THE CONGO AND AMERICAN GREED

INTRODUCTION

In 1967 bread began to displace the more traditional food of white maize and manioc in the Congo (Zaire). The displacement of maize and manioc and their replacement by bread in the diet of the Congolese people resulted not so much from a conscience dietary choice on the part of average people there, as it did from the cynical, self-serving efforts of large American corporate agricultural and mining interests (as well as the corporate interests of America's European lackeys) THAT AIMED AT THE PURPOSEFUL DESTRUCTION OF "SMALL FARMING" AS A VIABLE LIVELIHOOD IN AFRICA, AND THE FORCEFUL REMOVAL OF THE CONGOLESE PEOPLE FROM THE RURAL COUNTRYSIDE.

There was nothing "happen-chance" or coincidental in all this: The Congo was being consciously and crudely added to the American New World Order System as a "client-state" using food as the weapon of choice, and the people there were being ruthlessly enslaved to that system without even so much as a "say-so" in what was occurring.

This simple but deliberate act set off a chain-reaction that has over the almost 40 intervening years dwarfed in its savage inhumanity anything the European colonialists had done to the people of the Congo in the preceding 400 years - and there should be no mistake as to the central role America played in what occurred.

Moreover, what has happened in the Congo is representative of what's been going on all over Africa following the end of World War II.

A HUB AND SPOKES METAPHOR

The fact is, ever since the close of the Second World War, the U.S. has been running the world - at least those areas of the world outside the orbit of the old Soviet Union and Red China; and with the collapse of the Soviet Union at the beginning of the 1990s coupled with the growing dependence of Red China on American trade and American finance, the stranglehold the U.S. has on the world has become all but ABSOLUTE. Whatever "say-so" the European nations have (or have had) in its running subsequent to the end of World War II has been at the sufferance of the Americans. [Please see our articles, "America verses Europe," and "Reducing Europe to the Status of Greece in the Days of Rome."]

The truth of the matter is, one can today legitimately speak of an "American Empire" - and one should make no mistake about it: The word "empire" here is very apropos. Professor Leo Panitch, speaking at a conference in Toronto concerning the use of the word "empire" in connection with U.S.-world domination, explains:

"A note of justification for the use of the word 'empire' [in connection with U.S.-world hegemony] ... may be in order. I don't use it polemically, but rather descriptively. Clearly, we need some concept to capture the fundamentally different role the U.S. state plays in the world. The word 'superpower' fails to capture this precisely because it implies merely greater power than others, eliding [i.e., failing to say] how U.S. POWER IS DIFFERENT BECAUSE OF THE WAY IT PENETRATES AND STRUCTURES OTHER STATES. It was significant that, speaking at a panel at this conference [here in Toronto], Reid Morden, the former head of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) ... described the overall U.S. relationship with all other states in terms of a 'hub and spokes' metaphor. It is for this reason that the concept of empire, which used to be quite unfashionable, is now making a comeback among political scientists ..."

WHAT THE AMERICAN EMPIRE IS ALL ABOUT

What does all this portend for the welfare of average people throughout the world? Nothing good, that's for sure - and, again, in that respect, the story of the Congo is representative of what's been happening to every-day people in the world at large for the past sixty years; it's a microcosm of what's been going on. And make no error here about the nature of the American Empire! It's an empire that, as I suggested in my article, "The American Empire and the U.S. System of Client-States," has been specifically designed -

"... to [ruthlessly] serve the interests of ... the American elites' system of multinational corporations, and - ipso facto - feather the nests of the wealthy shareholders of these gigantic corporations with the exorbitant profits which are possible when doing business in the so-called "Developing World" - profits on investment which are not possible to achieve in the United States with its restrictions on the use of labor, with its banking regulations, with its laws against usury, with its trade unions, with its plethora of government regulations, etc. No worry in the Third World about overtime pay, sick leave, holidays, worker safety, etc. No concern there about toxic dumping. No concern about having to negotiate the "clumsy political processes" of democracy. [Please see our article on Chiapas: "Chiapas: The Effect of the New World Order System on the Poor;" please also see our article, "The American Empire and the U.S. System of Client-States."]

"It is a system ruled mainly by fear (i.e., through the use of "death squads" and state sponsored terror) which serves the interests of America's multinational companies (and, of course, the corporations of America's lackeys - i.e., Japan and Western Europe) plus a relatively small group of allied local military overlords and business oligarchs.

