Debashis Chakrabarti
Kinshasa’s streets hum with restless energy, a city suspended between hope and despair. In the east, rebels loot villages, their guns paid for by the minerals that power the world’s electric dreams. Beneath the soil lies a wealth vast enough to rebuild a continent—yet, for over a century, it has been the currency of its destruction.
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is not merely a country; it is a parable of modern imperialism. From the severed hands of Leopold’s rubber plantations to Cold War puppet regimes and today’s green energy stampede, the script has changed, but the plot remains the same: wealth flows outward, suffering remains local. The West, quick to denounce China’s economic incursions into Africa, conveniently forgets its own role in scripting this unending tragedy.
From Leopold to Lumumba: A Nation Strangled in Its Cradle
In 1885, the Berlin Conference declared Congo a “free trade” zone under King Leopold II of Belgium. What followed was neither free nor trade but plunder at an industrial scale. By the time the world woke up to the horrors—forced labor, mutilations, and millions dead—Leopold had already rewritten history, selling his colony to Belgium as a “humanitarian” gesture. The new colonial rulers promised reform, but exploitation merely changed hands.
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