Guerrilla History - The Situation in Congo - From Mobutu to M23 Rebels Today w/ Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja (AR&D Ep. 6)

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

With this episode of Guerrilla History, were follow up on our last episode of African Revolutions and Decolonization with another discussion with Prof. Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, who joined us last time for The Congo - From Colonization Through Lumumba & Mobutu.  Here, we pick up where we left off, with Mobutu's regime, and come to the present.  Particular focus is given to the situation in eastern Congo with the 23 rebels today and their foreign backers.  This is an extremely important conversation, so be sure to share this series with comrades!  We are still in the very early phases of the planned ~40 parts, so it is a great time for them to start listening in as well!   Also subscribe to our Substack (free!) to keep up to date with what we are doing.  With so many episodes coming in this series (and beyond), you won't want to miss anything, so get the updates straight to your inbox.  guerrillahistory.substack.com   Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja is Professor Emeritus of African and Afro-American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and previously served as the DRC's Permanent Representative to the United Nations.  Additionally, he is the author of numerous brilliant books, including Patrice Lumumba and The Congo from Leopold to Kabila: A People's History Help support the show by signing up to our patreon, where you also will get bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/guerrillahistory 

You don't remember den, Ben, boo? The same thing happened in Algeria, in Africa. They didn't have anything but a rank. The French had all these highly mechanized instruments of warfare, but they put some guerrilla action on. Hello, and welcome to Gorilla. Rila History, the podcast that acts as a reconnaissance report of global proletarian history and aims to use the lessons of history to analyze the present.

I'm one of your co-hosts, Henry Huckamacki. Unfortunately not joined by my usual co-host, who of course is Professor Adnan Hussein, historian director of the School of Religion in Queens University in Ontario, Canada. Adnan had an emergency union meeting that he is very heavily involved with come up last minute, and so he had to pull out of this conversation, unfortunately. But I will try to do my best in his stead individually on this one. But we have a terrific guest, a returning guests, and a guest that was on the previous episode of African Revolutions and decolonization.

But before I reintroduce the guests and the topic that we'll be talking about today, let me remind you listeners that you can help support the show and allow us to continue making episodes like this by going to patreon.com forward slash, Gorilla History. That's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A history. And you can keep up to date with everything that Adnan and I are doing individually as well as collectively by following us on social media. We're on Twitter at Gorilla underscore Pod against G-U-E-R-R-R-I-L-L-A underscore pod. Instagram, Gorilla underscore History. And we also have a free substack so you can get periodic updates directly into your email inbox and not rely on social media algorithms to show you what we're doing by going to Gorilla-U-R-R-R-R-Sach. Gorilla History.substack.com. And again, just remember, gorilla is spelled with two R's.

So, with that housekeeping out of the way, I can reintroduce our really terrific guests and somebody that I'm so pleased that we're able to have on the show, we have Professor Georges Nzongola Intelagia, who, as I mentioned last time, is a professor, author, diplomat. He was permanent representative of the Democratic Republic of Congo to the United Nations, the author of numerous books, Patrice Lumumba, which came out about 10 years ago and a book that I cannot highly recommend enough, the Congo from Leopolde Cabilla of People's History. Hello, Professor, it's nice to have you back on the show. How are you doing today? Doing well, thank you. So, as the listeners will likely remember, and if you haven't listened to

that previous episode of African Revolutions and Decolonization, go back now because that will be essential listening for this episode, we talked about the Congo story, essentially, from colonization up through the kind of midpoint of the Mobutu regime. The focus today, this is going to be essentially a dispatch episode of what is happening in Eastern Congo right now with a specific focus on the M23 rebellion that's essentially taking place in Eastern Congo. And the characterization of that is something that we might want to nail down a little bit more specifically later on in the conversation. But as I mentioned before we hit record, in order to understand what is happening now in eastern Congo, we really need to understand the historical background that set up the

current events. And so I think we would be well served by essentially picking up where we left off last time in 1997, the end of the Mobutu regime and what came out of that. So it Can you take us to that moment, 1997, we talked about what the Mobutu regime was like in the previous episode, but how does that era come to a close and what happens essentially immediately after that? And I'm referring, of course, to the first Congo war at that point. Yes, the Mobutu regime, as you know, Mobutu was in control of much of the Congolese history from the very beginning of our independence. in 1960. Mobutu had been a person working for the Belgian intelligence and the CIA, and Lumumba gave him too much credulous. He felt that Mobutu was a very good person to work with

when Mobutu was spying on him and telling everything that Lumumba was doing to the Belgians and the Americans. In 1960, when the military went on a revolt in the fourth day after independence, the Belgian chief of the military called the military in Kinshasa, Leopoldville then, and told them, went to the board and wrote that before independence equals after independence. He says, sergeants, corporals, men, independence is for civilians. For you, things are not going to change. You have to obey Belgian officers. If anybody doesn't obey that, you would have problems. So it was basically meant to make the military people revolt and they did. They went into the, where they defined ammunition and the rifles, took

them out and disarmed all of their Belgian officers. And of course, the military had a very good system of being in contact with their friends around the whole country. So they sent words to all the other military to do the same thing and they did the same thing. And so that brought about a real crisis in the country, and Lumumba named Mobutu as the number two men, because Mobut had the military background of seven years. So he became the number two in a military, but he was really the man in charge because the number one was weak and did not really know how to control the military. So Mobutu was a guy in charge, and eventually he was a person, who became the kingmaker in a country.

Nothing could be done in a country without Mobutu's approval. Between 1960 and 1965, when he did another coup d'etat. He did the first coup d'etat in September, 1960, when Casaboubu took a position that was totally unheard of in a parliamentary democracy for a prime minister who has control, who had control of the parliament, both the House of Assembly and the Senate. He had both of them under control. And yet the president, who's a ceremonial president, he takes a position that he can remove him from power.

And of course, Mubu, Lumumba refused, and the Senate and the House refused as well. And so because of that, Kasabu had taken his position on 5th of September. And 14th of September, Mobutu made his first coup d'etat with support from the general who was number two in the UN force, the head of the military from Morocco. The world, the king of Morocco, King Muhammad V, was a strong supporter of Mobutu. And yet his general in the Congo is working with the UN against Mobutu. And so the Mobutu then became general and took the government in 1965, November, 1965, and he remained in power until he was overthrown in May 1997. Now, what happened?