"The ugly truth of the matter is, governments in most of the Third World can be easily seized economically - oftentimes without ordinary native-born populations ever knowing what has happened [which is precisely what was done in the Congo in 1967], held at minimum expense and made to serve the economic interests of the multinationals. All it takes is the cooperation of the local military, the local police, the local business establishment, all of whom are cut in for a share of the profits, and a smattering of "hangers-on" (but no more than 20 percent of the population, lest there be too many "locals" involved with whom the multinationals must divvy up the 'goodies')."

"Globalization" is the innocuous name that has popularly attached itself to this VILE process, hiding what it's really all about: specifically, the subordination of the rest of the world to the dictates of the United States. This is exactly what the elites' claim occurred in the Congo in 1967: That is, that the economy of the Congo was being "globalized" - which really meant, of course, that the Congo was being willfully and heartlessly added to the U.S. system of "client-states." And make no mistake about it, this pejorative meaning of the word "globalization" is not a definition that only the critics of "globalization" use to understand what "globalization" is all about; it's something openly admitted to by its cynical supporters.

SUBORDINATING THE WORLD TO THE
ECONOMIC INTERESTS OF THE UNITED STATES

Take, for example, what Henry Kissinger said in a rare moment of candor during a speech he was giving at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, on October 12, 1999. He said that -

"... globalization was in reality just another term for U.S. domination of the world."

After a dazed gasp, the audience fell silent. But the stunned silence of the audience had very little to do with the fact that they were hearing something they didn't already believe, but with the fact that Kissinger was being so blunt and even arrogant about it all.

And that's not all; take what New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has said: in a moment of remarkable honesty, Friedman admitted that it isn't the "free market" that makes today's trading system work, but the "iron fist" of the U.S. military. Friedman wrote:

"... the hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist ... the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies [and other U.S. corporate interests] is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps."

And, obviously, if it's the American military that makes the world "roll and go," it "rolls and goes" for the benefit of America's elites, and not for anyone else; and woe to those nations that challenge American supremacy. Sam Gindon, a professor of political science at York University in Toronto writes:

"The movements of any country - whether communist, socialist, or nationalist - that aim to break out of the rules established by the ... (United States) are ruthlessly crushed, condemning those countries to continuing misery, [while at the same time] issuing a warning to others contemplating a similar path."

This is BABYLON THE GREAT - a nation about which the Bible says:

"How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously [while the other peoples and nations of the world have been reduced to poverty] ... for she saith in her heart, I SIT A QUEEN, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow." (Rev. 18:7)

TRADING IN THE SOULS OF MEN

This is the nation that Morden described as the "hub around which all the other nations of the earth revolve:" Become a compliant spoke in this wheel - in other words, tie yourself to America as a lackey (i.e., "SELL YOUR SOUL TO HER") - and you will be made rich! Otherwise you will be crushed. That's what the Bible says as well. (Rev. 18:15)

But it is a bargain with the devil. Jesus said:

"... what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

"Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Mark 8:36-37)

Nonetheless, that's the deal the Europeans and the Japanese - or, at least the elites in those countries - have made with the Americans, despite their pathetic protests to the contrary and the wishes of the great majority of their fellow countrymen. That's what the elites in Brazil, in Peru, in Thailand, in Malaysia, in Kenya, in Mexico, etc. have done: they've made a pact with the devil, and they've sold their own people and their own nation's resources out to her (i.e., Babylon) for the sake of filthy lucre. These are exactly the people [the ones who have "committed fornication and lived deliciously with her" (Rev. 18:9)] who - when Babylon's judgment finally comes (Rev. 18:8) -

"... shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,

"Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come." (Rev. 18:9-10)

And why is that? Why is it that they "weep and mourn over her" (Rev. 18:11)? Because -

"... no man buyeth their merchandise any more ..." (Rev. 18:11)

Specifically, their -

"... merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner of vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble,

"And cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, AND THE SOULS OF MEN." (Rev. 18:12-13)

The "souls of men?" YES! - the "SOULS OF MEN!" Come on now! - isn't that the merchandise America's lackey elites in the Congo, in Nigeria, in Mexico, in Honduras, etc. have been "trading in" when they sell the labor of their people for pennies a day to the "sweatshops" of America's multinational corporations like Nike, Liz Claiborne, the Disney Corp., Standard Oil, Union Carbide, etc.? Isn't that what Mobutu Sese Seko of the Congo did when he conspired with America's elites to drive his people out of the rural countryside and deprive them of their livelihoods? Of course it is! They're trading in the souls of men!!

