Guerilla Struggle in Zaire

by Matthew Quest

The Movement of Workers and Peasants of Congo-Kinshasa (Zaire, the former Belgian Congo) is waging guerrilla struggle against the CIA-imposed and -backed dictatorship of Joseph Mobutu Sese Seko. The MOP (French initials), a united front of a few Marxist-Leninist tendencies and their supporters, lays claim to the legacies of Patrice Lumumba and Pierre Mulele.

Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of what was called Congo at "independence," June 30, 1960, was assassinated by a conspiracy of Mobutu, Moise Tshombe, Joseph Kasavabu, the CIA, and Belgian mercenaries less than six months later, on Jan. 17, 1961. At the time Mobutu was a prominent officer in the army. Tshombe was a leader of a CIA-backed secessionist movement of Katanga (now Shaba) province. Shaba, Swahili for copper, was the province of greatest concern to neo-colonial interest. Kasavabu, first president of parliament, publicly took a neutral position on Mobutu's prior bloodless removal of Lumumba from office, but later he was revealed to be part of the assassination plot. Lumumba distinguished himself as a great Pan-African leader by signing an agreement with Kwame Nkrumah to unite with Ghana and Sekou Toure's Guinea in a future continental government, the United States of Africa.

Pierre Mulele is credited with introducing guerrilla struggle and Marxist-Leninist ideas into the early struggle against Mobutu and neo-colonialism. Lumumba's former minister of education, he was a Maoist and was trained in guerrilla warfare by China. He led a tendency in Kwilu province, one of many independent guerrilla fronts in the Congo, from 1963-1968, when he was assassinated under mysterious circumstances.

Mobutu has been in power officially 30 years (unofficially more than 34 years). He is one of the five richest individuals in the world. He is worth $10 billion. Zaire has a national debt of $7 billion, and its national bank has $5,000 in assets. Mobutu's regime, while being an acknowledged atrocious human rights abuser, continues to exploit IMF programs.

The union movement, while either being a pawn of Mobutu or repressed for some time, has dwindled from 1 million in size to roughly 250,000. When people eat once every 48 hours they tend not to stay on the job. Investment in the neo-colonial economy has leveled off but the multi-national corporations still maintain their interests in the nation that produces the most diamonds in the world and the sixth most copper in an ever increasingly mechanized mining industry.

Reportedly the MOP has set up dual governments in the roughly 20% of the territory of the country that is under its control. They are strong in parts of three provinces in the eastern part of the country: Shaba, Kivu, and Kisangi. The success of their struggle has strategic implications for Rwanda as well because the military bases of the US and France, whose forces have intervened against the progressive Rwandan Patriotic Front, have come from Zaire.

Serge Mukendi, the US representative of the MOP, is available to speak, distribute literature, and is collecting donations to combat the cholera epidemic and continue the fight.

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