Light is being shed on the bloody history of US interference in Africa as a pair of American citizens are being tried for their role in a failed overthrow of the leader of one of largest countries on the continent.
Tyler Thompson and Marcel Malanga, along with a number of British, Belgian, Canadian and Congolese accomplices, were sentenced Friday for their part in the audacious coup plot against Democratic Republic of the Congo President Felix Tshisekedi. The pair were charged with a number of offenses, including terrorism, murder, criminal association and illegal possession of weapons.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Thompson and Malanga, although the defendants are set to appeal the sentence. The DRC reinstituted the death penalty earlier this year as the country is plagued by attacks by armed groups, although the country has yet to carry out a death sentence.
The pair of Americans joined a group of dozens of paramilitary fighters who descended upon the home of Congo’s parliamentary speaker Vital Kamerhe in the early hours of May 19 before heading to the presidential residence. The group was repelled by the Congolese military after a spurt of gunfire as Malanga’s father Christian Malanga livestreamed the incident. The elder Malanga and five others were shot dead after resisting arrest, according to Congolese officials.
US government officials are following Thompson and Malanga’s case although, notably, the United States has not determined that the two are wrongfully convicted.
Evidence has not yet emerged of a US intelligence connection to the coup attempt, but the DRC has attempted to maintain a sovereign and independent diplomatic path in recent years. In March, Russia announced its approval of a draft military cooperation agreement with the country; the two nations have also explored collaboration in trade, investment, and humanitarian concerns.
“Why do they want to judge us when it comes to Africans?” asked President Tshisekedi in May, rebuffing attempts by the Biden administration to pressure African countries against maintaining ties with Russia. “One should not judge us. We have the right to the friends we want and we are friends to all those who want to be our friends… Russians want friendship with Africa, DR Congo, why should we refuse?”
Governments across Africa have also moved to sever ties with Ukraine in recent months as the Kiev regime has been implicated in support for terrorism across the continent.
The US has a long history of interference across Africa and in the Congo in particular, where the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) worked with the country’s former colonial master Belgium to capture and kill the DRC’s first prime minister Patrice Lumumba in 1960.
Lumumba has since been honored as a martyr of the anti-imperialist and pan-Africanist cause, including within Russia, which is respected across Africa for its role in supporting anti-colonial and anti-apartheid movements during the 20th century. Lumumba drew the ire of Western intelligence agencies after he sought friendship with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev after being repeatedly rebuffed by the West.
Diplomatic cables have also revealed that the United States was aware of the 1987 coup plot against Burkina Faso’s revolutionary President Thomas Sankara, an incident in which the US and France have long been suspected of playing a role. Sankara railed against the influence of US-backed financial institutions in Africa such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which he accused of neocolonial pillaging across the continent. He also stood in solidarity with liberation movements in Palestine, Grenada, South Africa and Nicaragua.
The United States would work closely with Sankara’s successor, President Blaise Compaoré, who was more amenable towards the Reagan administration’s favored neoliberal economic policies. Compaoré resumed cooperation with the IMF and World Bank and ruled Burkina Faso for 27 years before finally being removed from office during a 2014 uprising.
Sankara’s influence has enjoyed a revival recently throughout the African continent, with South Africa’s Economic Freedom Fighters party citing him as a primary influence.
“Imperialism is a system of exploitation that occurs not only in the brutal form of those who come with guns to conquer territory,” said the former leader. “Imperialism often occurs in more subtle forms: a loan, food aid, blackmail. We are fighting this system that allows a handful of men on Earth to rule all of humanity.”