Date: 14/01/2004
Source: The Presidency
Title: Mbeki: Joint session of transitional DRC parliament


ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT OF SOUTH AFRICA, THABO MBEKI, AT THE JOINT SESSION OF THE TRANSITIONAL PARLIAMENT OF THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO, Kinshasa, 14 January 2004

President of the National Assembly,
President of the Senate,
Your Excellency President Joseph Kabila,
Your Excellencies Vice-Presidents,
Honourable Ministers and Vice-Ministers,
Members of Parliament from Belgium
Members of the Diplomatic Corps,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen

My wife, my delegation and I would like to thank the leaders of the Congolese legislature and the honourable members for giving us the opportunity to address this august gathering. Through you, we would like to convey to the Congolese people our sincere thanks for the warm welcome they have extended to us since our arrival in the Democratic Republic yesterday.

Later this week we will commemorate the 43rd anniversary of the cruel assassination of that great African patriot and leader of the Congolese people, Patrice Lumumba. As we recall this dark day in the march of the peoples of Africa to freedom from colonialism and white minority domination, we cannot but recall Patrice Lumumba's last words, with which I am certain you are familiar.

In his last letter to his wife, he wrote:

"To my children whom I leave and whom perhaps I will see no more, I wish that they be told that the future of the Congo is beautiful and that it expects of each Congolese to accomplish the sacred task of the reconstruction of our independence and sovereignty; for without dignity there is no liberty, without justice there is no dignity, and without independence there are no free men ...

"Do not weep for me, my dear companion, I know that my country, which suffers so much, will know how to defend its independence and its liberty."

In this letter, Patrice Lumumba also addressed the important issue of international solidarity. He said:

"We are not alone. Africa, Asia, and free and liberated people from every corner of the world will always be found at the side of the Congolese. They will not abandon the fight until the day comes when there are no more colonisers and their mercenaries in our country."

In two days' time we will be commemorating the criminal assassination of the late President Laurent Kabila three years ago. As we participate in whatever will be done to mark this solemn occasion, surely we acknowledge that this son of the Congolese people did what he could to respond to the instructions left to all of us by Patrice Lumumba. In his memory, we must surely say that we too will try our best to respond to this moving testament.

In a sense the only thing I have come to say is that both you, leaders of the people of Congo, and us, your brothers and sisters from the rest of Africa, have only two tasks:

To determine what each of us should do to realise the directives given to us by Patrice Lumumba; and

Actually to implement the programmes of action we would have set ourselves in this regard.

In reality, the four centuries of history of the DRC from the end of the sixteenth century to the end of the twentieth contains within it a microcosm of our history and of our world as Africans.

It tells us the story of what happened to large parts of our continent during this same period of time, the pain that was inflicted on the African masses, the enormous damage that was caused to our societies and peoples, the manner in which our continent was pushed into the abyss of poverty and underdevelopment.

But it also tells us what we have to do to restore our dignity, to reassert our humanity, to take our place as equals among the peoples of the world, to give real and permanent hope to the children of Africa.

We speak of the Renaissance of Africa, of its rebirth and renewal. We foresee a time when we will have eradicated the legacy of four centuries of slavery, colonialism, neo-colonialism and white minority domination.

We state this matter firmly that we must and will bring about this historic change through our own efforts, relying on our own creative capacities, working in partnership with the rest of the world, to the extent that that world comes to us driven by a sense of human and international solidarity.

In as much as Congo was a microcosm of African suffering and pain, so must it be that the Democratic Republic of Congo becomes the very centre of the victory of the African Renaissance.

Without the renewal of the DRC, it would not be possible to speak to this victory. Without the engagement of the DRC in the front ranks of the struggle to bring about the victory of the African Renaissance, it will be impossible to achieve it. I am convinced that it is in this spirit and with this realisation that all of us must work hard and in a selfless and sustained manner to implement the injunctions that Patrice Lumumba bestowed on us as our legacy. You are more familiar with the history of the Congo than I am.

In his seminal book, "King Leopold's Ghost", Adam Hochschild tells a vivid story of the tragedy of the Congo and therefore of Africa.

He quotes Mukunzo Kioko, a twentieth century oral historian of the Pende people, as follows:

"Our fathers were living comfortably. They had cattle and crops; they had salt marshes and banana trees. Suddenly they saw a big boat rising out of the great ocean. This boat had wings all of white, sparkling like knives.

White men came out of the water and spoke words which no one understood.

Our ancestors took fright; they said these were vumbi, spirits returned from the dead.

They pushed them back into the ocean with volleys of arrows.

But the vumbi spat fire with a noise of thunder. Many men were killed. Our ancestors fled.

The chiefs and wise men said that these vumbi were the former possessors of the land.

