this was an interview between contributing editor Ann Garrison and Execute Director of Friends of the Congo Maurice Carney.
on May 19, 2024, he [Christian Malanga] died in a quixotic coup attempt involving a force of some 50 armed men and lasting for all of three hours in Congo’s capital, Kinshasa. Reports are that three of his men and two Congolese police officers were also killed, and that the rest of the men were arrested.
On the same day, in a more serious and significant undertaking, two Morehouse College professors [Samuel Livingston and Cynthia Hewitt] held up a Congolese flag behind President Joe Biden as he addressed the 2024 graduating class.
the full transcript for the interview is linked in the post (and is worth a read) but i also summarised the details relevant to the headlines:
on the failed coup attempt:
MAURICE: Well, I think that, as you said, it was quixotic. Christian Malanga had no political base in Congo, so it’s hard to imagine how he thought he could succeed in seizing power.
It was almost like reality TV. He even streamed himself and his band of soldiers on Facebook, making pronouncements and waving his bizarre “New Zaire” flag in the presidential palace.
ANN: Some people are making a lot of the fact that Christian was a Congolese American and that several Americans, including his 21-year-old son Marcel Malanga, were arrested with the rest of his crew.
MAURICE: No, whatever you want to say about the Pentagon, the CIA, the DIA, or any of the other myriad US intelligence agencies, they’re not amateurs, and nothing could have been more amateurish than Christian’s three-hour coup attempt.
ANN: Another detail generating a lot of social media posts is Christian’s visit to an Israeli military base in 2015.
MAURICE: Likewise. Mossad is not amateurish and neither is the Israeli military.
ANN: Is there anything else you’d like to say about the coup attempt?
MAURICE: Only that there was a big concert scheduled in Kinshasa later that day and it went forward as planned. That should tell you what a blip on the screen this coup attempt was.
and on the holding up of a Congolese flag in the graduating class:
MAURICE: Yes, Dr. Livingston serves on our board, and Dr. Hewitt is a very active supporter of our work.
ANN: The only press I can find about the Morehouse protest so far, beyond social media, is in USA Today , Yahoo News , and Democracy Now !. USA Today claimed to “explain” but didn’t say anything about why the professors would be protesting behind Biden, and neither did Yahoo News.
On Democracy Now!, Dr. Livingston said he was protesting US complicity in the genocide in DRC by supporting Rwanda, which supports the M23 militia most responsible for the genocide. He also said he did so because the people of the Congo do not get enough media attention, and that the US owes reparations to the Congolese for assassinating their first Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba.
ANN: Dr. Livingston also mentioned a connection between Congo, Israel, Palestine, and Dan Gertler, the conflict mineral mining magnate we discussed earlier. He said, as you did, that Biden is trying to strike a deal with Gertler, who is also Israeli. Gertler, he said, has used the vast wealth he’s managed to extract from DRC not only to enrich himself, but also to vicariously enrich the Israeli state, and therefore contribute to the oppression of the Palestinian people.
I’m trying my darnedest to keep up with the whole of Africa, but it’s so hard to get context and history as an American. Other than the vague “Amerkkkia and THE WEST™©® at large have nothing but horrors in Africa” feeling I have, it’s hard to properly understand what’s going down in Africa. I’m trying to get more Black Agenda Report in my news rotation but getting up to speed is rough.
