[PEN-L:7163] Congo

[Michael Pugliese]

Heh, add the editors of NLR for publishing an excerpt from the Gott book a
few yrs. ago to the counter-revolutionary dustbin. ;-)
What did Che say. Something like Kabila was wasting money in nightclubs and
showed little dedication to the struggle. Now if only he had said something
like what Lenin said in his "Final Testament" about Stalin being rude to
Krupskaya...
Kabila, just like Mobuto grew fantastically rich at the expense of his
people. The former had CIA backing, natch, the latter, not. Moralist, socdem
me, will never understand the fight the primary enemy even if they are shits
line of my leninist comrades.

                                                                Michael
Pugliese, gloater.
P.S. What next a defense of anti-imperialist Erap Estada? Come on, I think
you can draw the line somewhere! Methinks, I'm being too harsh, skirting the
11 mark on the flammage meter...

-----Original Message-----
From: Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>
To: SOCIALIST-REGISTER at YorkU.CA <SOCIALIST-REGISTER at YorkU.CA>
Date: Sunday, January 21, 2001 8:53 AM
Subject: [PEN-L:7163] Congo


>>Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2001 16:27:16 +0000
>>To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com, revo-readers at egroups.com
>>From: James Heartfield <Jim at heartfield.demon.co.uk>
><snip>
>>
>>The assassination of Congo president Laurent Kabila was greeted with
>>ill-disguised glee amongst Western commentators. It was not always thus.
>>US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright described Kabila as a 'beacon
>>of hope' and a 'strong new leader' when he took power from the ageing
>>dictator Mobutu in 1997. Then Kabila was supported by the State
>>Department's favorite regional dictators Paul Kagame of Rwanda, and
>>Yoweri Museveni of Uganda - the three lionised as a new generation of
>>African leaders. But since then Kabila, Museveni and Kagame fell out,
>>and the Rwandan army that had taken him to power, took arms against him,
>>plunging the country into war.
>>
>>Most surreal of all the comments on Kabila is the bandying about of
>>Ernesto 'Che' Guevara's assessment of Kabila's role in the Congo wars of
>>the 1960s. Very few present-day politicians would have met the Cuban
>>guerilla leader's exacting standards, but Guevara's critical comments on
>>Kabila are regularly quoted by newspapers that have no sympathy with
>>Guevara's goal of ridding the Congo of imperialism. Indeed, Richard
>>Gott, who republished Guevara's Congo diaries as a blast against Kabila
>>at the same time charges him with having 'alienated foreign investors by
>>refusing to make payments on the gigantic foreign debt of $14bn incurred
>>by his profligate predecessor' (Guardian January 19, 2001).
>>
>>The truth is that the future of the Congo continues to be decided by
>>forces outside its borders. On independence, the United Nations' own
>>envoy Conor Cruise O'Brien charged the UN with complicity in the murder
>>of radical prime minister Patrice Lumumba. The United States backed
>>dictator Mobutu's regime as a base for attacks on the radical
>>nationalist movement in Angola. Kabila's own rise to power was not
>>popular, but simply better supported. His subsequent fall was decided
>>not in the Congo, but Washington.
>>
>>--
>>James Heartfield
>