Ante Up to Rebuild Congo

Two and a half million corpses testify to the four bloody years of war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which might finally end with a South Africa-brokered peace agreement. It was a lot like other wars in Africa, only bigger, involving many ethnic groups, complicated geopolitical maneuvering and gun-toting vigilantes.

Few Americans know much about the vast Central African nation. There was little public outcry over the millions of deaths. The United States did, however, facilitate dialogue between the bitter enemies and pressure all sides for peace.

In a sense, the United States is finally starting to make up for some of its Cold War misdeeds.

In a recent article in the Washington Post, Stephen Weissman, staff director of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Africa from 1986 to 1991, asserts persuasively that the United States was directly complicit in the overthrow of Patrice Lumumba, the only democratically elected leader ever in the Congo, during the Eisenhower administration. In the name of its battle against communism, the CIA installed a friendly military dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, who went on to rape the country’s rich mineral endowments in a notorious kleptocracy.

But with Mobutu gone and a young Joseph Kabila in charge, Congo may have a chance to begin recovering, with foreign help.

Sending large sums of aid to a shaky and as yet undemocratic government is not an ideal option. Rather, the United States and other Western nations (like former colonial power Belgium) should expand contributions to nongovernmental organizations operating in Africa’s war-battered Great Lakes region to provide food, medical care and other basic necessities.

The U.S. also should help the United Nations bolster its funds to the peacekeeping force in the region, and the U.N. should consider granting its peacekeepers Chapter 7 status, allowing them to actively disarm marauding gunmen in the east of the country and protect the noncombatant population, although this would entail some risk to the U.N. forces.

The developed world has the best opportunity in decades to advance the ideals of democracy and civil society in some of Africa’s most volatile areas, as historic peace negotiations conclude in Sudan, Congo, Burundi and Angola and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, passed by the nascent African Union last month, promotes peace, democracy and human rights in exchange for foreign aid.

Britain’s director of international aid already is asking other nations for more foreign assistance for the region. Other Western nations, especially France, Belgium, Germany and other colonial powers that looted parts of Africa, should participate in whatever way they can in rebuilding what decades of imperialism, dictatorship and war destroyed.