From that time to our days now, the whites have brought us nothing but wars and miseries."

This tells the story of a large part of Africa - it is a story about Congo, but also a story about Africa.

Hochschild writes of the king at Mbanza Kongo when the Portuguese arrived in 1491. After he converted to Christianity, he assumed the name of Alfonso I. In1526 he wrote to King Joao III of Portugal as follows:

"Each day the traders are kidnapping our people - children of this country, sons of our nobles and vassals, even people of our own family. This corruption and depravity are so widespread that our land is entirely depopulated. We need in this Kingdom only priests and schoolteachers, and no merchandise, unless it is wine and flour for Mass. It is our wish that this Kingdom not be a place for the trade or transport of slaves.

"Many of our subjects eagerly lust after Portuguese merchandise that your subjects have brought into our domains. To satisfy this inordinate appetite, they seize many of our black free subjects. They sell them, after having taken these prisoners to the coast, secretly or at night. As soon as the captives are in the hands of white men they are branded with red-hot iron."

One slave trader wrote the following in his accounting books:

"Child, name unknown, as she is dying and cannot speak, male without value, and a small Callenbo, no value because she is dying; one small girl, Cantube, no value because she is dying."

Hochschild then writes about the period when Congo was the personal property of King Leopold of Belgium. For instance, the British vice consul reported in 1899:

"The officer's method was to arrive in canoes at a village, the inhabitants of which inevitably bolted on their arrival; the soldiers were then landed, and commenced looting, taking all the chickens, grain, etc. out of the houses; after which they attacked the natives until able to seize their women: these women were kept as hostages until the Chief of the district brought in the required number of kilograms of rubber. The rubber having been brought, the women were sold back to their own for a couple of goats apiece, and so he continued from village to village until the requisite number of rubber had been collected."

And later he writes:

"If a village refused to submit to the rubber regime, state or company troops or their allies shot everyone in sight, so that nearby villages would get the message. But on such occasions some European officers were mistrustful. For each cartridge issued to their soldiers, they demanded that the bullet had to be used to kill someone, not wasted in hunting or, worse yet, saved for possible use in a mutiny. The standard proof was the right hand from a corpse. Or, occasionally, not from a corpse. Sometimes, said one officer to a missionary, soldiers shot a cartridge at an animal in hunting; they then cut off a hand from a living man. In some military units, there was even "a keeper of the hands"; his job was the smoking of the hands."

I am certain you are familiar with the disaster that continued to befall the DRC after Patrice Lumumba was removed from office and later assassinated. This is the immediate legacy you and we have inherited. It is this situation that we must together correct, acting in a manner consistent with the instructions that Patrice left behind.

People of goodwill in the rest of Africa and beyond stand ready to support your efforts. But - as you know very well - the people of the Congo bear the primary responsibility for their own liberation.

This country has in the past attracted regional and world attention for the wrong reasons. For too long it has been used by some as a factor of instability in the region. Not only was it not at peace with itself but it also became the source of what has been justly called Africa's first world war.

But, today, Congo stands out as a beacon of hope, a torchbearer of Africa's renewal.

The process, which you are unfolding today, portends good tidings for your country and the Great Lakes region as a whole. It portends good tidings for our continent.

You are patriotic Congolese who have chosen to bring your wisdom, your insights, your talents, to bear on the process of bringing about solutions to the problems that beset this great country.

Assembled in this House this morning are men and women who come from a wide spectrum of Congolese society - former government, armed belligerents, unarmed opposition political parties and the organisations of civil society.

I must say that we are very, very privileged, indeed, to have come to know many of the leaders of the people of the Congo, many of whom are here sitting in the front ranks of the leadership of the parliament, as they sat and battled through very difficult questions in order to arrive at an inclusive agreement that would take the Congo out of its terrible past.

The inclusive character of this transitional parliament, and to the extent that it foreshadows the legislature of a post-election parliament, must indeed inspire all of us with confidence in the future of this country.

You derive your mandate from the interim constitution, which you, yourselves, crafted and adopted. The interim constitution is an embodiment of your resolve to overcome the legacy of disunity and fragmentation. I believe that it concentrates sufficient power at the centre to shape, pursue and encourage the nation-building process. It also reflects an unambiguous determination on your part to transform yours into a law-governed and rule-based society.

The Congolese are hardworking people, they are creative people, but perhaps, unlike other hardworking and creative people in the rest of the world, the people of this country have little to show for it.

How else could it be, when the country was for far too long disrupted by social disorder and when even the predominant economic activity is unmeasured and unrecorded? Even to this day, in the circumstances, the state does not have the possibility to collect revenue for use in addressing the social needs of the people and investing in the economy.

