Rwanda Invades Democratic Republic of Congo

by belahua Fri Dec 17, 2004 12:22

Congo has diamonds and: coltan.

Coltan is a rare metal, used in micro-chips for PCs and in mobile phones.
Coltan is only found in Australia and Congo.

Companies like e.g. BAYER (Germany) or others finance the war in Congo for getting cheap access to Coltan Mines.
Slaves and children are the miners - controlled by rebels.

in the 90s the war in Congo killed about 3-4 million people. till today 1000 people die because of this war each day.

as Rwanda went in again the number will grow dramatically.
In its last war in the 90s against Congo Rwanda conquered an area 27 times bigger than Rwanda itself...

All western countries do have certain interests in this conflict. It´s a real big mess.

by donal Fri Dec 17, 2004 12:22

http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/africa/archive/

The US /global business press has been covering this fairly extensively, as has the economist in Europe and the Financial Times man in Kinshasa, Andrew England
has had a story in the paper everyday this week. Maybe you should read subscribe to less insular media.
and before the ya but no but ya buts decide the commercial press is only there to give news of exploitation ops, read the coverage - and bear in mind that marx first and most important engagenment with economics was as editor of germany's then FT equivilent.

by henry the swordfish Fri Dec 17, 2004 12:29

marx has written and edited the "Rheinische" newspaper.
this newspaper was anything - but not an equivalent to the FT.

it was the first communist newspaper.

if u mean a different newspaper, not the "Rheinische" - tell me. I did not know that he has written for another paper...

by donal Fri Dec 17, 2004 13:14

The The Rhenish Gazette was the paper of the liberal Cologne business community, oppossed to the reactionary and aristocratic Prussian government, which was seen as deeply anti business and anti personal freedom.
Marx was, and became more so, more radical than the his readers. He eventaully had to leave following an article on teh plight of wine producers. I'm not saying he was a pro business liberal, just pointing out that in 19 century germany that was an anti establishment stance.
marx casting of the rise of the bourgeoise as an heroic struggle with the dead hand of feudalism {which he casts as a prelude to the rise of the proletariet} should be looked at from that point of view.
anyway the point was the libersal business press is often very very good in terms iof coverage

by rooster Fri Dec 17, 2004 21:29

And if the west sends troops to stop the atrocities will members of this board welcome the move????

by ZXBarcalow Fri Dec 17, 2004 22:21

If China sends troops will YOU welcome the move?

by rooster Fri Dec 17, 2004 22:30

China has been sending arms to Africa for decades, maybe this time they'll risk their lives in the conflict.

Lets face it, with a population of a billion their unlikely to notice a few fatalities.

Besides, now that they have embraced free market policies they are as capitalist as the rest of us.

by Mike Sat Dec 18, 2004 15:44

So you think you should interpret this event in terms of "capitalism" and market resources like diamonds and saleable minerals?

I want you to try something, an exercise in analyzing ancient history. Suppose we are looking at events from 3000 years ago so any talk of "capitalism" or major markets is nonsense. There are tribes up in the hills who have bred till their numbers leave a human density around one per acre which makes for pretty tough survival when you are subsistance farmers. Nearby there are large areas of lowlands. For some reason the people there have not overbred. While collectively the population of the lowlanders is several times that of the hill trirbes, it is spread thinly over an area a hundred times greater so the population density is very low.

OK -- you get reports that hill tribes are pouring out of their mountains and invading the lowlands. What do you decide is the cause of this? Do you feel you are unable to explain this event without a theory of "capitalism"? Do you attempt, for example, to interpret the events of your own "Book of Invasions" in terms of capitalism?

Then WHY pray tell, do you feel you need "capitalism" as an explanation for reports that Rwanda is invading the Congo? Yes I understand, it's 3000 years later than my example and now "capitalism" exists. But is anything ELSE different >

Is this just a "religion" with you? Some kind of "faith" that requires that all events be ascribed causes in terms of "capitalism" even when you know from objective study of history the exact same things used to happen before capitalism came on the scene? And so an events of this type
MUST have prime causes unrelated to capitalism.

Occam's Razor --- I don't see any good reason to interpret this event in terms other than this. We have a group of humans whose population has become hopelessly out of balance with their ecological base. They are invading the much less densely inhabited territory of neighbors. It's what humans in this situation do if they are strong enough to get away with it.

by c y Sat Dec 18, 2004 17:58

this conflict in congo is deeply connected with capitalism:

1. the states/nations in africa are a product of colonialism which means: they are a product of capitalistic imerpialism

2. the problems these states are facing have their roots in ancient colonialism - and on the other hand: in modern imperialism

3. the conflict in congo: yes there are ethnic groups fighting - but: they are not tribes. would u have called the fights in jugoslawia fights between different tribes?

4. western companies and countries finance those "tribes" u mentioned.

5. the conflict is about raw materials - and nothing else.

by non english speaker Sat Dec 18, 2004 18:07

as u came up with scientific methods like `ockhams razor´ -.

listen: u should know this is an old method, developed withoud the knowledge marx´s materialism gave us about the historical processes.
if u start your analysis with the method `materialism´ your basic knowledge is that they way we produce causes they way our society works, causes they way our conflicts happen, causes they we think.

so any exact analysis has to begin with the base of society: the production in general. today: with capitalism.

thats it

by diamondsareforever Sat Dec 18, 2004 18:11

"5. the conflict is about raw materials - and nothing else."

