Mandela and Mobutu
This title for the following article is mine but the author is the Congolese writer Patrice Mbeko and the English translation of the French original text is from the Congolese historian BK Kumbi.
South Africa has played an important role in all the wars our country DR Congo knows. In 1996, while Rwanda was actively preparing the invasion of Zaire, South Africa, for its part, provided arms and ammunition to the Kigali regime.
This is also the first country to fuel Rwanda’s war machine after the lifting of the embargo – after the genocide in the spring of 1994 – by the UN in 1996. And when we ask Kader Asmal [president of the South African National Committee for Conventional Arms Control (NCACC) and Minister of Forestry] why his country was arming Rwanda? He has an implacable response: President Kagame has the right to track those who committed genocide in his country, adding bluntly: ” We arrived at the conclusion that these maniac genocidaires in exile in Zaire are the first threat in the region. ” However, South Africa was well aware that the claims of Kigali were only misleading. We managed to get a highly sensitive document on the real motives of Rwanda and its Western allies regarding Zaire, from August 1994, so a few weeks after the seizure of power by the RPF in Rwanda. I reproduce this document in the appendix of my coming book which proves again, if necessary, that things are far from what the Kigali regime, its Western allies and the corporate media services tell.
Another thing to remember: during the negotiations initiated by South Africa between AFDL and the Mobutu regime to supposedly reach a cease-fire, Mandela backstage put pressure on Kabila to give the South African multinational mining concessions they were working on before the rebellion transfers them to Jean- Raymond Boulle, the big boss of the AMFI, the same man who has made available to the AFDL a jet and $50 million for the war effort.
Another important fact: In August 1998, when the war broke out – Rwanda and Uganda have decided to invade a second time DRC – South Africa has once again supplied the Rwandan and Ugandan troops with weapons and ammunition. And when the SADC provided aid to Laurent Desiré Kabila to counter the invasion of the aforementioned plans, South Africa was the only country to refuse to join the coalition of Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola. Mugabe perceiving how South Africa was playing both sides, called Mandela a hypocrite.
To find a solution to the conflict, talks were held in Lusaka, Zambia. Meanwhile, the U.S. diplomat Howard Wolpe, discreetly, wrote a roadmap that was meant to serve for all parties in conflict. It was during a secret meeting held in June 1999 at Hotel Livingstone in Pretoria that the provisions of the Lusaka Agreement were discussed. The ones chairing the meeting were Mandela and Thabo Mbeki. The ones attending the meeting were: Museveni, Kagame and Buyoya. After discussion, the final draft was sent to Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Kofi Anan via the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria. Copies were also sent to Omar Bongo,the Dean of African states and Blaise Compaore, at the time chairman of the OAU. All have endorsed this text not realizing that Mandela’s South Africa served as a cover for U.S. operations in the region.
All Congolese worthy of the name know today that the Global and Inclusive Agreement from the Lusaka agreement mortgaged the sovereignty of the DRC. When Honore Ngbanda, National President of the APARECO, said that none of the Congolese present in Mandela’s country had participated in the drafting of the text of misfortune, he was right.
Clearly, Mandela’s South Africa has played and continues to play the role of the U.S.’ policeman and policy in the region. This country did not want the war in Congo to end. “We do not say enough that it is Pretoria that has funded , in large part, the war that began in 1998” , stated Paul Makela, founding member of the ruling party (PPRD ) and former Deputy General Secretary of the Preparatory Commission of the inter-Congolese Dialogue . ”This is a country that has provided significant logistical aid to the RCD-Goma” the political and armed wing of Rwanda in Congo.
The South African authorities did not want the Inter-Congolese Dialogue to end at the expense of their country’s interests, that is to say, their multinationals. According to Mr. Makela, for Pretoria, it was out of question to see Etienne Tshisekedi access the head of the Congolese state. In contrast, the RCD should continue to play an important role. In 2010, I received a small document in which it is clear that the South African authorities encouraged the Rwandan authorities to break up the Kivu.
It must also be said that during the secret negotiations that led to his release, Mandela was in constant contact with William Casey, former CIA boss and friend of President Mobutu. Some even wonder if Mandela did not agree not to upset the established order by the apartheid regime, he had fought, in order to be released. As proof, one can see that the access to power of the ANC did not change the lives of black South Africans, although some blacks are found in important positions in the country. Some observers – including me – believe that the forum for national reconciliation also agreed not to attack or prosecute the white criminals who were the backbone of the apartheid’s racist rulers.
Let’s say it straightaway: it is a false peace that was sold to blacks in that country. Since “reconciliation” has not had the desired results, the country has never experienced true reconciliation: RSA has experienced serious racial violence during the 90s. The truth is, Mandela has betrayed the struggle of millions of black South Africans or even Africans who had helped the ANC during its struggle against the supporters of the apartheid regime. One can praise the bravery of this man who fought apartheid in the past but it has also to be said that his release came at a time when the world had just experienced major changes due to the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Berlin Wall. The South African racist regime, although unofficially supported by Western states that pretended to criticize it, had to change.
It is clear at this stage that the country had to change its policy that was tarnished by its racist past to improve its image. Mandela was released from prison, the black majority in the country, were sure to win free elections, but not at any costs: the blacks should have the political power, which would just be a symbolic one in fact. The real power, that is to say, economic power, will remain in the hands of white racists. Even within the first ANC government, there were people from the apartheid regime who held strategic positions like the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank. It is certain that President Mandela has agreed to play the game, you cannot say otherwise …
South African journalist Allister Sparks summed up the situation as follows: “Before they give the power, the Nationalist Party wants to emasculate it. It tries to negotiate a kind of swap under which it renounces the right to run the country as it wishes to in exchange of preventing blacks to govern it as they wish. “Rassool Snyman, an old anti-apartheid activist described in turn the situation as follows:” They never set us free. The Chain that we had around our neck, they put it around our ankles. “
While in the past, President Nelson Mandela fought for the rights of his people, it is still true even today that, the man has aligned himself with his former enemies, betraying the fight he has long led for his compatriots. Stockholm syndrome? It makes you wonder what the value of this struggle was.