu and the New World Order in Central 
Africa".

 
On Sunday 18 May the last of Mobutu's guards in Kinshasa capitulated to 
Kabila’s Democratic Alliance for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire. Before they
did so, they killed a General whom they accused as  being a
conciliator and looted the city and even the palace of their former "beloved
president". Former dictator Mobutu abandoned his country. Kabila renamed 
Zaire as the "Democratic Republic of Congo". The 32 years of Mobutu 
anti-Communist dictatorship were over. 

Backed by the USA and all the Western "democratic" powers, Mobutu plundered
one of the biggest and richest African countries for nearly 3 decades.
Though it had the majority of the cobalt  and industrial diamond reserves
on earth and huge reserves of copper, oil and other minerals and was one of
the most fertile places on earth, the Zairian masses are one of the poorest
people in the world. On the contrary, Mobutu was one of  the richest men
and he had a personal fortune of many billions of dollars, the equivalent
of more than the national debt and more than the yearly  average income of
all the population. 

Mobutu was the cornerstone of the old order against any anti-imperialist 
struggle. The man who killed Lumumba also backed the pro-South African 
UNITA  which was responsible for killing  tens of thousands of innocent 
Angolan civilians. His overthrow sets an example to other African 
peoples to smash UNITA in Angola and to dispense with the dictatorships in 
Nigeria, Sudan, Togo, Kenya and other countries. It opens up  the 
possibility for the Zairian and other  African workers and poor peasants to
organise themselves  against the capitalists and imperialists. 
Workers all over the world have to welcome the overthrow of a 
terrible dictator and look forward to the building of mass movements 
across the Black continent that will get rid of other Big Men. 

However, we  need to take into account the reactionary nature of the new
Democratic Republic of Congo. It is another bourgeois and
pro-imperialist regime. Kabila, instead of nationalising all the
multinationals, is making better deals with them and other new companies.
Three decades ago Kabila fought alongside Che Guevara,  but today he no
longer claims himself to be a Marxist, and his model for Congo is a
neo-liberal paradise to please the IMF and World Bank. His army was not
based on poor peasants guerrillas who fought for the land and against
imperialism. It was very well trained and equipped, integrated by soldiers
from Uganda and Rwanda and assisted by the USA and the CIA. Kabila like Museveni and
Kagame is in favour of a non-party "democracy" (which is a Bonapartist
dictatorship based on some local concessions to elections) and a less
corrupt system which is better able to deliver a  neo-liberal
"modernisation".

The overthrow of Mobutu was in part the result of a joint military action 
backed by Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and Angola who wanted to get rid off the 
guerrilla forces which operated from Zaire. South Africa’s intervention in 
this situation was the most important of Mandela’s diplomatic initiatives.
The Anglo-Yankee media is quite happy with Kabila. France's influence in the 
region will diminish. English is becoming the main language from Sudan to 
the Cape and with it is being spread a new  neo-liberal model based on some
forms of limited parliamentary democracy behind popular nationalist rulers.
 Now with a stabilised economy which allows the  Multinationals  freedom to
super-exploit the Congo, the bourgeois media is putting forward the idea
that  Africa can at last make some economic improvement. For The Guardian (17-May-97) "South  Africa’s technological strengths combined with Zaire’s mineral wealth, enormous hydropower potential to produce the cheapest electricity in the  world and agricultural resources, could fire the continent’
s great leap  forward."   

Workers and peasants in Zaire-Congo have to maintain their own political
independence and armed opposition to the new regime. No workers and peasant
organisation should send any minister to the new cabinet. The workers,
peasants, street sellers, unemployed and poor people should develop their
own organisations, self-defence militias and councils. 

It is inevitable that the Zairian toilers will want to take justice into
their own hands and  punish the members of the Presidential Guard and the
Mobutu's  repressive institutions.  We should be in favour of rank and file
committees to investigate and punish every person who enriched themselves
plundering the masses or who massacred or tortured the poor. 

Kabila promised to end the corruption. We should demand that the only way
to do so is to leave it to the workers and poor people's committees to
investigate and punish corruption. All the financial account books must be
opened and all fortunes must be investigated. All the contracts with the
multinationals have to be annulled.

The exploited are going to demand an end to the persecution of all ethnic
groups and for the right to national self-determination; better wages and
living conditions;  for the land to be nationalised and distributed to the
poor peasants; and the nationalisation of all the big companies and
national capitals which made huge profits under Mobutu's corrupt system. A
very key question is what to do with Mobutu's and his family and friends
fortunes. We should demand their expropriation under workers control and
the cancellation of the foreign debt because it was entered into by a
corrupt system.  

Kabila promised more democracy. We should be against his non-party
democracy and for complete freedom of assembly, publications, speech,
trades unions and political affiliation. We should demand immediate free
elections for a Constituent Assembly in which all of its members must be
recallable. The workers and poor peoples' committees must control the
electoral process and the media.

The toilers have to fight now against any  new bourgeois ruler. They not
only need to develop and expand their own organisations and to put them
under the democratic control of the rank and file, they need a
revolutionary workers party. Based on the miners, railway, factory and
enterprise workers,  such a party should try to unite the poor from the
shanty towns and the villages and  create a parallel system of power. Their
aim should be to replace the bourgeoisie with a new workers' and  peasants'
council’s republic which should fight for a socialist federation in Central
and Southern Africa.
 



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