DR Congo - US Relations
US relations with the D.R.Congo are strong. The United States has pursued an active diplomatic strategy in the region and has supported internal reconciliation and democratization in the D.R.C., facilitating the Nairobi Communique, Goma Accords, and the Tripartite Plus mechanism.
In May 1885, US Navy Lt. Emory Taunt was ordered to explore as much of the river as possible and report on opportunities for Americans in the potentially rich African marketplace. Two additional assignments were a commercial venture to collect elephant ivory in the river’s great basin and an appointment as the US State Department’s first resident diplomat in Boma, capital of King Leopold II’s Congo Free State, are filled with promise.
Taunt concluded "To the best of my belief, there is no opening on, or in the vicinity of, the Lower Congo for an American firm to establish, at present, with a reasonable prospect of success." Instead of becoming rich and famous, he died alone, bankrupt, and disgraced. A little more than five years later, Taunt, 39, was buried near the place he had first come ashore in Africa. His personal demons and the Congo’s lethal fevers had killed him.
The supplies of uranium ore in the United States were not extensive. Although there was some good ore in Canada and in Czechoslovakia, the Belgian Congo was the most important source. By mid-1939, physicists Leo Szilard and Eugene P. Wigner became convinced that it was high time to take steps to keep the uranium ore of the Belgian Congo out of German hands. It occurred to the two physicists that Albert Einstein was the logical person to alert the Belgians, for he knew the royal family. They saw Einstein, who agreed to dictate a letter of warning.
In 1940, the American government made an overture to the Union Miniere du Haut Katanga, the company that owned the Congo mines. On September 26, 1944, the United States and the United Kingdom finally reached agreement with the Belgian Government that African Metals (acting for Union Miniere). It was though that if Britain and the United States could augment their own resources with the ore of the Congo, they would have over 90 percent of the world's likely supply.
The rivalry between nations in atomic energy introduced dangerous inflammables. Any other nation, say Russia, could make similar arrangements. It took little imagination to conceive of a nation fomenting revolutions to gain control of uranium ore.
The United States established diplomatic relations with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (D.R.C.) in 1960, following its independence from Belgium. Clare Timberlake drew one of the shortest straws in the State Department's gift and became the first US ambassador to the Congo. It was always hard to determine which group Timberlake held in greater scorn, the Congolese who had wound up in charge of their chaotic country — he once cabled that President Kasavubu was growing "more like a vegetable every day" - or the bureaucrats in Washington who kept sending him instructions he considered useless.
In the early sixties people really did send cables that said “Embassy and Station believe Congo experiencing classic Communist effort take over government," or that Timberlake could refer in all seriousness to “Lumumbavitch.”
The decolonization of Sub-Saharan Africa from the late 1950s to the mid-1970s resulted in several proxy Cold War confrontations between the United States and the Soviet Union over the dozens of newly independent, non-aligned nations. The first such confrontation occurred in the former Belgian Congo, which gained its independence on June 30, 1960.
Within 3 weeks of the day the Congo gained its independence on June 30, 1960, disorder and rioting broke out, Belgium flew in paratroopers to protect its citizens and protect order, and Katanga Province seceded. The new Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, whom U.S. officials already believed was a dangerous, pro-Communist radical, turned to the Soviet Union for political support and military assistance, confirming the worst fears of U.S. policymakers.
In August 1960, the U.S. Government launched a covert political program in the Congo lasting almost 7 years, initially aimed at eliminating Lumumba from power and replacing him with a more moderate, pro-Western leader. The U.S. Government provided advice and financial subsidies. At the same time, based on authorization from President Eisenhower’s statements at an NSC meeting on August 18, 1960, discussions began to develop highly sensitive, tightly-held plans to assassinate Lumumba. After Lumumba’s death at the hands of Congolese rivals in January 1961, the U.S. Government authorized the provision of paramilitary and air support to the new Congolese Government.
Some remain unconvinced that the Congo even had much to do with the cold war. Three events undeniably did: the Bay of Pigs, the Berlin Wall, and the Cuban missile crisis. But it is hard to avoid the conclusion that when something connected to the real cold war comes along, the Congo got short shrift. There is a suspicion that the competition over the Congo was very similar to the competition over Fashoda sixty years before: both places offered low-cost, low-risk, adventurous-sounding opportunities to exercise the national machismo.
By 1992 the United States-Zaire relationship had reached a turning point. The end of the Cold War had diminished the strategic significance of Zaire to the United States, and events in Zaire since 1990 had made it clear that Mobutu's days in power were numbered. In 1991-92, the United States, together with Belgium and France, attempted to promote peaceful political change in Zaire, by pressuring Mobutu to oversee the transition to democratic government and to depart voluntarily. The Zairian opposition, however, still perceived this approach as a continued "propping up" of the Mobutu regime and called for an unequivocal United States rejection of Mobutu, which was not forthcoming.
The success of the D.R.C.’s presidential and parliamentary elections in 2006 were the culmination of both the Congolese people's efforts to choose their leaders through a peaceful, democratic process and international support for numerous domestic and international peace agreements. The United States was proud to have played a role in the peace process in the D.R.C., and continued to encourage Congolese peace, prosperity, democracy, and respect for human rights. The United States facilitated the Nairobi Communiqué and Goma Accords described above, continues to play a leading role in the Tripartite Plus mechanism, and strongly supported UN efforts to create a Joint Verification Mechanism to monitor the border between the D.R.C. and Rwanda.
The United States pursued an active diplomatic strategy in the region and has supported internal reconciliation and democratization in the D.R.C. The US supported economic reform and transparency efforts and are a major international aid donor, providing more than $700 million in aid to the D.R.C. in 2008 through both bilateral and multilateral programs. The US was also the largest donor to the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in the D.R.C. (MONUC), contributing almost one-third of MONUC’s $1 billion annual budget.
The United States continued to encourage Congolese peace, prosperity, democracy, and respect for human rights. The U.S. Government provided $306 million in bilateral assistance to the D.R.C. in 2010 to support economic reform and transparency efforts.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited the D.R.C. in August 2009, meeting with President Kabila and other senior officials, civil society representatives, and victims of the current conflicts. The Secretary reinforced the U.S. commitment to help the D.R.C. reduce sexual and gender-based violence and address corruption. AFRICOM Commander General Carter Ham visited the D.R.C. in August 2011 and met with senior defense officials, underscoring the U.S. commitment to assist the D.R.C. in establishing a long-term plan to successfully implement durable security sector reform.
U.S. foreign assistance to the D.R.C. aims to support the security conditions and governance structures necessary for improvement of Congolese social and economic sectors and to permit extension of state authority across the country. U.S. assistance in the D.R.C. seeks to bolster peace and stability, particularly in eastern D.R.C.; protect civilians; strengthen governance institutions and the rule of law; increase food security, agricultural productivity, and access to credit; and support economic recovery, growth, and providing basic social services, including access to quality health care and education.
U.S. exports to the D.R.C. include pharmaceutical products, poultry, machinery, and wheat. The top U.S. import from the D.R.C. is oil, accounting for more than 90% of all U.S. imports. The two countries have signed a bilateral investment treaty. The United States also has signed a trade and investment framework agreement with the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, of which the D.R.C. is a member. The D.R.C. promotes entrepreneurship with women business owners by participating in exchange programs through the United States International Visitor Leadership Program.
The State Department has consistently issued cautionary travel information about Zaire/D.R.C. since 1977.
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