You see, when the Berlin Wall fell, the Cold War ended, the United States and the Europeans, basically Belgium and France, who were supporters of Mobutu, had no need for him. They didn't need them anymore. And so his power started to decrease. And then in the Congo, when Mobutu made his speech on April 1990, to say that, okay, he's now willing to move from dictator. to a system where political parties are allowed and people can organize as they want. Well, that really helped to weaken his power. And so in 1991, we went to the sovereign national conference.

This was a conference with 2,492 delegates representing all. the traitor of the communist people. I was chosen in April of 1992 with six other scholars who were called the well-known scholars of international renown, which has a greatest title we gave us. And I was given two subcommittees

of the political affairs committee. One dealing with current affairs, the other called political file. Political file was what, to look at the history of the Congo, look at what went wrong in all of these events from 1960 to 1960 to the, where we were, 1990. And what can we do to correct the situation and not to repeat these mistakes and where? we did a wonderful job. Professor Wamba Diwamba

was a person I put in as the rapporteur of that committee and pouring a fire. Because he says, as historian, I thought you are the best person to write the history of a country, write the history of the country.

And then the whole assembly put together a very, very good constitution for the future the country. What happened? The Americans and the Europeans who were financing the conference, they were also the ones that undermined us. You know, they put the priest, the cardinal, who was the head of the conference, and others were working for them rather than working for the Congolese people. And so they put a situation where what we decided was not applied.

And so they converse the Congolese, the political parties, civil society, and rebels, because lots of people came up to organizing rebel groups, that we should go to a conference and looking at the whole situation with the country and giving power, giving positions to everyone who needs them. So we went to South Africa. I didn't go. I refused. I thought it was a really a terrible situation to do.

So the politicians, including Etienne Chisakadhi, was the main leader of the democracy movement. They went to Sun City, South Africa, spent two years there. And what they did was simply to give positions to people from everywhere, especially Rwandans and rebels. We have people who were sergeants and corporals in the Rwandan army becoming colonels and generals in our army. And so that really basically weakened our system. And so this was in 2003 when the final decision was made about how to give power to different groups. Then in 96, Rwanda and Uganda invaded the Congo. And they had come, they found a group of political leaders led by Laurent Desire Cabilla as the people who are

going to take over from Mobutu. But the Kabila did not have an army. He had kids, you know, the kids who were kids of 12 years old who were carrying big big rifles and who couldn't do anything really. They were simply there to intimidate

people. But the main fighters were Rwandans and the Ugandan troops who came there in a Congo, helped Kabila, remove Mobutu from power in May 1997

and take over. And it's just worth noting here, sorry to interrupt, but it's also worth noting here, listeners, the timing of this. So we're talking 1997. And as the professor says, the real fighting force behind Kabila at this point was Ugandan's and Rwandans. And the Rwandans in particular at this point are quite significant time-wise, because this is immediately after the Rwandan civil war. Paul Kagame's troops are, you know, I hate this term because it's so frequently. used in the media, but battle-hardened. And really the Rwandan troops that came into the DRC had just gone through heavy, heavy combat for years. And so when, again, you're comparing

the fighting forces that are present within the DRC versus the fighting forces that are coming in from over the border and with this kind of Congolese figurehead, cabila, on, you know, in the front of it, but the forces themselves are Rwandan and Ugandan. And these forces, you know, they make relatively short work of that incursion. I just think it's useful for the listeners to remember what is happening in Rwanda around the same time. Yeah. And also you should know that between 1994, when the genocide took place in Rwanda, until 1996, the Rwandans were still involved in killing people in the Congo.

they went after the two million Hutu who had taken refuge in the Congo. They followed them all the way to the border of Congo, Kinshasa, and Congo Brazzaville. And I think I mentioned the other day that in one city, the city of Mbandaka, which is the largest city in northwest of Congo, some people did make a count or people clean. There were over 400,000 Rwandans who were killed in that city. You can just imagine that they followed these people in a whole equatorial forest from Congo, Uganda border, all the way to the Congo-Brasaville border.

So these people were still very, very good military people, were well-armed with arms from the United States, from Israel, from many other countries that were supporting them. And these people felt that they can do anything because they had the green light from the United States. We thought that we don't need Mobut anymore. He can go. And see, at that time, Mobut had become very, very weak.

As a matter of fact, he ran away from Kinshaast and the capital city. He was sitting up in his palaces in the north, in his regional area of where he came from. And then when Kabile took order, the first thing he did was to name James Cabarebe. James Kabarebe is a guy who used to be the lieutenant who was in charge of Kagame's security. And until today, he's very, very close to Kagame. And today he's now a minister of regional affairs because many countries in the world not accept him as an ambassador, but he is now a minister.

So he was named the chief of staff of the Congolese army. Can I believe that? So what did he do? He brought in people who were colonels, I mean, who were sergeants in the Rwandan army, made them generals in the Congolese army, you know. And so our army was infiltrated by Rwandans. and of course Congolese rebels

who took advantage of that to be there were people who were close to Randa who took their support from Randa

they too entered into army without any qualification whatsoever but they continued to work for Randa basically

and unfortunately this is what happened and so Mobutu went Kabira took over but we were basically under the control of Rwanda and Uganda until 1998.

After one year and two months when Kabila realized that he was losing control of the Congo, the people were not really didn't like him anymore. And so he told the Rwandans in Uganda to go home. But they didn't go out of it, we didn't go home. Because the generals and the colonels remained in our army, you see. and they continued to create havoc in a country until they assassinated Laurent Cabilla in January, the 16th, 2001. So, yeah, this brings up a really complicated part of the history. So, you know, you can Google and read about the First Congo War, but it is, it's a very complicated affair,

not only because it becomes quite protracted and lasts for, you know, around five years in its primary, phase, but because there's so many different forces that get involved at certain points, ally with each other, dropout, not just within the country, but also regional actors as well. I mean, we've been talking about Rwanda pretty extensively, but, you know, also Uganda, Burundi, and there's various attempts at trying to resolve things during this process. There's different agreements that come up, and I'm talking with particular regard to the Lusaka Accord of July, by 1999, which was put in place and, you know, they had some ideas of what potentially could get these warring parties to cease their fighting, but none of the implementation of the Lusaka Accord really ever happened and the violence just continued until, as you mentioned in 2001, January 16, 2001, which you might want to mention is an anniversary and I'll let you, you know, talk about what the anniversary is and why it's kind of ironic that that was the date that it happened. But Cabilla is assassinated. And his son essentially inherits the country

while it's still completely embroiled in conflict with multiple internal and external divisions. And this continues on for a few more years after that. So it's a complicated history and one that I really can't think of anybody better to try to pick apart some of these threads. So you know, we're in 1998 at this point when the first Congo war breaks out. And you mentioned some of the reasons for that breaking out when Cabilla was understanding that, you know, the balance of power between him and some of those external actors is not exactly in his favor at that point. And he decides to act. But can you take us through that five-year time? You know, can you talk about what the dynamics from a military perspective were, what the dynamics that led to the Lusaka

