The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is touted to be a ‘vast, mineral rich and war torn country.’ Some experts do not buy the image. One thing is certain, though. The country is a failure, especially in its attempts at conflict reconstruction. For starters, Congo seems to have the world’s largest franchise of human rights abuses that include in its long roster such despicable acts as ‘mass rape, military reprisals against civilians, and appalling living conditions.’

‘Hillary Clinton met with Congolese President Joseph Kabila and implored Kinshasa to do a better job of protecting its people. She promised the country $17 million in aid to combat sexual violence in the eastern part of the country. The United States, at least, continues to believe that a real Congolese government does exist and can be dealt with accordingly.’

‘Congo,’ as a rectifiable state, is an imagined charade which is a ‘calculated, and progressively manufactured result of a long-standing operation by Western nations to maintain a weak state in this vast mineral rich swath of land in the heart of Africa and perpetuate the systematic plunder of Congo’s resources by various foreign interests, and their proxies in the local elite.’

Congo, as a nation, lives in the abstract. It is an ‘imagined political community’ that exists ‘only because 68 million Congolese believe they belong to it.’ The Kabila government in Kinshasa ‘does not exercise anything resembling sovereign authority in eastern Congo, nor will any likely successor government.’

Simply put, there is no Congo because there is no sovereign Congolese authority that exists, only a well-organized system of ‘unregulated trade in minerals.’

Via Foreign Policy