By Norm Dixon
Thirty-two years of US-backed dictatorship have left Congo (Zaire) in a desperate economic and social situation. The personal wealth of exiled tyrant Mobutu Sese Seko is estimated to be as high as $10 billion, almost equivalent to Congo's crippling foreign debt. Much of that was loaned to Mobutu by western governments and financial institutions knowing that it would pass straight into Mobutu's pockets.
Yet instead of accepting its responsibility, wiping those debts and granting massive development aid to help the new government rebuild its shattered society, the US government is making further aid and loans conditional on Congo accepting Washington's arrogant economic and political prescriptions for the post-Mobutu era.
Congo ranks 141 out of 174 in the United Nations Development Program's ranking of states. More than 26 million of the country's 46 million inhabitants have no access to health care; 27 million have no access to clean water. Life expectancy is just above 51 years (down from 53 in 1990); infant mortality is 93 per 1000; every year 350,000 under five die; there are 14,300 people for every doctor and 1350 for every nurse; health spending represents just 0.8% of GDP. Adult illiteracy is 74%; at least 6.2 million children do not go to school.
Yet Congo has abundant natural resources. It contains 80% of the world's cobalt reserves and 20% of copper reserves. Congo is also rich in diamonds, gold and oil and has huge potential for the production of hydro-electricity. Congo is suitable for a vast range of agricultural produce.
How has a country so rich in natural resources degenerated into one of the poorest? The answer is simple: wealth never trickled beyond the very profitable western mining companies that exploited the country's minerals in league with state-owned enterprises, and Mobutu and his cronies, who systematically embezzled and plundered state coffers for 32 years.
All this occurred with the full knowledge and support of Washington, Paris and other western powers, which turned a blind eye to Mobutu's "kleptocracy" because he was a key tool in repressing anti-imperialist movements in Africa.
Every year Mobutu stole up to $400 million from the country's state-owned copper, cobalt and diamond mining companies. Not only was cash siphoned off from bank accounts, but up to 10% of the annual production of some mines was stolen directly and smuggled. Export earnings were deposited directly into offshore bank accounts held by Mobutu and other members of the kleptocracy.
Reinvestment rarely took place, and production continuously declined. In the mid-1980s, Congo produced 500,000 tonnes of copper a year. In 1996, it was just 40,000 tonnes. Cobalt production dropped from 15,000 tonnes to 4000.
Virtually nothing was spent on transport and communications infrastructure. In 1994, the World Bank reported that Congo's economy had shrunk to its 1958 level while the population was 2.9 times larger.
Between 1970 and 1994, Mobutu's Zaire received $9 billion in loans and grants, of which 50% was skimmed off by Mobutu and deposited in bank accounts or invested in properties and other enterprises scattered throughout Europe and Africa.
Despite an official warning to western governments from IMF officials in 1982, they pumped another $4 billion into Mobutu's regime by 1991. In that same period, the IMF made $1.1 billion in loans available. Until 1991, US assistance and loans averaged above $40 million a year for the previous 15 years.
Congo's foreign debt now stands at $13 billion — about $280 per capita, which is $130 greater than average per capita income — and 75% is owed to imperialist governments, mainly the US, France, Italy, Germany, Belgium and Japan.
Congo's new finance minister, Mawapanga Mwanananga, has called for Mobutu's foreign debt to be written off so that funds can be redirected to reconstruction and social improvements. "Everybody who gave money to this man has got to share responsibility", Mawapanga said. "They knew he would never repay the money."
Mawapanga said that the new Congo would insist that mining companies promise to be "good corporate citizens". All contracts with the former regime will have to be reviewed to ensure that benefits accrue to the people.
The government has signed deals with mining companies that require them to build roads and health facilities for communities. Companies will no longer have to pay bribes but instead pay taxes. Mawapanga added that the government would introduce a "social market economy" in which the state would continue to play a role.
US envoy Bill Richardson led a high-powered delegation to Congo on June 6 and made it plain that further US aid, and "significant" debt relief, were dependent on Congo abiding by strict economic and political guidelines. The delegation briefed President Laurent Kabila on "international expectations", Reuters reported on June 8. "They will be advising [the ministers] on what the international community wants to see but not really telling them what to do", a US official coyly said.
"Expectations" include the Congo government's devotion "to an economy that will be open to western investment, including American investment" and that Congo "embark on a democratic evolution" that respects "human rights", State Department spokesperson Nicholas Burns said.
The US is also offering military training and advisers on the condition that Congo establish "a military that respects civilian rule" and is "more institutionalised" than the present rebel army, made up almost entirely of peasant and worker volunteers, US officials told Associated Press on June 8.
The European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad) said on May 29 that placing conditions on a newly liberated state before aid resumed and debt eased meant the "injustice of poverty" will continue to crush the Congolese people, who never benefited from a single penny of foreign loans in the first place. Mobutu's assets stashed overseas should be seized and returned to Congo to be invested in the country's economy and used for social development, it said.
An alliance of European groups is to launch an international solidarity campaign to force the cancellation of Congo's debt and the return of Mobutu's wealth. Without it, they point out, Congo will have little choice but to succumb to the dictates of the west.