Accord and the lack of implementation of it. Talk about the assassination of Cabilla and the relevance of that date at which he was assassinated. And then essentially what his son had to do for the next two years still after that point for the rest of that war until there essentially became a transitional government. Yeah, well, from Lusaka to Sun City, there were so many meetings. There were meetings not only at Lusaka, but also at Aberone, because the former president of Boswana was appointed as the person who should work out the system, work out the system until a solution was found.

They also went to Addis Adaga in Ethiopia. They also had meetings around the, you know, Congo and so on. But then the most important became Sun City. And the Sun City, Dao Mbeki, then president of South Africa, was a person in charge. And there were other, of course, the Botswana leader, was the mediator and so on. But basically, the Congolese were given as a problem, but they could not really solve,

because what they did was they decided to put themselves under the tutelage of the international community. The decision at Sun City was that there would be a group of people, the United Nations, the major powers, United States, Belgium, France, and some African leaders, some African countries, I think that South Africa was one. There were other countries that were also put there. But the people who controlled the committee to take care of the transition were basically the United Nations and the United States, because they're put as the person who was in charge, Ambassador Swing, who was a former U.S. ambassador to the Congo, he came back as the special representative of the Secretary General of United Nations and the person in charge of the committee to oversee the committee that was looking after

the transition. And of course, they were against Etienne Chesekele, the leader of the democracy movement. So they would support Joseph Kabila, who has now succeeded his father. He is the person they wanted because somebody that can control, somebody that Rwanda could control because this Kabila had been

an officer in the Rwandan army. I told you that he was one of the two people that killed these people in Bandaka. He and Dan Muayusa, the guy who who tried to recruit me to be part of the rebels who worked with Wambedia Wambed and so I was a great friend of Wambedia Wambed.

I told him, no, I can't join him. I'm not going to be a traitor to my country. And I remember the former president of Tanzania, Jules Nyerere, asking me one in 1998 to write him a memo, but they should explain why Laurent Cabilla must be removed from power. So I went and sent him a four-page

to say that, no, I'm not in agreement of getting Cabila out. What we need is we now have two people, or two brains of legitimacy. We have the legitimacy that came out of

Kabila's kicking Mobutu out, and the legitimacy that came from the national conference. And that national conference is represented by Etienne Chisakedi, the leader of the democracy in the Congo. I say that Kabila must be asked, must be forced to collaborate with Chisakedi. We can have these two legitimacy work together, and the country that never loved that.

meet to the then current Tanzanian president and who said, okay, he was going to talk to Kabila at the meeting of the Sadek in Mozambique. When he went to Mozambique, he agreed of Kabila that he would meet on a particular day. And that particular day, Kabila left Mozambique at 6 a.m. went back to Kinshasa because he didn't want to to face the Tarzanian president. And that was typical. And the president told us that one thing we disliked about Kabila is that is a person who does, who's not man enough to say that, okay, you're telling me

to do this. I can't do it for this, this vitalism. He was always saying, do you, Ndiya, Nia, Nguyen, Dio, Y, one. Yes, yes, sir. Yes, sir. But he goes to Kinshasa, he does totally the. reverse of what he told he was going to do. So he was a person who was willing to please the people who put him in power,

but then he wasn't in agreement of them. And so he played this game until those people decided that it is time to get rid of him. And they got rid of him. And he put his son who was very close to Kagame and the Rwandan system. And so he was basically the person that Rwanda wanted. And he was in power for 18 years. And you can imagine how it happened that the country was basically under the control of Uganda. And of Rwanda.

And absolutely. And we should discuss Kabila the son. As you mentioned, he was in control for 18 years. I mean, relatively recently he was still the president of the country. But I do want to stop for just a second. second before we get there. Can you talk about the irony of the date that Cabilla the father was assassinated? Well, basically, it's just like what happened to Patrice Lumumba. You know, in the case of Lumumba, I have the Thomas Canza. Thomas Canza was the first Congolese with a university degree

in Europe. And he was the person that Patricia Lumumba sent to United Nations. nations as the representative of the independent Congo to the UN. When Lumombo was arrested in November 1960 and put in jail by Mobutu, Thomas Kanzer went to Mrs. Roosevelt, the wife of the former president, and asked her to see if the newly elected president of the United States, States, John Kennedy, will do something to help to have Lumumba out of jail. And so Kennedy told Mrs. Roosevelt that, yes, once I become president on the 20th of January, 1961, I will order that Lumova be out of jail and go back to the parliament.

If the parliament says that he is still the prime minister, he will be prime minister. If a parliament says he's no longer prime minister, well, of course, he can continue being a member of parliament. He can continue as a deputy of the part of the House of Representatives. Do you know what? That information somehow, I think, with this council who told us that story, at the meeting, at the Wilson Center in Washington,

in 2024, yes, it was in September, 20204, I was then representing the United Nations in Oslo, Norway, and I was brought to Washington to participate in the meeting because the meeting was about the Cold War and the Congo crisis. And both of us were done research in archives, were invited. Those of me, archives of United Nations, Steve Weissman, American archives, two Russian, one woman, one man who done research in the archives of Russia, USSR. and, of course, the people who were actors, who were political actors at the time.

One was Lauren Devlin, who was the head of the CIA in Kinshasa, and two Congolese politician, Kamitatu, who was then the governor of the Kinshasa province, and Thomas Kanzer, who was at the United Nations. So Thomas Kanzer told us a story. So I asked him the question, then how did the Belgians know that John Kennedy was going to release Lumumba and knowing that he was going to become president on January 20th, they had to kill Lumumba before January 20th. So they killed him on January 17. And the same thing happened with Laurent Cabilla.

