INTERVIEW WITH EDWARD S. MAREK Edward S. Marek, Founder and President of Your dot com for Africa, a web-based information services network focused on Africa, talks about DR. Congo crisis.
Congo Vision: Let me begin by asking you how a normal US citizen like yourself becomes interested in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Great Lakes region of Africa with so much passion and dedication. MAREK: In August 1996 a group of us met in Washington with the US ambassador to Kinshasa, Mr. Simpson. It was my first introduction to the Zairean scene. He was pressing Mobutu to liberalize and democratize, and he urged us to help him in any way we could. I had just begun to convert my defense intelligence consulting business to a web-based information services business focused on Africa, so I thought I could lend a helping hand, and I quickly converted my new web site to �Zaire Watch.� Just a couple months after that, the �ADFL rebellion� and first Rwandan invasion began. Before I knew it, we had a full blown war underway, demanding daily, sometimes hourly reporting. My readership increased rapidly, very rapidly, and I could see that reporting on Zaire had a market, one I hoped would support a business endeavor for me that would also keep the market informed with the most credible, accurate and responsive reporting I could provide. Since that time, I quickly learned two crucial lessons. First, I learned how the Zairean (Congolese) people had never really had a chance, since before colonialism, to chart their own destiny. I am a great fan of the �common man� so this angered me. Second, I saw what a strategic country Zaire-DR Congo was and is. It is the center of the sub-Saharan Africa universe. It is large, it has enormous natural and very diverse resources in the vast Congo River basin and its environs, and it has a large population that exceeds 50 million people, meaning a potentially interesting market, far more interesting than any of its neighbors. I also knew that a strong and economically vibrant Zaire-Congo would brush off on all the neighbors. I concluded that Zaire-Congo could be the engine to drive growth for all of central Africa, perhaps even much of sub-Saharan Africa. I found all this very new and exciting. I still do. I felt I could build a commercial information services business as a result.(...) So I have always had a special place in my heart for the little guy, the guy who gets the raw deal, the guy who has the least say, the guy without whom nothing can work, the average citizen. I feel that way about the Congolese people, men and women. They have gotten a raw deal for decades and decades, and I don�t like it. It�s not fair. So my tendency is to stick up for them, just as I would for others in their boat. My tendency also is to mistrust the flamboyant, the know-it-alls, the so-called big-shots who manipulate people to get where they are. There have been plenty of those in the Congo�s history, and I don�t like them, and I don�t respect them. (...) Congo Vision: What are your thoughts about the Congo peace agreement signed on December 17, 2002 in Pretoria under the leadership of president Thabo Mbeki? Many experts have given it a cautious welcome. MAREK: My view is that the Lusaka cease-fire agreement of 1999 and the Pretoria agreement of 2002 were and are bad for the Congolese people. I understand why the Congo�s leadership felt compelled to sign these agreements, but I wish they had not done so and taken greater risks. My fundamental problem with both agreements is that they legitimize the Rwandan and Ugandan invasions and occupation, and I find that unpalatable. These agreements also fail to recognize who the victims have been in this war. The victims have been the Congolese people and the sovereign state of the DR Congo. I find that contemptible. The so-called Congolese rebels are not rebels at all. They are bureaucrats who have been co-opted by the governments of Rwanda and Uganda and used as their puppets. They have no political agenda. They have no political following. They have no popular support in the Congo. They have done the bidding of Kigali and Kampala. They are, in my view, traitors and their traitorous activities have caused the deaths, displacement and agony of millions upon millions of Congolese people. Their traitorous activities have set the Congo back decades. I have met many of their leaders, I have heard their explanations of their �causes,� and to a man I have found their supporting rationales to be empty and corrupt. It is abominable that anyone recognizes them as a political force in the Congo, and I greatly resent that they have found top leadership posts in the new transitional government. I suspect that�s one reason I did not get funded to continue the government�s web site through 2003; the rebels who will be in that government know I have no respect for them at all. I feel the Congolese people, including the unarmed political opposition which has fought peacefully for so long to push the country toward democracy, have been cheated. With regard to Mr. Mbeki, I have lost respect for his government and his country as a result of that government�s reaction to this war since the outset. Let�s be frank. South Africa is the darling of the West, sub-Saharan Africa�s most advanced economy, a country which the West believes must succeed. I don�t have any problem with that, and indeed support helping South Africa succeed. But the Congo too must succeed. I believe it more important to sub-Saharan Africa as a whole that the Congo succeed than South Africa. Why? Because the Congo has strategic location, a larger population, and offers greater market potential. A successful Congo can drive growth in a far larger area of Africa than can South Africa. The Congo is in the heart of Africa; its pulse will drive Africa more than will South Africa. And South Africa is still mired in intense racial conflict. South African leaders understand this, and see the Congo as a long-term threat. (keep posted... more to come, Amundala)
