Sunday, December 9, 2012

FOREIGN POLICY 101: TO END A NATURAL RESOURCES-DRIVEN WAR, YOU ONLY NEED TO INTERRUPT THE SUPPLY CHAIN


This is what I call "Foreign Policy for Dummies". The Allies learned this lesson very well during World War II, which was also a war about controlling world natural resources via the creation of the Third Reich, meant to last 1,000 years! With the Belgian government in exile in London, the Allies held firmly their grip on the Congo and succeeded in interrupting the flow of industrial diamonds to Germany. Since Congo supplied 76% of all industrial diamonds in the world and being the only place on earth Hitler could get industrial diamonds from, interrupting the supply chain meant the beginning of the end of the Third Reich.  The Allies knew that every German plane, tank, V-2 rocket, submarine and other powerful weapons lost during the conflict would be hardly be replaced. Hitler's stockpiles of Congo's industrial diamonds and other minerals acquired prior to the war dwindled progressively. Early in January 1944, the Allies had gathered enough evidence that Hitler's industrial diamonds stockpiles would be nearing zero in the following six months. That's how D-Day was selected. This is foreign policy for dummies, meaning for those who still don't get it!

Congo's invisible hand in shaping the world as we know it today did not stop there. The Congo supplied the uranium used in the Fat Boy detonated over Hiroshima. General Leslie M. Groves, head of the Manhattan Project, even said: "Without Congo's uranium, the Allies might not have been first with the atomic bomb". Supply chain matters. Disrupting the supply chain of uranium for Germany led to the first Congolese-American atomic bomb!  In today's world, Congo's invisible hand is to be found in almost all cell phones, i-pads, i-pods, laptops, and many other electronic machines and equipment.

Now, let's go back to that very stupid war in Eastern Congo. This is the easiest conflict to end. You do not end it via negotiations; it will not stop through legislation. Again, foreign policy for dummies: the criminal states of Rwanda and Uganda rely on the ports of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and Mombasa in Kenya to export most of their lootings from the Congo. I have proposed a strict control at the borders of Tanzania and Kenya to prevent any entry of stolen goods from the Congo before such goods even reach the port of Dar es Salaam and Mombasa. The United Nations must lend their support to these two countries. Each product (minerals, coffee, tea, cocoa, timber, etc.) must be certified and its point of  origin strictly traced.  Foreign policy for dummies! It's cheap and easy to implement!

I've also proposed an aerial interdiction program and a forward-location base to track and intercept any suspect flight landing and taking off from Eastern Congo. Diamonds and gold are easily smuggled that way from Eastern Congo into Rwanda and Uganda and other foreign countries. What is needed is just a few airplanes and radars! Foreign policy for dummies!

What will happen once this "Jean Kapenda Plan" has been implemented? (1) The end of those stupid wars in Eastern Congo; (2) the collapse of the looting-fueled economies of Rwanda and Uganda and their respective dictators. Those smelters in Rwanda and Uganda will close because the illegal supply chain has been interrupted!   Ayn Rand was right when she wrote in Atlas Shrugged: "When you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you, when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice, you may know that your society is doomed. (3) The active role of the international community in the creation of the Dictator-free Zone (DFZ) in East Africa and Central Africa. There is no doubt about it: the world continues to need and even starve for Congo's natural resources, and the best way to access those riches is not through those stupid wars; rather through legal businesses in the Congo that create jobs and pay taxes. 

I've directed my opinion on the roles of the dictators of Rwanda and Uganda (Paul Kagame and Yoweri Museveni) in the looting of Eastern Congo. These two gentlemen have also been responsible for the death of over 4,000,000 Congolese in the last 15 years. Call them "African Adolf Hitlers" and you'll be 100% right! However, we have our own dictator in the Congo whom I also oppose and have publicly criticized. The priority now is to end that childish war sponsored by Rwanda and Uganda and start the healing process of the violated people in Eastern Congo. Then, we'll take care of other businesses in the DRC, including how to end Kabila's dictatorship and build a system based on the rule of law, republican values (what I call "democracy elevated"; not chaotic democracy or "dictocracy"), and respect for human rights and lives.