He was killed on January 16 of 2001. And that is a couple days before another American president was going to take over. And so this is the kind of system these people used. And so we don't know exactly who are the people, but I'm sure that Rwanda was behind whoever. went in and killed Cabilla. Betel said one of his children, body cards killed him.

I don't think that is true. It wasn't that he were a kid who dated. So, as we mentioned then, his son takes over from him. And in 2003, a transitional government is formed in which the son is the head of. And the justification for this transitional government is to stabilize the country.

minimize bloodshed and get prepared for multi-party elections, the first multi-party elections in well over 40 years at that point. And that takes place in 2006, and Joseph Cabilla is declared the winner of that, although that election, there was some issues with that. So can you take us from the moment where Joseph Cabilla, the son, succeeds his father upon his father's assassination, the period of the transitional government and what were the dynamics at that time and then the first elections, democratic elections, as I said, in over 40 years that took place in 2006. Well, you know, the 2003, as you know, had the system of the president and four vice presidents. And the group that was representing one of the rebel groups was then led by a Congolese medical

doctor. And they put him aside and put a guy who was working for Rwanda, Rubeira. Mr. Rubeira became one of the fourth vice presidents. So basically, the representative of Rwanda, Rwra, Mr. Rubeira, became one of the fourth vice presidents. So basically, the representative of Rwanda in our government. And so they were basically doing the bid for Rwanda. The 2006 election was controlled by the U.S. ambassador, Ms. had been the ambassador of the United States of the Congo, and also he came back. After the turn of office of seeing, of, uh, ended, miss was sent as the special representative of the secretary general. Again, another American. And this is a guy who in 2006 took the decision himself, not Kabila, not when a Tianchi Sakedi, who had refused to run for election because it was, it was not rigged,

was completely rigged at the very beginning. Then he was convinced by some people that he should really run. So Chisakadi announced that he is now willing to be part of the elections. Not Kabila, not the electoral commission, but Ms. Miss was a fear to say no. We can't do it because it's too late. We don't have the time and the money to organize again for him to be a candidate. So it was very, very clear because everybody knew that if Chisakedi were to run, he was going to win it.

As a matter of fact, Kagame himself and Museveni of Uganda said in 2011, the next election was 2011, they said openly that that election was won by Etienne Chisakedi. But of course, the Electoral Commission and the Americans who are controlling it said that Cabilla won it, which is a lie, total lie, you know. But this is how the system went. And so the country had been basically controlled by Iran and to some extent to Uganda during all those years. So that brings us to the period where Kabila is in control of the country. and this is then the period of time where we're going to first experience the rise of M23. Now, this brings us to the topic that we are really trying to focus on today, but you know that historical context is absolutely vital for us understanding what's going on today.

So in 2012, this is six years after that election that we just discussed, M23, this rebel group forms, which they form under the auspices of protecting the interests of Tutsi population in an eastern Congo, and specifically also to essentially punish the Kabila government for failing to implement peace agreements that had been signed in previous years. So I have a couple of questions, which are all going to be related, but I'm going to ask them, them at once so that you can answer them how you would like. The questions are, can you talk about the forces that supported the rise of M23? Like, where did this group come from? Who was supporting them? Where did their weaponry come from? Where did their tactical knowledge come from? Also, can you talk about these peace agreements that had been not really implemented, that had

been signed to be implemented. And can you talk about what actions were taking place during this initial M23 uprising of 2012, 2013? And they kind of fade from the spotlight in 2013. But, well, we will see that they come up again later in the story of listeners. Yes, the M23 came out of the CNDP, the group. that Laurent Conda, a Congolese Tutsi, was born in Congo, and who had gone to school in the Congo. Then in 1994, as many have a young Tutsi dead, a young Tutsi from Rwanda, from Uganda, from Congo, from Congo, from Burundi, from Tanzania. they went to join the Rwandan group but had been organized in Uganda. As you know, when Moussaveni took over Uganda in 86,

more than a quarter of his soldiers were Rwandan, were a random guy who grew up in Uganda and who had done up to secondary schooling. and were hired in Museveni's group, the National Resistance Group. And then two of the major leaders of the Rwandan military were Rwandans, the Fred Ruejima and Paul Kagame. Ruejima was number two of the army. After Museveni, the deputy chief of the military of Uganda was in Rwandan, Fred Rojima. And then the head of the intelligence, Alva was called as interim, but he stayed interim for many years, was Paul Kagame.

These are the people who were among the main people in control of the Rwandan army. And of course, Museveni had promised them, but once they helped him take over power in Uganda, he would help them try to take power back in Rwanda. And as you know, the Tutsi were kicked out of Rwanda in 1959 when the Hutu majority made what they call the Hutu revolution. The Houth Revolution was made with the connivance of the Belgians and the Catholic Church who had privileged the Tutsi, the Tutsi were the people who were said they were the only people who can govern the people because they had the Houthi kingdom was in power before the Germans and then the Belgians took over Rwanda. and so they didn't think that Hutu can be chiefs. And so they removed all of the Hutu chiefs because they said that you are not qualified to be chiefs and only the Tutsi.

But now in the 1950s, when the wave of independence was out in Africa, you know, countries like Sudan and Morocco and Tunisia becoming independent in 1956, Ghana in 1957, and so the people were now talking about independence. And the Tutsi being the people who were better educated, who were very close to Mumbai and the common and so on, they too started talking. So the Beijing said, ah, so we've been privileging you, and now you are against this. So they went to the hoot and said, look,

if you don't do something, after independence, this Tutsi are going to dominate you. So you better do something. So the Catholic Church, who worked with the elite of the Houtou, to do this so-called revolution in 1959 when they killed Tutsi kingdom, and they killed most of the Tutsi chiefs,

and of course killed a lot of Tutsi. And so people like Kagame, Kagame left Rwanda at age two. It was two years old. That's when he left. And many of others people like Ruggiam and others also left to Rwanda at the time. Most of them went to Uganda. Some went to Congo, some went to Burundi, some went to Tanzania, but a large number went to Rwanda, I mean to Uganda,

because Uganda has a lot of kinship with the people in Uganda who are also close to the Tutsi. And so they were well welcomed in Uganda. They went to school there and they become even members of the military in Uganda. And so in October 1990 and 1st of October, Rojima was then the number two of the Rwandan, of Uganda. Army took his soldiers to Rwanda. And unfortunately, he was killed on the second day of war. And October 2nd, 1990, one of his commanders, a man who was in charge of the, of the, I think, the charge of the military or no, of the medical, yeah, the medical affairs of the army

was under this guy. They were discussing the best strategy and so on, and they didn't get alone. And this guy pulled out his revolver and killed Rajima, who was really a wonderful person, very respected person coming out of the kingdom, the person who belongs to the former kingdom of Rwanda. and well-educated and the person who was really very, very good.

