The world loves to say Congo is cursed. Congo is chaotic. But as an African— as a Namibian who knows what colonial hands look like— I can tell you: Congo is not cursed.
Congo is chained.
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Chained by kings who chopped off children’s hands so Europe could ride bicycles and drive their fancy cars.
Chained by superpowers who murdered Patrice Lumumba simply because he dared to say, “Congo’s minerals should benefit Congolese people.”
Chained by dictators who looted the nation dry while eating steak in Paris and Washington.
Chained by neighbours who crossed borders when they smelled wealth.
And chained by corporations still profiting today from cobalt and coltan dug out of the ground by Congolese children.
Congo’s story is not chaos. It is not bad luck.
It is the most organized system of exploitation the modern world has ever seen.
And it continues— chain by chain, silence by silence.
It’s the silence of Europe, who built museums and monuments with Congo’s blood money, but still cannot bring themselves to call Leopold’s crimes by their real name: genocide.
It’s the silence of America, who armed Mobutu, abandoned Congo, watched millions die, then continued buying the very minerals that kept wars alive.
It’s the silence of Africa— yes, us too— where too many leaders traded Congo’s suffering for alliances, business deals, or simply peaceful borders.
And it’s the silence of the world.
A silence so loud it buries the screams of the dead and the cries of the living.
Because Congo has never lacked courage. Never lacked talent. Never lacked vision.
What Congo has been denied again and again is justice.
Justice for Leopold’s brutality.
Justice for Lumumba’s assassination.
Justice for the millions buried in unmarked graves while the world debated and delayed.
So the question is not whether Congo is cursed.
The question is how long the world will pretend it does not hear the rattle of the chains it helped create.
And the deeper question is this:
When the world finally hears them… will it have the courage to break them?
THE CHAINS BEGAN IN BERLIN
Congo’s chains began in 1885, in Berlin, at a conference where no African was even allowed in the room.
Europe sat around a table carving Africa like a Sunday roast.
Leopold claimed Congo for himself— not for Belgium— for himself, to line his pockets.
He named it the “Congo Free State.”
But the only freedom there was the freedom to plunder Africans.
His soldiers forced entire villages to harvest rubber— rubber the world needed for car tyres, telegraphs, and factories.
If quotas weren’t met, they burned homes, took hostages, or cut off hands.
This was not random violence. It was a system. A business model built on terror.
Between 10 and 15 million Congolese died.
One of the biggest genocides in world history— yet the quietest.
Europe teaches children about Hitler.
The world repeats “never again” for Rwanda.
But Congo’s 10 million dead are treated like a paragraph, a footnote.
In Brussels, museums display Congo’s ivory and artifacts, but rarely the blood that brought them there.
Even here in Africa, we skip this chapter as if it’s too far, too old, too heavy.
That silence is not innocent.
It protects Europe’s pride.
It allows Belgium to pretend it was “civilising” Africa.
It allows the West to pretend Congo’s instability is purely African, not engineered.
And so exploitation never really ended. It just changed shape.
One image from that era still cuts deep:
A Congolese father, Nsala, sitting on a porch staring at the severed hand and foot of his little daughter— punished because the village did not meet its rubber quota.
That kind of horror is not forgotten.
It becomes part of a nation’s soul.
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INDEPENDENCE THAT WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE INDEPENDENT
When independence came in 1960, Belgium rushed it— deliberately.
A country the size of Western Europe was handed over with almost no trained leaders, almost no schools, and only a handful of university graduates.
Independence on paper.
Dependence in reality.
Then Patrice Lumumba rose.
At the independence ceremony, the Belgian king praised colonialism. Congolese leaders tried to stay polite.
But Lumumba— eish, that man— he stood up and told the truth.
He listed their suffering, their humiliation, their stolen land, their beatings.
He told Congolese people that independence was not a gift.
It was won with their blood.
In Europe, they gasped.
In Africa, the crowd cheered.
That one speech changed everything.
Because Lumumba exposed the lie Europe had been telling the world.
And for that, he became “dangerous.”
THE PLOT AGAINST LUMUMBA
Within months, Congo was torn apart.
The army mutinied against Belgian officers.
Belgium sent paratroopers “to protect citizens” but really to protect mines.
Katanga— the richest province— broke away with Belgian money and mercenaries.
Why?
Because Katanga held copper, cobalt, uranium.
Its uranium had even been used to build the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
Whoever controlled Katanga controlled Congo.
Lumumba turned to the UN for help.
They refused. “Neutrality.”
Neutral between colonialists and an elected African government.
When Lumumba reached out to the Soviets for survival, the West lost its mind.
Cold War politics suddenly became more important than Congolese lives.
The CIA plotted to kill him.
Belgium agreed.
Mobutu cooperated.
The UN watched.
Lumumba was arrested, beaten, flown to Katanga, executed by firing squad, chopped up, dissolved in acid.
Belgian officers kept his teeth as trophies.
Brother, what kind of people do that?
He was 35 years old.
His death was a message to every African leader:
If your nationalism threatens our interests, we will end you.
THE RISE OF MOBUTU – A NEW CHAIN
Mobutu rose with Western support.
He renamed the country Zaire and launched an “authenticity campaign”— African names, African clothes, no Western suits.
It looked African.
It sounded African.
But it was a mask.
Behind the slogans, Mobutu built one of the most corrupt regimes on earth.
He stole billions.
People starved while he flew mistresses to Paris on Concorde jets.
The West praised him because he was “their man.”
Congo’s chains were not broken.
They were tightened.
THE DECLINE AND THE RETURN OF WAR
By the 1980s the money ran out.
Copper prices fell.
IMF loans squeezed the people.
Students protested. Churches resisted.
Even soldiers were hungry.
When Rwanda’s genocide happened in 1994, Congo was dragged again into other people’s wars.
Refugees, militias, neighbouring armies— everyone entered Congo to take something.
Congo became the battlefield for nine African countries.
Millions died.
And through it all, the minerals kept moving— cobalt, coltan, gold— feeding global industries while Congolese children dug them out with bare hands.
THE TRUTH
Congo is not weak.
It is not cursed.
It is not chaotic.
Congo is targeted.
Because Congo is the heart of Africa— and the world knows it.
Its minerals power smartphones, electric cars, satellites, weapons, everything.
If Congo ever becomes truly free, the world will shake.
That is why the chains remain.
So the question is not whether Congo can rise.
It can.
It has the people, the land, the power.
The real question is:
Will the world allow Congo to break the chains it forged?
And will Africa stand with Congo when that moment comes?