New Left Review I/236, July-August 1999

Victoria Brittain

Colonialism and the Predatory State in the Congo

At independence, the Congo had only two graduates, and such fabulous riches that the country inevitably became a magnet for rapacious foreign companies and for the Western intelligence services. Kinshasa, as the capital Leopoldville was renamed, swelled with worldly businessmen not averse to secret deals. Once Lumumba was out of the way, the government was easily manipulated into becoming the linchpin of the Central Intelligence Agency’s operations throughout much of the continent, and particularly in connection with the liberation struggles in Angola and in South Africa. In the thirty years which followed the granting of independence from Belgium, much of the history of the region was intimately tied to the very special circumstances of Congo, rebaptized Zaire by Mobutu in the sixties. For example, Zaire was closely implicated in the genocide against Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994. Adam Hochschild’s book [*] Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost, Macmillan, Basingstoke 1999, £22.50 hb. illuminates the particular character of Belgian colonialism in Congo and goes a long way to explain a crucial episode in modern racism and the foundations of the most venal state in post-independence Africa. In so doing, he also throws light on the dynamic behind the catastrophic failed rebellions of the last three years in Congo.

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