Anyway, so at that time, Paul Kagane was in the United States at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas at a course for senior military officers. Moseveni called him back to Uganda so that he can go and take over the army of the Tutsi in Rwanda, and that's where the system started, and the Rwandans did not, you know, they failed the first event because Belgium, France, and Mobutu's special military group went there and they defeated Kadam and his army, and that's one of the things that Kadam had a grudge against Somobutu because they helped to kill, but of course

they continued and the organization of African unity and the neighboring countries convinced them that no, you should really try to negotiate the peace and of course, so they went to Arusha, Tanzania,

which is a very important city and this is where the negotiation went on until the last day, which was April 6, 1994. Kadam didn't go to that meeting, which was now held in Dariusalam, the main city of

Tanzania. But the president of Rwand at the time, Mr. Habirima was there with the president of Burundi. And they went back to

Kigali. Yeah, they went to were flying back to Kigali. When the plane was coming down, it was brought down by a missile. And that missile was obtained by Uganda, from the Soviet Union or from Russia. We are for the name of Russia then. Then given to Tadame and Kadame ordered that missile to be fired, and that plane came down and over 50 people who were there died, including two presidents, the president of Rwanda

and the president of Burundi. And as you know, the United Nations and the major powers dated possible that Kagame should not be held responsible when he was responsible. And he braved about it to people like, yes. Yesterday, I spoke with Teuijan Rudasigua, a former ambassador of Rwanda to the United States, medical doctor who worked as a doctor during the war of the Tutsi Rwandan to take over power in Rwanda, and head of the Secretary General of the Rwandese, freedom, the Rwandan organization that became the most important group and also became the chief of staff of President Kagame. So he worked with Kagame for 15 years in these four different positions.

Kagame told him and he was at Syracuse last night and through Zoom. And he said that Kagame told him that he ordered that plan to be brought down. And yet the people, and of course all the documents written by experts who went to do work and human rights and everything, know that Kagame butchered and killed thousands, I mean, millions of Congolese, for example. And nobody has anything about it because, you know, 800,000 Rwandans who were killed in the genocide of 1994 are more important than the six million or plus of the Congolese who have been killed, including 600,000 women and girls who have been raped and killed and so on. So this is the general problem that Rwanda is there and Tadama can do whatever he wants to do because the United States and European powers who didn't want the United Nations to do their work in terms of sending more troops to make it possible that the genocide doesn't take place.

Clinton did order the UN to reduce the number. As a matter of fact, when Boutros Boutros Hali was Secretary General, he asked the UN to send more troops. Clinton and McGrath was the U.N. Representative then, they said no. And when Boutros Hali accused them of racism, he said, you won't do that when if people were white, you won't do that. And Mark and Albright told him, well, you won't get. a second term. Buddha said, I said, go to hell. He said, I'm not here to have a second term.

I'm here to do my job. And I'm doing my job, you know. And if whoever you like me or not, you know, I don't have to have a second term, you know. But that's the situation. Yeah, that was a fascinating discussion on that point. But it does bring the point back to M23 specifically. Yes, M23. So who was M23?

or who is M23, but what particularly was the roots of M23 back around that time of 2012? And can you talk about what was happening in 2012, 2013, and what happened that? They kind of faded into the distance. I mean, people really forgot about them after that initial phase. Before we go to 2012, we have to go to the beginning of these groups. Absolutely. We have two groups. One is the, what is in French called the CNDP, which is the group founded by Laurent Cunda,

basically founded by Skagame, who's the person who brought out all of his groups, the CNDP and the M23. Laurent Cunda is a Tursi, born in a Congo, went to school in a Congo, And as I was saying in my earlier intervention, he was among the young Tutsi who went to join the group of the Rwandis coming out of Uganda to fight against the Hutu regime in Kigali. And so he became sergeant in the Rwandan army. then in 1996 when Rwanda and Uganda invaded the Congo for the first time he came and joined he was in that group of people who went to the Congo and then he was given the rank of colonel I think and then in 1998 he was also in

in the Congo. He joined the group of the Congolese, joined a group of people like Wamba de Wamba who went to Goma to work for Kadame. And of course, as I told you, then Munoza, who was the second to Kabarebe, tried to get me to become a member of that group. I refuse. I said, I cannot become a traitor. Anyway, Kunda was another group, and this is a group that Rwanda helped train as soldiers, gave them support, and they were once working to remove Laurent Kabila from power. So Kunda was there. Then after some city, Kunda was made general. Can we imagine a guy who was a sergeant in the Rwandan army, he becomes a general.

or the Congolese army, you see. And so when he became a general, he decided that he cannot work anywhere except North Kivu and South Kivu. And because his job is to protect the Tutsi. And just geographically, for the listeners' sake, if they're not looking at a map of the DRC, North Kivu and South Kivu are these far eastern provinces of, the DRC, that border of Rwanda, just for that context, for the listeners. Yeah, and that is where they are occupying Goma and Bukavo today. So Bukunda created this group.

Then he ran into trouble of the Convili's government and with the international community because he was seen as one of the people who were involved in killing Las of people. people, in brutalizing people, and so on. And so he ran away from the Congo, went to Rwanda. Of course, remember he was in Goma, and the town of Gisemi is right next to Goma. And he was there, and the Rwandan president, Kagame, refused to send him to the Congolese government who was looking for him to try him for his crimes in the Congo. And so his group, which was set up to defend Tutsi, that group was now replaced by Bosco Tanganda.

Bosco Tanganda was a Rwandan. He was never a Congolese, but he was named General. He's a guy who had two years of elementary school. including, who was a sergeant in a Rwandan army. He is named general of a Congolese army when he is not Congolese. And so he became the head of the M23. So the M23 continued the work of Konda that they are protecting Tutsi in a Kong. When a Tutsi in Congo were threatened by no one.

