Chapter Nine - A Wound That Never Closed

CHAPTER NINE

A Wound That Never Closed

IN 1960, THE Congo finally broke free.
After 75 years of occupation, extraction, and white lies, it declared independence from Belgium.

Fireworks lit up Leopoldville.
Flags changed. Streets were renamed.
For a moment — a fleeting moment — it looked like justice had finally arrived.

But the truth?

Belgium left behind no foundation — only fractures.

There were no trained civil servants.
No experienced diplomats.
No local military leadership.
No Congolese doctors or engineers in major posts.

They had stolen the minerals.
They had stolen the lives.
And then they stole the future.

Congo’s first prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, was a brilliant, charismatic, and unapologetically African leader.

He gave fiery speeches.
He called out Belgium’s cruelty.
He refused to be a puppet.

And for that, the West decided he had to go.

Within months:
– Belgium plotted his removal
– The CIA got involved
– The UN looked away

In 1961, Lumumba was arrested, tortured, and executed.
His body was dissolved in acid.
His teeth kept as a trophy.

The Congo’s first democratic voice — silenced by foreign fear.

After Lumumba’s assassination, the Congo descended into chaos.

Who stepped in to “stabilize” it?
Joseph-Désiré Mobutu — a military officer turned dictator.

With full backing from the United States and Belgium, Mobutu seized power in 1965.

He renamed the country Zaire.
Renamed himself Mobutu Sese Seko.
Draped himself in leopard-skin hats and gold medals.
And ruled with an iron fist for over three decades.

While he preached nationalism, he looted the country dry.
Billions in foreign aid vanished into Swiss accounts.
Opponents were imprisoned, tortured, or disappeared.

Mobutu wasn’t a ruler.
He was a Cold War asset.

As long as he was anti-communist, the West didn’t care what he did.

Even after independence, Congo’s resources remained its curse.

Foreign companies kept mining:
– Cobalt for batteries
– Copper for wiring
– Diamonds for global markets

The profits? Still exported.
The workers? Still exploited.
The infrastructure? Still crumbling.

Each new regime promised change.
Each one bled the country further.

Warlords, corporations, neighboring armies —
everyone came to feed.

From 1996 to 2003, Congo was engulfed in two back-to-back wars involving nine African nations.

Over 5 million people died — from violence, starvation, and disease.
It was the deadliest conflict since World War II.

And yet — it barely made headlines.

Foreign powers continued to back local militias, sponsor proxy battles, and extract minerals in exchange for weapons.

Rape became a tactic of war.
Entire towns were erased.
The country — already broken — was shattered again.

Today, the Democratic Republic of the Congo remains one of the richest countries in natural resources…
and one of the poorest in the world.

It exports:
– The cobalt in your smartphone
– The gold in your jewelry
– The copper in your electric car

And yet — its people lack clean water.
Hospitals. Roads. Schools. Justice.

Because the wound was never allowed to heal.
Because healing requires acknowledgment.
And the world has still not truly said: We did this.