The interim constitution commits you to the task of creating a functioning legal and judicial apparatus for use in creating conditions that give certainty to everybody: the citizens of the Congo; everybody who visits the Congo; and everybody who wants to do business in the Congo. And I would imagine that the same apparatus, led by an elected legislature and an elected government, will be used by you to ensure an equitable distribution of the enormous resources of which this country disposes.

In the coming period you will be working together to create conditions for the smooth transition to democracy to which the President of the National Assembly has just referred. You have our best wishes for the success of that process. And you certainly have our support and we will do what we can to assist.

The challenges are many, as you know: There is the challenge of producing a population register, of issuing identity documents, of ensuring that those who will vote can be identified. That, in itself, is a struggle on its own. But it tells all of us about the challenge that we all of us face to ensure that the African Renaissance succeeds here in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Constitution visualises the establishment of various institutions supporting democracy. These are very important and must be given the necessary strength and powers to make sure that they are a central part of the process of creating a democratic and a stable Congo.

I have said that the Congo, the history of the Congo, is a microcosm of the history of Africa. And because of that we cannot say the African Renaissance has succeeded until it succeeds here in the DRC. The challenges you face are challenges the continent faces. Where you spoke about ending war and bringing peace, that is a challenge that has faced us from Algeria through the Congo to South Africa. Where you have spoken of national unity and national reconciliation, that is a challenge that has faced all of us, from South Africa to the Congo to Algeria.

Where you talk about overcoming the legacy of oppression that, too, addresses a common challenge from Algeria through the Congo to South Africa. When you join the battle to make sure that the national resources are used for the improvement of the lives of the people and not merely the enrichment of a few; the battle that will root out the abuse of political power by some corruptly to steal resources that belong to the masses of the people; when you talk about all of those things, you talk about challenges that are faced by the entirety of our continent, from Algeria through the Congo to South Africa.

That, centrally, is why what happens here is of critical importance to the entirety of our continent. And that is why, as a continent, we must surely say the tasks facing the Congolese people are not merely Congolese tasks. They are African tasks.

It is in that spirit, President of the National Assembly, President of the Senate, that we have come to Kinshasa at this time. It is to find these points of co-operation between the people of this country and the people of South Africa, to say: What do we do together to face these common challenges!

We have had very important discussions with the government of the DRC, led by President Joseph Kabila. Our business people have come and concluded an agreement with the Federation of Congolese Enterprises. The agreements that have been reached by both governments and the private sectors are informed by this one objective, that we must work and act together to change the condition of the lives of the Congolese people, to change the conditions of life of the African, and of the South African people, so that indeed we do these things that Patrice Lumumba asked us to do.

We are convinced also that this experience of the reconstruction of the DRC must become an integral part that informs the strengthening of the African Union. What we will do with regard to the future of the Congo will tell the real story about whether we are serious about the objectives we have stated in the Constitutive Act, which resulted in the establishment of the African Union.

These are big challenges that we face. They relate also to the New Partnership for Africa's Development. The continent took a common decision that we must ourselves decide what is wrong with our countries and what is wrong with our societies. We must take the decision ourselves what to do to change what is wrong. We must look very critically at the things that we do and do not do, so that these enormous energies of the peoples of our continent are used for their benefit. We must think together and act together in partnership to defeat the scourge of poverty and underdevelopment.

What you do in the DRC, and what we do together, will tell the story whether we are, in fact, serious about what we are saying in NEPAD.

But I am confident that ahead of us is a period of hope. I have seen it in the streets of Kinshasa, since we have arrived yesterday. I have seen people lining the streets, waving with smiles on their faces, as we drive by. And I think they do so because they think that the only reason we could have met is not to plan war, not to perpetuate corruption, but to find ways and means by which we ensure that their lives change for the better.

That is an expectation we cannot disappoint. It is an expectation, I am certain, we will not disappoint. We have to act with regard to one another as brothers and sisters. We have to act in relationship to one another as peers. It must therefore be possible for the people of the Congo to say to the people of South Africa, that we believe that you are doing wrong things, without any fear that the South Africans would turn around and say: These are internal matters. It must be possible for the people of South Africa to say to the people of the Congo: Brothers and sisters: you are doing wrong things, without that being read as interference in internal affairs.

We know what disasters have occurred on our continent, behind our political boundaries, protected by that message, as though it could ever, ever be claimed that any one of us has a sovereign right to oppress and to corrupt and to exploit.

These profound messages of hope, which are all around us, the messages of hope that were communicated to us more than forty years ago, by Patrice Lumumba as he died, have today brought us together in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The challenge we face together is to act in a manner that would say, practically, that we are determined to live up to the farewell message left behind by Patrice Lumumba.

I thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.

Issued by: The Presidency
14 January 2004