This is one of the lies that Kagama users. He has two major lies. One is that the Tutsi of the Congo are being persecuted, are being killed. Well, can it give us a name of Tutsi killed in the Congo? We don't know of anyone. Tutsi has been killed in the Congo, you see. And then the other dies is because of this FDLR, the former Kutu Genocid, who were involved in the mass,

genocide of 1994. Yes, there are some of them who are still alive, but they are to be, they're in the 50s and 60s, and although even may have recruited some of their children in a group, but they don't present any threat to Rwanda whatsoever. And Teuijin Rattisanda in talking yesterday at Syracuse made this point very, very clearly. that the FDLR does not present any problem whatsoever to Rwanda. And simply, but the amazing thing is that the United States, the Europeans, and now some of the Africans, they believe this nonsense. And they, you know, they don't do any, somebody like Tabombiki,

former president of South Africa, he believes, Any nonsense that the Kagame tells them. We've tried to convince him, no, he's out there with them. And so this is the problem we're facing in the Congo. And of these lies, but kept the Kagame in power in Rwanda that is making it hard. Now, what happened with the M23? They came out, of course, they are trained by Rwanda and Uganda. They did this taking over of GOMA in 2012, and the international community at that time did react very quickly and forced them to leave GOMA.

And so they went, one group went to Uganda, another group went to Rwanda. And they kept being trained by both Rwanda and Uganda. They are given very good training as soldiers. They've given very good. The UN force in the Congo says that the M23 has better weapons than the UN forces. You can deny my sense. I remember I saw a retired South African general who was in the Congo in 2012, 2013, period, who said that when he looked at the weapons that the M23 were holding,

he could see that there were American and Israeli weapons of the best quality possible. Here's a general who knows how weapons look like, was telling us that they were Israeli and American couples. So these are the people who are trained by Kagame and Museveni to do their dirty work in the Congo. But of course, they are always helped by, as a matter of fact, the Rwandan leader Raghazori told this last night that the Rwandan army lost but between 600, Yeah, 600 to 10,000 troops were lost. They lost the troops in fighting in the Goma.

And people who look at the cemetery can tell you that there's so many new cemeteries done in Rwanda for these people who were killed in the Congo. Yes, so you said yesterday, we're recording this listeners on March 13th. This will come out a few weeks after that. Although, you know, given that there's very quickly moving events right now, actually, in eastern Congo, I may take parts of this conversation and put them up on our feet as like rapid dispatches and then have the whole conversation later.

But just so listeners, no, we're recording this on March 13th. I'm sure some listeners are wondering at this point, though, you mentioned that Rwanda and Uganda are happy to have M23 do their dirty work in Congo. And we've also talked about how the justification that is typically given for these groups is in large part, if not entirely a false one. So the listeners, many listeners are probably wondering, well, what is the actual reason then? What is this dirty work in eastern Congo that Rwanda and Uganda are utilizing M23 to do? What is the purpose of M23 if the justification that is used rhetorically is a false one? Yeah. Well, basically, Rwanda and Uganda want to take over huge parcels of the Congolese territory.

There's been a talk about Hikima Tutsi Empire, that Moseveni and Kagame are strong believers that they should change the boundaries, that the boundaries that the Europeans did after the Berlin Congress, the Berlin Conference from November 1884 to February 1885, those boundaries should be changed. But this is against the decision that the, Organization of African Unity, now the African Union, at the second conference of the OAU held in Cairo, in Egypt, the Africans took the decision that we should not change the colonial borders. Because if we do that, we're just going to have chaos. It's going to be very, very impossible to make people agree on the boundaries. So let's simply keep

what we got from the colonialists. And so they can't do that. So what we do now, they try to do it by force. They can do it through agreements. They want to do it by force. And why? Because they need the resources of the Congo.

Many people know about minerals, such as coltan and gold and many other, especially the minerals which are very strategic minerals which are used for the 21st century economies. And just a brief note, those minerals not only are essential for 21st century technologies, but also the extraction of them is extremely damaging to the land of the DRC. And there has been a lot of health as well as labor problems as well, associated with the extraction, not to mention the dramatic and devastating environmental consequences on water and on land of those practices, which, you know, you largely benefit foreign corporations, foreign consumers and are trying to be exploited by these external actors. As you mentioned, I only, I bring this up now for a couple of reasons. One is just to keep that in mind listeners as we go through. But also we do have another episode that we are. in the works of planning that is going to be focused in large part, if not entirely on the mining industry of the DRC.

And that is going to certainly be a component of that. So keep your mind thinking about that aspect of things, listeners, because there will hopefully be a future episode dedicated entirely to that. Sorry for the interruption, Professor. No, no problem. No problem. Yeah. So the question is not only minerals, but also the damage done to the ecology. of our country, but also they use our forests.

You know, we have, for example, Rwanda is making lots of money through tourism by having the animals like gorillas and chimpanzees and so on, leave the Congo part of the Verunga and other parks. go into Rwanda and not bring their tourists to go and look at these animals. They also... Sorry, and I'm sorry to make another interruption. I promise I'll try to calm myself, but I'm very into this conversation right now, Professor. You know, it may sound a little bit silly to some of the listeners that, you know, thinking about some of the great apes moving across the border into Rwanda would be a relevant fact.

here, but actually if you look at the amount of tourism that comes into Rwanda, it is a large part of their economy. And that is something that they sell themselves on to their Western partners. And I'm thinking in particular, you know, we always talk about the partnership between Kagame and the U.S. But with tourism in particular, it's a British thing. Rwanda is very successful and has been very successful for 20 years in pitching themselves to British tourists to come come and experience Africa and experience the rainforest. And many of the advertisements that they use for British audiences explicitly feature the great apes on them in that border area of rainforests, in which the apes are moving to the Rwandan side from the DRC side. Not to say that there wasn't apes on the Rwandan side before, but, you know, if you have X amount more in your territory, it's just that much more that you can utilize as an advertising.

advertising strategy to say, look, if you come here, you're pretty likely to see some of these rare to endangered large apes in our area. And it's been effective. So it's not as far-fetched as it sounds, listeners. Oh, yeah. They also benefit greatly from our agriculture. They are benefiting greatly from areas where people are no longer able to work. because every time they come into Congolese territory, what they do, they kick out the people who live in those territories

to throw them away into refugee camps around the big cities like Goma and so on. And then they can, they now take, when people from these areas try to go back, they found that their territories are occupied. by Rwandis. And they take out big, big ships of territory for coffee, for tea, for cacao. All of these are now being taken over by Rwanda. And they are putting, they're keeping people out of our territories in villages and towns, and then replace them of Rwanda. As you know,

Rwanda is an overpopulated country, the country of 14, 14 billion people, billion people, and yet they don't have enough land to give their people. It was interesting that Britain had made this arrangement, but they can take the people seeking refuge in Britain. Britain doesn't want them to send them to Rwanda. The question was,

Rwanda going to put them. The British send them millions of dollars to put them, you know, to buy, to build houses and give them land and so on. But what we're looking for is taking over territory in the Tongue. They can put all these people in Rwandan people. And so the idea for the two countries is that we want the Ituri province, which comprises Lake Albert would belong to Uganda and Musevedi. They would have a full control of the whole of Lake Albert, which has lots of petroleum, which has lots of fish.

