August 26, 1998: Hands off the Congo! The rebellion in the Congo against Kabila's military dictatorship is justified!

Hardly more that one year after the overthrow of the dictator Mobutu, a rebel army is once again fighting against the government in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It has the support of broad parts of the people's masses and, until last weekend, was advancing to the capital city of Kinshasa. In the meantime, troops from Angola and Zimbabwe have marched in and are fighting against the rebels on the side of the military forces of the reactionary Kabila government. Uganda and Ruanda, on the other hand, declared their support of the rebels. Troops from the USA, Belgium and France are being concentrated in Brazzaville and vicinity and, under a pretext, can be brought into immediate action for imperialist intervention.

This situation demands the solidarity of the workers and other working people of all countries for the liberation struggle of the people of the Congo once again! The rebellion of the people of the Congo is justified. They do not want to be robbed of the fruits of their self-sacrificing struggle to overthrow the Mobutu dictatorship. The MLPD declares its solidarity with the justified rebellion and combines it with the strengthening of the new opposition in Germany: internationalism is the order of the day!

The struggle between two directions

In Mai 1997, after only 7 months of fighting, the people of the Congo overthrew the fascist Mobuto regime that had been ruling for 30 years. This victory was possible because the masses united in spite of differing nationalities and tribal boundaries. It was not only a defeat for Mobutu, but for all western imperialists, as well as the Chinese imperialists, Cuba and Libya, who supported Mobutu. This struggle encouraged the democratic mass movements in other countries of Africa, as well as the Indonesian people in their struggle against the Suharto dictatorship.

This victory, the first for a long time in a justified people's war, showed the entire world how unstable imperialist rule is and that it has no perspective at all. Why then is a new rebellion against the Kabila government taking place?

The antifascist-democratic revolution against Mobutu did not yet signify a fundamental change in the political and economic relations of power. A struggle between two directions developed:

Either rigorously conducting the antifascist-democratic revolution and transforming it into a new democratic revolution with a socialist perspective or setting up a reactionary military government in connection with a renewed subordination to the imperialist powers.

The revolutionary direction of national and social liberation was represented mainly by the CPL