By SMG / February 10, 2025
The Socialist Movement of Ghana (SMG) stands firmly in solidarity with the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and against the murderous and destructive onslaught of the M23 rebels who have killed thousands in their Goma campaign.
While we utterly condemn the genocidal actions of M23 and demand an immediate halt to their atrocities, we reject entirely the international corporate media’s chauvinist characterisation of this war as an ethnic conflict.
What Congo faces today is yet another murderous invasion by its neighbours. Rwandan and Ugandan neo-colonial elites seek to weaken or destroy the Congolese state to facilitate their plunder of Congo’s rich natural resources for sale to western transnational corporations. The context is Western Imperialism’s fear that it has been outclassed commercially and diplomatically by Chinese and non-Western competitors for Congo’s strategic minerals. A similar dynamic is unfolding here in West Africa – though not yet with the same murderous intensity.
This violence is a direct continuation of the 20th century Congo’s tragic neocolonial history, where the Western powers destroyed Congo’s First Republic to deny the Soviet Union access to Congo’s high-grade uranium resource. This violence led to the torture, death and dismemberment of DRC’s Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba.
This violence is also consistent with Congo’s colonial enslavement by Leopold II in a futile attempt to provide tiny Belgium’s capitalists a competitive advantage in the life and death struggle amongst monopoly capitalist enterprises in the 19th Century.
Before that, Congo, for hundreds of years, was a victim of Europe’s trans-Atlantic slave-trade.
Congo’s entire modern history has been a heroic struggle against arrogant racist imperialist exploitation and turncoat African “leaders” that continually betray their people for personal advantage. Congo continues to pay a terrible price for sovereignty and dignity. And yet, the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo resist and resist and resist – as best they can. This explains large organised protests in cities such as Kinshasa and Bukavu, where citizens seek to hold accountable the embassies of nations complicit in their exploitation and oppression and to participate in the wave of popular actions breaking out across Africa by a people determined to end neo-colonialism and its horrors finally.
The current offensive by the M23 has resulted in startling loss of life and extensive damage to public infrastructure, affecting Goma and the entire North Kivu Province. The West’s proxy resource-grab now threatens the stability of the entire Eastern and Southern Africa as Rwanda and South African Defence Forces have exchanged fire – a perilous development.
We call for the following urgent actions:
- an unconditional ceasefire by the M23;
- withdrawal of all foreign troops (especially Rwandan and Ugandan) from the Congo;
- an immediate meeting of the AU’s Security and Peace Council;
- formal AU condemnation of Rwanda and Ugandan invasions of the DRC;
- reinforcement of MUNOSCO to protect the Congolese people from this onslaught; and
- more substantial support and unity among progressive movements across Africa to combat external exploitation.
We urge all Pan-African and progressive groups worldwide to support the Congolese people’s fight for peace, dignity, and independence. Africa will ultimately break free from all forms of colonialism and oppression, allowing its people to live in dignity and freedom.
Free the Congo Now!
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