And of course, they have a beautiful forest in Ituri, and of course they also have plenty of land for agriculture and so on. And then the Rwanda, the Rwandans would have North Kivu, South Kivu, Tanganyika province, and part of Manjima province. So this is the way they want to divide the territories. And you can see the way that they are going now. They're now in the North Kivu and South Kivu. And we're trying to go to Manema and going up north into the Kisandani area.

So anyway, this system is going to fail because now in the Congo, we have done a terrible thing by not organizing our military, by not cleaning our military of all the people who had infiltrated it, and we should now clean up the army, get out the Rwandis and the rebels and others. and this is why we have not been willing to have discussions of M23. Alvo, our president, and Tuesday went to Angola, and they decided, yes, now, Alvo, he's called it the red line. Our president is now willing to negotiate the M23, which I think is a big mistake. But again, is something that he has to do because of the weakness of his arms. So in 2013 after this international pressure for M23 to pull out of the areas that they had captured in 2012, GOMA being the key one, they kind of go and sit back in hiding, as you kind of described. And as I said, there was this period of time where much of the international community and international observers essentially forgot that M23 was a, thing and that, you know, this wasn't a military route of M23 that pushed them back. They pulled back,

which means, of course, that their forces are still going to be present somewhere. And that somewhere is in Uganda and in Rwanda. And that comes into play, of course, because beginning in November 2021 and then particularly in 2022, we see M23 have resurgence. Now, there's a new president at the this point. Felix Shisakady had been elected in late 2018 was the elections. He was inaugurated in 2019. 2018, but he took over January 2019. Right. Exactly. So he comes in with this kind of interesting power sharing situation. Again, these elections, there was a peaceful transfer of power, which is the first time that that ever really happened in the DRC. But it was an interesting election process anyway. That's a long story also. But this power sharing agreement

comes out. And M23 begins their resurgence, as I said in November of 2021, in this new, somewhat new political era in any case. So can you tell us whether it took people by surprise at that moment that the clashes that took place at the end of 2021 and early 2020 were as fierce as they were or was it again maybe not as surprising knowing that m23 had pulled back voluntarily previously and much of their forces in theory could have been maintained in those in uganda and rwanda so what was what was it like in 2019 you know what was the political situation like can you tell us a little bit about chisiccati and talk about that resurgence that took place in 2021 2020 then of m23 and what again, the reaction to that was like?

Yeah, we don't really know what was the agreement between Kabila and Chisakedi, but this power sharing they had negotiated. But Chisakedi did break that agreement on December 20, 2020. So after closely to two years, because it started from January, 2019, to December 2020, so practically two years went by where he was, has to deal with Cabela's army, with Cabela's ministers. Some of them were his, but most of them were still from the Cabillas group. And so he didn't really have much control of the country.

But we thought that by breaking up of Kabila in 2020 in December, that he would really start cleaning of the system by putting people in right places, by cleaning up the army of all the infiltrated people and so on. Well, he didn't do it. Unfortunately, he didn't do it. And Afghan, when the M23 came back again in view in 2021, 2021, he didn't do anything. They took over the town of Bunaganaika, which is on a border between DRC and Uganda. And we thought that army was going to repost to remove them. No, nothing has happened until now. There's almost three years now.

In June, that would be three years. And nothing happened. And, of course, the Rondons felt that they can really continue taking over. And we started taking off territories in northern part of North Kivu and all the way to Goma and now all the way to Bukavu. So this is the basic weakness of our system that we have, generals and colonels who was basically there to make money. They are involved in mining.

They are millionaires among them. And they are not really care about the country. They don't care about the people. They care about themselves. And I think that now it is time that our government has to really wake up. And they're now recruiting more, more young. people who are going to the military. I hope that within a year we might have a military that is really worth the name and would be able to do the best. But the M23 is a group of

people who some of them are Congolese, some are Rwandans, and it is going to be very, very difficult for us to determine who is really a real Congolese. And even the real Congolese, whether they are really patriots or people who are continued to work for Kagamil. We don't know that. So it is really a very confusing situation and one but is really terrible to deal with. And one that is constantly in flux as well. I mean, just trying to keep track of exactly what is happening in Eastern Congo today is very difficult because this situation has been going on for over three years again now. And you have people running interference for M23, not only their immediate regional allies

like Rwanda and Uganda, but also the partners of those nations, the Western imperialist countries, also do their part in running interference for M23 or ensuring that what is happening in the Eastern Congo is not widely discussed or when it is discussed, you know, in terms of, oh, rebels are in the city of Goma, there's no contextualization of that. There's no understanding of what that means, where that comes from, the forces that are at play within that dynamic.

And so there is a role to play by Western imperialist countries in this as well. And it makes the situation one in which you can get information about what is happening. And I certainly do my best in terms of keeping up with what the current situation in Eastern Congo is. But it is not easy. And it's intentionally not made easy by the people who are supposed to be informing you of what is going on. So I have a few final questions for this conversation because you know we could talk about what's happening today in the eastern Congo what is the exact dynamic of the situation at this moment but i mean as i just mentioned it's a rapidly changing situation and one in which information is is sometimes rather difficult to

either get in general or ascertain the veracity of if you are getting it so rather than having us try to talk about what's happening today and again keeping in mind that this episode will come out a few weeks after we record it. I do have a couple of more broad questions that are related to this. One is with the resurgence of M23 and the military actions that have been taking place in Eastern Congo for the last three years, how would you describe the humanitarian situation in Eastern Congo? We've talked about the political dimensions of things, but can you talk about the humanitarian situation and what the immediate challenge? to the Congolese government are with regard to this. And again, we've talked about the military

side of things as well in terms of infiltration of the Congolese forces and difficulties and ascertaining, you know, where one's loyalty lies. But the humanitarian side of things is a very pressing issue and one in which is going to be very difficult not only on an individual basis, but also for the government to try to remedy given the situation as it is today. So what would you have to say about that side of things? Well, the humanitarian situation is horrible. We do have government is doing its best through the Ministry of Social Affairs to provide as much support as possible. But we also depend greatly on the UN system in terms of food.

