Congo Quotes
This is a common rejoinder of third world country leaders to accusations of Western democracies about corruption. And doubtless it is true. However temptation has never been a good defense of improper behavior.
The human rights abuses in the Belgian Congo were horrible. Natives who refused to work for the low wages were murdered or had their hands chopped off. The indigenous population was markedly reduced. Word of the atrocities started leaking out to Europe. It is not known whether the King really wanted any reform or just sent the instructions to cover himself. The instructions were not followed; the atrocities continued, and Leopold never took any steps to discipline his agents and minions. The Belgian Congo had the worst atrocities in the world until WWII.
Mobutu with Amerucan CIA and French assistance deposed Lumumba, murdered him, and seized power.
Guevara and Cuban revolutionaries had gone to the Congo to “assist” with their revolution, but cultural differences between the two groups of revolutionaries nullified any assistance that the Cubans could give.
He was lecturing to an audience of 1500 Blacks. Darrow was castigated for telling Negroes that they did not have an inherently inferior capacity from whites, This was feared would make them too demanding and insist on unrealistic equality.
There was no semblance of democracy on Zaire. When he was more candid, Mobutu opposed democracy for Africa. See {628027}.
Corruption was rife in the Congo before the French or Belgians ever arrived there. However, it is the case that French business and diplomatic culture is much more tolerant of third world corruption than most other industrial democracies and actively engage in bribery efforts to a degree that other nations do not.
At the time Dulles was the Assistant Secretary & Near East Division chief of the State Department. Congress was outraged over the Turkish massacres of the Armenians, the Russian pogroms against the Jews, and the Belgian atrocities against the Blacks in the Congo. However, the State Department was then more interested in maintaining relations for our corporations than the moral aspects of mass murder within a country.
Lumumba was too socialistic for Dulles. He was not only removed from power by a covert CIA operation but the allies we selected to succeed him, then murdered him as they feared they had no one to match Lumumba’s popularity with the people.
This is an example of what was one of the worst perversions of slavery. This minister actually argued that Blacks were much better off as slaves and slavery served them well.
He was justifying the millions he was spending on state official functions when most of the people were in abject poverty. He didn’t know his people well enough. They overthrew him and sent him into exile.
At the same time he was stealing billions from the public coffers.
At the time, the Congo was notorious for the huge number of rapes and the fact that rape was being used as a tool of intimidation by the government troops who the government claims are there to protect the public and also by the rebel forces who claim to be fighting for the people including the women they rape. In reality, the Congo is very rich in natural resources and the battles for control of the country are all really driven by the money to be made from the resources. The absurd denial by the ambassador has got to be one of the more hypocritical denials in diplomatic annals.
