Page 2 of 2 China's US$9bn hostage in the Congo war
By F William Engdahl
extremely significantly, fully three-quarters of the world resources of
columbite-tantalite, or coltan - a primary component of computer microchips and
printed circuit boards, essential for mobile telephones, laptops and other
modern electronic devices.
America Minerals Fields Inc, a company heavily involved in promoting the 1996
accession to power of Laurent Kabila, was, at the time of its involvement in
the Congo's civil war, headquartered in Hope, Arkansas. Major stockholders
included long-time associates of former president Bill Clinton going back to
his days as governor of Arkansas.
Several months before the downfall of Zaire's French-backed
dictator, Mobutu, Laurent Desire Kabila, based in Goma, had renegotiated the
mining contracts with several US and British mining companies including
American Mineral Fields. Mobutu's corrupt rule was brought to a bloody end with
the help of the US-directed International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Washington was not entirely comfortable with Laurent Kabila, who was
assassinated in 2001. In a study released in April 1997, barely a month before
president Mobutu Sese Seko fled the country, the IMF had recommended "halting
currency issue completely and abruptly" as part of an economic recovery
program. A few months later, upon assuming power in Kinshasa, the new
government of Laurent Kabila Desire was ordered by the IMF to freeze civil
service wages with a view to "restoring macro-economic stability".
Eroded by hyperinflation, the average public sector wage had fallen to 30,000
new zaires (NZ) a month, the equivalent of one US dollar.
According to Chossudovsky, the IMF's demands were tantamount to maintaining the
entire population in abysmal poverty. They precluded from the outset a
meaningful post-war economic reconstruction, thereby contributing to fueling
the continuation of the Congolese civil war, in which close to 2 million people
have died.
Laurent Kabila was succeeded by his son, Joseph Kabila who went on to become
the Congo's first democratically elected president, and appears to have held a
closer eye to the welfare of his countrymen than did his father.
Now, in comes the new US AFRICOM. Speaking to the International Peace
Operations Association in Washington, DC, on October 27, General Kip Ward,
commander of AFRICOM, defined the command's mission as, "in concert with other
US government agencies and international partners, [to conduct] sustained
security engagements through military-to-military programs, military-sponsored
activities, and other military operations as directed to promote a stable and
secure African environment in support of US foreign policy".
The "military operations as directed to promote a stable and secure African
environment in support of US foreign policy", today are clearly aimed squarely
at blocking China's growing economic presence in the region.
In fact, as various Washington sources state openly, AFRICOM was created to
counter the growing presence of China in Africa, including the Democratic
Republic of Congo, to secure long-term economic agreements for raw materials
from Africa in exchange for Chinese aid and production-sharing agreements and
royalties. By informed accounts, the Chinese have been far shrewder. Instead of
offering only savage IMF-dictated austerity and economic chaos, China is
offering large credits, soft loans to build roads and schools in order to
create good will.
Dr J Peter Pham, a leading Washington insider who is an advisor of the US State
and Defense Departments, states openly that among the aims of the new AFRICOM,
is the objective of "protecting access to hydrocarbons and other strategic
resources which Africa has in abundance ... a task which includes ensuring
against the vulnerability of those natural riches and ensuring that no other
interested third parties, such as China, India, Japan, or Russia, obtain
monopolies or preferential treatment."
In testimony before the US Congress supporting creation of AFRICOM in 2007,
Pham, who is closely associated with the neo-conservative Foundation for
Defense of Democracies, stated: "This natural wealth makes Africa an inviting
target for the attentions of the People's Republic of China, whose dynamic
economy, averaging 9% growth per annum over the last two decades, has an almost
insatiable thirst for oil as well as a need for other natural resources to
sustain it. China is currently importing approximately 2.6 million barrels of
crude per day, about half of its consumption; more than 765,000 of those
barrels - roughly a third of its imports - come from African sources,
especially Sudan, Angola, and Congo (Brazzaville). Is it any wonder, then, that
... perhaps no other foreign region rivals Africa as the object of Beijing's
sustained strategic interest in recent years. Last year the Chinese regime
published the first ever official white paper elaborating the bases of its
policy toward Africa.
"This year, ahead of his 12-day, eight-nation tour of Africa - the third such
journey since he took office in 2003 - Chinese President Hu Jintao announced a
three-year, $3 billion program in preferential loans and expanded aid for
Africa. These funds come on top of the $3 billion in loans and $2 billion in
export credits that Hu announced in October 2006 at the opening of the historic
Beijing summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) which brought
nearly 50 African heads of state and ministers to the Chinese capital.
"Intentionally or not, many analysts expect that Africa - especially the states
along its oil-rich western coastline - will increasingly becoming a theatre for
strategic competition between the United States and its only real near-peer
competitor on the global stage, China, as both countries seek to expand their
influence and secure access to resources."
Notably, in late October Nkunda's well-armed troops surrounded Goma and
demanded that President Kabila negotiate with him. Among Nkunda's demands was
that Kabila cancel a $9 billion joint Congo-China venture in which China gets
rights to the vast copper and cobalt resources of the region in exchange for
providing $6 billion worth of road construction, two hydroelectric dams,
hospitals, schools and railway links to southern Africa, to Katanga and to the
Congo Atlantic port at Matadi.
The other $3 billion is to be invested by China in development of new mining
areas.
Curiously, US and most European media neglect to report that small detail. It
seems AFRICOM is off to a strong start as the opposition to China in Africa.
The litmus will be who President Barack Obama selects as his Africa person and
whether he tries to weaken Joseph Kabila in favor of backing Nkunda's death
squads, naturally in the name of "restoring democracy".
F William Engdahl is author of A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil
Politics and the New World Order (Pluto Press) and Seeds of Destruction:
The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation (www.globalresearch.ca). A new book,
Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order (Third
Millennium Press) is due out early 2009. He may be reached via his website:
www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net.
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