There is something else, don't forget the diamonds.

by Mike Sat Dec 18, 2004 21:22

What on earth makes you interpret what I said as an argument for non-material causes? What on earth makes you interpret what I said as a claim that when such things happen it is NOT about "resources".

Now all I said is that is we were looking at human events before capitalism (say anytime more than 500 years ago) we woudl have a perfectly understandable "reason" for what was happening. A group of people, however organized (tribes, ethnic groups, nation states) where the population density had grown beyond the ability of their territory to support them were trying to take over the territory of a less densely populated neighbor -- because they were strong enough to do so and it beat starving. We would not be surprised to see this happen. It would not be a mystery to us. We would understand this as "it's what humans always do if they can".

Yes we have capitalism now. We might need a capitalist explanation for why this sort of event did NOT happen. We don't need a capitalist explanation for why it DOES happen because we know that it happens (used to happen) in the absence of capitalism. THAT is all "Occam's Razor" is about, not looking for new complicated reasons in cases where you already have a perfectly good explanation of events.

Did I presume too much knowledge about the material conditions of Rwanda relative to Congo? Did you not realize that the material realities are that its area is about 1% the area of the Congo and its population about 10% of that of the ENTIRE Congo. That the human density in Rwanda is like that of Holland?

Under these conditions do you not EXPECT an invasion? Whether there is capitalism in the world or not? Capitalism and colonialism explain why OUTSIDERS might concern themsleves with the conflict, for example, a good business oportunity to make money selling weapons to both sides. You might to bring in capitalism to explain why outsiders might prefer one side or the other to win (those exportable minerals for example) or why ourdisers might step in to stop the invasion.

But you don't need capitalism to understand why this is happening. Keep in mind that Marx was analysing Western European Industiral Civilization as a "steady state" situation and concerned with its INTERNAL prodcution and distribution. Nobody in the 19th Century was asking questions like ":what happens when the fossil resources run out?". Hell, Marx wasn't even taking into his analysis where the external inputs of resoruces which were fueling Western Industrial Civilization were coming from.

Material realities YES. It's material reality that the world's fossil resources are becoming exhausted. It's material reality that during, and as a result of industrial civilization and capitalism the human population of the planet has grown to the point that it will not be possible to sustain our present numbers IF those resources are actually running out. STOP -- this is NOT a denial of inequality of distribution and the consequences of that. With a fairer distribution, at any goven level of sustainable production, more humans can be supported at a higher "standard fo consumption". So we do need to concern ourselves with that. Whether that is ALL we need concern ourselves with depends upon some material realities ---- what WILL be the sustainable level of production once the fossil resources are gone (and we have no choice but to live on a sustainable basis) and what is the minimum acceptable (or even survivable) level of consumption. If the material reality of that calculation is that sorry, even with totally fair distribution (can't do better than that) the level of sustainable production will be enough for only X humans (where X is less than 6 billion) then our population WILL get reduced and our only choices will be over how.

THAT is talking in terms of "material reality" and were Marx alive today what he would be telling us.

by j. k. Mon Dec 20, 2004 02:16

u wrote: "THAT is talking in terms of "material reality" and were Marx alive today what he would be telling us."

the marxist method - historic materialism and dialectic materialism - is a bit more than just talking in terms of "material reality".

by Mike Tue Dec 21, 2004 13:51

"he marxist method - historic materialism and dialectic materialism - is a bit more than just talking in terms of "material reality"

But what do you MEAN by that?

Do you mean the METHOD of analysis used by Marx? Although I am not any sort of Hegelian, I would have no objection to REAL "Marxists" applying the method to analyze the material conditions that appear to face humankind in the 21st Century.

Or do you mean by that the quasi-religious application of Marxist dogma, unthinking application of 19th Century analysis as of there were no need for continuing re-evaluation as material conditions changed? If you don't understand how contrary something like this is to the way Marx thought then you don't understand Marx at all.

Marx should not be faulted for buying in to the 19th Century notion of "progress", of treating the growing industrial civilization as if it were making limitless progress and that all remaining problems were internal. That was a pervasive conception during the 19th Century. Just about nobody was looking ahead and asking "what happens when the fossil resources run out?"

That's a TIME issue. Get it? Any revolutionaries who did stop to ask that question estimated that the time in the future if and when that became a problem would be well AFTER the "revolution" and so could be left to the future post revolutionary society to solve. And they would not be far wrong in that estimation because of the world population levels of their day (around 2 billion). Don't you understand? If that were still true we WOULD probably have enough time given the three times slower exhaustion of fossil resoruces.

You are interpeting what I have been saying in terms of "Marx was wrong" and I'm not saying his analysis was wrong given his material assumptions. But his analysis of history did not take into account the possibility that the population would in the interim grow to the point that industrial civilization might first collapse because of exhaustion of the resources supporting its unsustainable production.

Look, estimates of "carrying capacity" vary, but I've seen some optimistic ones as high as 2 billion. In other words, given the human population levels of the day Marx might have been correct in ignoring the "resources" problem and concentrating on "distribution". But nobody willing to talk "numbers" has an estimate as high as 6 billion. Likewise time to the crash is also uncertain, but even the more optimistic don't put that at more than 100 years ahead and that is NOT enough time for the revolution, a generation or two to growo up post revolution (so we have a post revolutionary society), and THEN gradually reduce the population to sustainable levels so we can all share an acceptable life.