"Capitalism used to be like an eagle, but now it's more like a vulture.... It can only suck the blood of the helpless," Malcolm X said in a 1964 interview. The retreat by Washington and Paris to "reassess" their plans to send thousands of troops for a military occupation in Zaire reflects the weakness of imperialism. They were forced to pause when Rwandan government officials refused to allow them to use that country's airport. The imperialist vultures get weaker when oppressed people began to resist domination.

The crisis in Zaire is a sign of the deepening political and economic crisis of capitalism throughout the undeveloped world. The worsening conditions there stem from the unequal terms of trade imposed by the world market system and the debt payments forced from the toilers' labor into the coffers of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other imperialist financial institutions. The imperialist bankers demand that governments in the oppressed countries cut wages, slash minimal social expenditures, and implement other brutal austerity measures to pay this blood money.

The external debt of Zaire in 1992 was $9.8 billion. The country was listed in the IMF's 1996 World Economic Outlook report as one of the least developed countries in the world and defined as a "net debtor country."

As the wealth of the country continues to be siphoned off, explosive conditions have developed. In 1991 unpaid soldiers, workers, and peasants protested against the regime for at least a week. A similar upheaval was repeated in 1993. Real wages in the early 1990s were less than 10 percent of those in 1960, while the rate of inflation in 1992 was 2,735 percent.

This is why the regime of Zairian president Mobutu Sese Seko is falling apart. This presents a crisis for the imperialist rulers in Washington and Paris, who need stability and reliable regimes to police the masses to allow their extraction of raw materials and other business ventures to continue without disruptions. Mineral-rich Zaire leads the world in industrial diamond production and produces about two-thirds of the world's cobalt. That's why competition for dominance on the African continent is heating up as Washington attempts to assert its military might.

As Cuban president Fidel Castro pointed out, capitalist politicians and the big-business media cry crocodile tears for the refugees to justify military preparations, while millions of people starve every month in the rest of the world. Imperialist intervention has never been a solution for oppressed masses - bringing only more war, destruction, and starvation. In 1964, U.S. pilots participated in a military operation dropping bombs on African villages to crush an uprising in the Congo (today Zaire). "It's not a humanitarian project," Malcolm X explained to a London audience about that assault.

"We in Africa are used to being victims of countries wanting to carve up our territory and subvert our sovereignty," said South African president Nelson Mandela in a tribute to Cuban fighters who in 1988 helped defeat the racist South African army in Angola. Mandela explained how that decisive defeat "broke the myth of the invincibility of the white oppressors."

Washington and its imperialist rivals in Paris and elsewhere will resort to military force to impose their will on oppressed nations. But they will face stronger resistance and ultimate defeat from the toilers of the world who will never return to the slave barracks.  
 
 
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