American Corporation Aides Genocidal War Criminals

People who actually stand still while I talk (as opposed to running away) often ask me why it is that I am opposed to corporations. After all, corporations are great, aren’t they? They provide jobs, they pay for vital research and development, they donate money for charities, and on their quest for profit maximization they bring some useful things to market. All of that is true. And they also kill, maim and destroy on their quest for profit maximization, they bastardize the democratic process and use their massive wealth to direct our nation, they use their influence to create laws and to create wars. They use the media outlets they own to shift public opinion. It is their absolute moral ambivalence that makes them dangerous.
Nicaragua is one good example, a nation whose government we opposed and overthrew multiple times because of the “restrictive attitudes toward foreign access to Nicaraguan natural resources” ... a nation that we occupied militarily from 1912 until 1933 (is that in your history book?) just so American corporations could profit.
And then there’s WWI (that is in your history book), at the time our President was Woodrow Wilson, an outspoken pacifist who refused to get involved in the European war, or to commit American resources to the effort ... until he changed his mind and we entered the war on the side of England and France, which was no big deal, I mean ONLY a hundred sixteen thousand American soldiers died, ONLY two hundred thousand were wounded. Why the change of heart? JP Morgan had loaned England and France money to fight the war and they were losing, if they were defeated Morgan would be out $500 million in 1915 ($10,474,837,854.01 in 2009 dollars), and wouldn’t you know, all of a sudden, President Wilson wasn’t such a pacifist after all. And if you care, the repayment of the loan was passed on to Germany alone at the close of the war, bankrupted them, created hyperinflation and massive unemployment and allowed a little known architect to become Chancellor in 1933 on the promise to stop paying the loan ... Adolph Hitler.
If you want more examples of corporations acting out on the geo-political stage, read Howard Zinn’s “The People’s History of the United States”
Which brings me to Bechtel. If you want the entire history of the company click HERE but suffice to say that they are a massive, family run corporation with major political ties all over the world and a penchant for secrecy.


According to the Wall Street Journal, Bechtel established a strong relationship with the rebel leader Laurent Kabila during the First Congo War of 1996-7 in central Africa, compiling "the most complete mineralogical and geographical data of the former Zaire ever assembled, information worth a fortune to any prospective mining or oil firm" and commissioning and paying for "U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration satellite studies of the country and for infrared maps of its mineral potential." According to government officials, some of the satellite data provided to Kabila by Bechtel was "militarily useful information." Just to make it clear when a corporation establishes a “strong relationship” with a African rebel leader that means that they gave him lots of money. And if they are willing to pay NASA to take very expensive pictures of the country it means two things; one, they are going to get something in return if Kabila is successful in his revolutionary efforts ... and two, they are NOT GOING TO ALLOW HIM TO FAIL. It’s called return on investment, and you don’t become a massive multinational corporation by making risky investments, in revolution of all things.

Who cares about Bechtel or Laurent Kabila?

Well, lets go back a little further, with out writing a book on all of African history or launching into a course on African geography, remember Rwanda? When you think of Rwanda you probably think of genocide. In 1994 Rwanda exploded into ethnic violence, the ethnic minority (having formed an army in Uganda) invaded from the north and the majority (incited by state radio and community leaders) began a massacre that would leave somewhere between 500,000 and 1,000,000 dead in one hundred days, as the killing went on the perpetrators (nearly 2 million people) were forced out of the country into neighboring Zaire by the advancing rebel army. One hundred days of INSANITY! The war criminals set up “refugee” camps in eastern Zaire and received humanitarian aide from the UN.
Two years later Kabila mysteriously had the resources and the men (after being a revolutionary for 35 years) for the first time to begin his offensive against the entrenched government he despised. The rebels first action was to expel the refugees from the camps, push them back to Rwanda, to an uncertain future (that thankfully turned out to be peaceful). Amid stories of slaughter and torture, 60,000 from the camps went missing at the time and have never been accounted for, you see, his army was ethnically the same as the minority from Rwanda (or at least sympathetic). He received support from the Rwandan government as well as Uganda, and ... his new friend Bechtel. I know that there is no good guy in any of this, war criminals killing war criminals, forming armies, invading countries, overthrowing governments ... but as complicated as politics in central Africa is, certainly we hold American corporations to a higher standard. American companies are not supposed to be financing revolutions to overthrow governments, they are not supposed to give money to armies that slaughter 60,000 people so that they can continue on their rampage, just to get mineral rights to sell to mining companies. NASA is not supposed to sell satellite images to companies that then turn around an give “militarily useful” information to Marxist revolutionaries ... we (as a nation) were part of it too, NASA is us. And then there is the dismal job done by the New York Times reporting on the revolution ... Kabila was the savior of central Africa, all would be right with the world. No mention of Rwanda refugees being killed wholesale, no mention of foreign aide ... it was a populist movement, no mention of Kabila’s previous political activity, his involvement with Ernesto “Che” Guevarra, who left Zaire in disgust at Kabila’s incompetence decades earlier, and no mention of Bechtel, no mention of the satellite photos being provided, no mention of mineral rights. According to the New York Times this was pure. Kabila was the real deal, and upon his victory Zaire would be a paradise.
So the question becomes, why? And although there are many possible answers, the only one that makes any real sense is that the New York Times (and probably other papers) were fronting for Bechtel, paving the public relations highway for them.
So in summary we have an American corporation (Bechtel) giving aide to an army that, as it’s first act killed “refugees” from ethnic violence in Rwanda, forcing the survivors back into the country they fled, the rebels (funded by Bechtel) then overthrow their government and fight a war to do so, killing tens of thousands of their countrymen and eventually installing a non-democratic government in the capital. The New York Times who praised this movement had nothing to say once the war ended, there was no half page expose about the corruption rampant in Kabila’s government. Kabila was assassinated by his own bodyguard less than 5 years later and replaced by his son, typical chaos for central Africa in recent years. An American corporation, who gets sweetheart deals from our government for contracts with regularity, who own airports and builds massive construction projects, crossed the line and financed Marxist revolutionaries (who actually succeeded) then meddled with international politics, they indirectly killed and maimed and displaced people ... all in search of the almighty profit. They never thought twice, it was the means to the end, they wanted those mineral rights and the mapping and the price was money and “militarily useful” information ... you want a cup of coffee and the price is $1.95, and that’s that. Business as usual.