America's Wars on Democracy in Rwanda and the DR Congo

Description

This book examines US interventions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda -- two countries whose post-independence histories are inseparable. It analyzes the US campaigns to prevent Patrice Lumumba from turning the DR Congo into a sovereign, democratic, prosperous republic on a continent where America’s ally apartheid South Africa was hegemonic; America’s installation of and support for Mobutu to keep the region under neo-colonial control; and America’s pre-emption of the Africa-wide movement for multiparty democracy in Rwanda and Zaire in the 1990s by supporting Paul Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). In addition, the book discusses the concepts of African development, democracy, genocide, foreign policy, and international politics. Contents Chapter 1 Introduction: I Am Not an Africanist Chapter 2 The Politician’s Words Against the Empire’s Weapons Chapter 3 Sow Doubt, Aestheticize, Essentialize: How to Write About African Leaders Chapter 4 Killing Hope in the Congo Chapter 5 The Agency’s Kingmaker Chapter 6 The Revolutionary and the White Supremacist Chapter 7 The Tyrant Subcontractors: America’s Chosen African Dictators, 1965–1990 Chapter 8 Economic Poison: Western Economic Medicine Before the Rwanda Genocide and Congo Wars of the 1990s Chapter 9 The Peacekeeper and the Warlord Chapter 10 Good and Evil: How Africanists Present Hutus as Deserving of Death Chapter 11 The Infrastructure of Judgment and Denial Chapter 12 The State Kagame Built Chapter 13 Stories From the African Mind Chapter 14 The Front Men and the Refugees: The Congo War 1996–1997 Chapter 15 The Nuance to Protect an Empire Chapter 16 The Warlord’s Aide and the Broken Alliance: The 1998–2003 Congo War Chapter 17 Conclusion: The Empire’s System for Central Africa Bibliography Index