The World Food Program provides a lot of support for these people. We have thousands and thousands of people, and the numbers keep going every day. And again, as I pointed out, when people are trying to go back to their villages and their towns, they go there and find out that their houses and places are occupied by newcomers. whom they don't know, whom they didn't ask to come. And the International Red Cross is also of great help. They provide a lot of support, medical. And, of course, they made sense on frontier.

Doing a wonderful job. They are overworked, the number of people who are sent to hospitals and so on. So it is a very, very demanding situation, and one that is many people are dying as a result of lack of sufficient support, both in terms of good places in which to sleep and places where people can have decent life and so on. So it is a very, very difficult situation to deal with, but government, is doing its best, and the international community is doing its best. And we hope that once these regimes, once the Goma and Bukavu and other towns occupied by the enemy will live, then we might be in a better position to provide better support for these people who are

suffering today. One final question, and this is one that I think that you are probably as well placed to answer as anybody globally. So you are one of the strongest proponents and advocates for Congolese self-determination, something that, of course, listeners will all support, but you really are one of the strongest advocates for Congolese self-determination in the world. What steps do you envision for the international community, however, to uphold the sovereignty of the DRC and to try to bring some sort of resolution to this situation. And I raised this not only because of your decades and decades and decades of advocacy for Congolese sovereignty and self-determination, but additionally, you, as I've mentioned at the top of the episode and

in our previous episode, you were the permanent representative for the DRC to the United Nations. And as such, you were in a position where dealing with the international community and trying to compel or convince the international community to act in some sort of way that accords not only with international law, but also with just decency. How do you see that? What steps would you say need to be taken for the international community? and what would they need to do in order to uphold true sovereignty for the DRC? Yeah, I don't have much

faith in the international community. None of us do, but, you know, in an... Like, there's the realistic side of things and then, you know, the utopian side of things. I spent 20 months as an ambassador of the DRC at the United Nations,

and we had almost once a month, I think, I would have the opportunity to speak to the Security Council and I always ask for sanctions against Rwanda and they would just laugh at me. And none of the major powers, the United States, United Kingdom and France, the three major Western powers, on the Security Council, they simply would not.

I mean, Russia and China would say they would be willing to do that, but certainly they can't go over the veto powers of the other three. So having no support from divorce three, nothing can be done. And, for example, they had an embargo. and the Congo against weapons and ammunition until I was able to get it withdrawn in December 2022. I got there in January of 2022 and it wasn't until December, but I finally succeeded in getting that embargo removed. But why don't they put any embargo on Ronda, which has the best weapons possible in the world.

We started being able to buy weapons in January 2003, and we've been able to buy some drones and some good weapons and so on, but we're still very far, far behind in terms of equipping our military

with the event, the things they need to be able to become really a good military and so on. And again, the corruption of our officers which take up, you know, a loss of money is something that has to be corrected because otherwise we'll never move forward. And so I think that for me, I always put importance in what is done by the Congolese. We are a great country, huge country, lots of resources and so. one, we can do it on our own. If we have the right people to run our military, we'll be able to

buy the collect weapons and other gadgets we need to fight Rwanda, I mean Rwanda should not be a major problem for us. The question is really making it possible that the Congo can we organize itself and can do what it needs to be done to really have good organization, patriotism, and really the will to have our people live in peace and enjoy the resources that our country has. Well, on that note, listeners, again, our guest, returning guest is, Georges, Zongola and Kalaja. It's been a pleasure professor to speak with you. Just to remind your listeners, the professor is not only a professor, but also an author and the former permanent representative

to the United Nations from the DRC. And I highly recommend anybody that can get their hands on the book, Patrice Lumumba, or the Congo from Leopold to Kabila, a people's history do so and read them. They really are terrific resources. Professor, is there anything else that you would like to direct the listeners to find more of your work, or maybe if you're working on something now, could you tease what you're working on for the listeners to get excited about? Well, I'm writing an article on what this whole situation has been for us from 1994 to the present. I don't know where I'll publish it, but I'll send it to several places to see if they'll be willing to print it. For my books, they can get all the time.

them are available on Amazon. So if you just look at Amazon, there you find the Congo Familiar Portugal, Bila, you find Patrice Lumumba. All of them are available there. And those who like to read them in French, they are also available in French, but that is more difficult to get. But you can, if you interest in the French versions, let me know. You can get my address, my email address from Henry, and I can advise us to where to go to get the French ones. Sure. And the listeners can hit us up via the guerrilla history social media accounts because I'm on, or you can get me on social media as well. I'm on it. I just try to not use it. But listeners, this was a great continuation supplemental episode of our African

revolutions and decolonization series. A reminder that every other week, week. We will have new episodes of this series. And so it's a very important thing that if you know somebody who needs to know more about African revolutionary and decolonial history, that you encourage them to subscribe to the guerrilla history feed wherever they get their podcasts now, because we're still in the early phases of this series. We have about a year and half still planned of this series. It's going to be about 40 parts when it's all said and done. So make sure that they're subscribing now and catching up. Otherwise, they're going to have a mountain of material to catch up on later if they wait. And that's not to mention the fact that we have non-series episodes every other week as well between the African episodes. So that's just my pitch for listeners to share this with your comrades. They definitely will benefit from that. So I'll let you know, listeners, how you can find my co-host, Adnan Hussein, who, again, was sadly not able to make it to this episode today. But you can follow Adnan on Twitter at Adnan-A-Hussein.

H-U-S-A-I-N. You can follow me on Twitter at H-K-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-E-C-K-1-9-5, and more preferable, I think, and more useful for you would be to subscribe to guerrilla history on the various social media platforms. That's guerr- underscore pod on Twitter, G-U-E-R-R-R-I-L-A-U-S-R-L-A-U-S-R-S-R-Hory, and probably best of all, since we can get you without having to rely on a social media algorithm, subscribe to our free substack email newsletter. It'll come right to your inbox by going to gorilla history.substack.com. Again, Gorilla with two R's. And lastly, if you do appreciate the work that we do, just note we never run an advertisement. We are entirely

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