Book Review: The Graves Are Not Yet Full

"A common illusion of the post-Cold War era is that the superpower rivalry suppressed traditional ethnic rivalries that have since resurfaced with a vengeance. In fact, all too often the opposite has been the case. The superpowers did precious little to suppress ethnic conflicts and much to spawn them-by elevating, financing, and arming tyrants who would one day exploit ethnicity as a means of clinging to power. Buffeted by history's changing winds, bereft of their superpower backing, one by one the embattled creatures of the old world order have struggled to survive in the new by playing the ethnic card." (17)

"It was the Kennedy administration that helped to elevate Mobutu Sese Seko to power in what became Zaire...Republicans, for their part, would toss the more memorable rhetorical bouquets at Africa's most notorious despot. In 1976, Henry Kissinger, during a stop in Kinshasa, cooed about the 'respect and affection that lie at the heart of the relationship between' the United States and Zaire; he assured Mobutu that 'the United States will stand by its friends.' It was President Reagan, in a felicitous phrase undoubtedly screened if not crafted by his assistant secretary of state for African Affairs, Chester Crocker, who called Mobutu 'a voice of good sense and good will.' President Bush called Mobutu 'one of our most valued friends [on] the entire continent of Africa.' By then the United States has ponied up $1 billion for Mobutu's predatory regime." (81)

• Per capita income in 1980 1/10 of what it was at independence in 1960
• In the 1990's poverty 'dropped below measureable levels'
• One paved road in ten that existed at independence made it to the 1990's
• The only reliable surface transport was the Congo River, but there were no boats to travel it
• Half the country's children die by the age of five
• 6,000% inflation in 1992 (24 million Zaires to the dollar). When Mobutu ran short of funds for his various pleasure palaces and escapades, he simply minted more.
• 80% unemployment
• in 1986 schools received $8 million of the $73 million budgeted for them, health programs $8 million of $24 million
• Zaire received 1 $billion in US aid during the Reagan years
• Mobutu's personal wealth was estimated at over $5 billion, roughly equivalent to the national debt. He opened his own Swiss bank.
• All of this rampant gangsterism was of course accompanied by brutal repression of all opposition.

"[Rep. Howard] Wolpe had been a scholar of African affairs before he went to Washington. He clashed repeatedly with [Chester] Crocker for eight years as Africa subcommittee chairman. When I asked Wolpe about Crocker's argument to me about the legitimacy of protecting American interests in the Cold War, Wolpe replied, 'I have no quarrel with that. But every time America stood up for dictators, we actually did very little to advance American interests. We stood up for regimes that were inherently unstable. We were complicit in their crimes. We fed instability on the entire continent....This engagement or walk away analysis-it's a false dichotomy. We ended up creating self-fulfilling prophecies. Mobutu especially. We were always told that there was no alternative to Mobutu. In the end we ensured there was nothing left behind." (78)

"In my own interviews with apartheid's securocrats, they never failed to remind me of what they took pains to describe as their close relationship with 'you guys,' as one put it. 'It's a brotherhood,' General Joe Buchner, the notorious covert operative and torturer who was at the heart of the 'black-on-black' violence in South Africa, told me wistfully: 'We in the police of the various offices overseas-everybody knew you. Our training came mostly from you guys-and the Brits.'"

• Book Review: The Black Man's Burden - July 03, 04
• Rwanda - May 29, 04