The Bible continues:

"The merchants of these things [specifically, the lackey elites that America has set up in her client-states throughout the world], which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing,

"And saying, Alas, alas, that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls!

"For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,

"And cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like unto this great city!

"And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas, that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate." (Rev. 18:15-19)

These toady elites - i.e., these "yes-man," these sycophants, these fawners and bootlickers that trade with America in the souls of their "fellow-nationals;" these despicable excuses for human beings - are the ones that lament Babylon's collapse.

BUT AS FOR THE POOR AND DESTITUTE OF THE EARTH, and real Christians everywhere, the Bible says,

"Rejoice over her [destruction] ... for God hath AVENGED you on her.

"... [for] in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth." (Rev. 18:20, 24)

All this to say that what happened to the Congo in 1967 was entirely an American affair, just as the earlier murder of the socialist leader, Patrice Lumumba (the Congo's first president), had really been a CIA affair rather than what history declared it to be: a Belgian affair. The elites, who had put the fabulous riches of the Congo in their sights, were not about to have those riches snatched away from them in the name of the Congolese people. No! - that would never do. Murder was their answer to the socialism of Lumumba. And adding imported wheat to the diet of the Congolese people at ridiculously low prices (at least initially) was the elites' way of finishing off the process of what they had begun with Lumumba's murder: adding the Congo irrevocably to the American New World Order System by driving the Congo's farming population out of the rural countryside, thereby freeing the countryside up for exploitation by American agribusinesses and mining interests.

"MANUFACTURED" FOOD SHORTAGES

As the Congolese population was gradually driven off the land, and as the land was increasingly given over to the production of exotic "cash crops" for export to the so-called "First World," the production of food for domestic consumption ground to a halt. Food shortages were the inevitable result which even the imported "free wheat" from the West (which was always kept to a bare minimum - just enough to destroy the livelihood of the Congo's small independent farmers) - could not alleviate, and "food riots" resulted in Kinshasa, the capital of the Congo. As a result, the Congolese government turned to the U.S. and began importing HUGE amounts of grain into the country - which is exactly what the American elites had designed the process to accomplish.

The U.S. began shipping enormous amounts of flour into the Congo as "food-aid" under its Public Law 480 program - a "food-aid" program which had earlier been cynically designed not so much to feed starving populations in the world at large as it had been calculated to instill dependency by recipient nations on the "goodwill" of the United States.

Now, again, in all of this it's important to remember that THE FOOD SHORTAGE IN THE CONGO WAS ENTIRELY MAN-MADE. IT HAD RESULTED AS THE CONSEQUENCE OF A DELIBERATE EFFORT BY GIANT AMERICAN AGRIBUSINESSES AND MINING INTERESTS (TOGETHER WITH THE AID OF THEIR LACKEYS IN EUROPE) TO DIVERT FARM PRODUCTION IN THE CONGO AWAY FROM THE PRODUCTION OF FOOD FOR THE NATIVE POPULATION TO THE PRODUCTION OF "CASH CROPS" FOR EXPORT TO THE UNITED STATES AND WESTERN EUROPE.

A REPEAT OF THE CONDITIONS THAT
LED TO THE IRISH FAMINE OF THE 1840s

This is exactly the condition of things that produced the Irish Famine of the 1840s when Britain, in order to feed its own population - which was being forced off the land to labor in England's new factories as the Industrial Revolution took hold there - diverted the food production of Ireland away from the Irish to feed its own population. Indeed, what most people don't realize concerning the so-called "Irish Famine," is that during the entire duration of the so-called "famine" in Ireland, great quantities of food were still being produced there. The problem was, the food was not going to the Irish; it was being diverted to England.

To be sure, there was a failure of the potato harvest, but potatoes were the staple of only a relatively small portion of the Irish population in western Ireland. However, the failure of the potato harvest there served as a "convenient" excuse to what was really occurring - the divergence of Ireland's food production to England.

This is EXACTLY what's going on in Africa today. The food shortages in Africa have very little to do with what is being portrayed by the elite press as the "ineptitude" and "stupidity" of the African people [as so many naïfs in Europe and the United States believe [for example, Robert I. Rotberg of Harvard University (see below)], but rather they are ENTIRELY man-made and result not so much from decisions made in Africa, but rather from decisions made in the corporate board rooms of New York - decisions that are driven by the COVETOUSNESS and GREED of the American elites. [Please see the following articles for the racism that is extant in these kinds of attitudes: "The Hamitic Hypothesis: Racial Christianity in the Service of the Business and Political Elites" and "Racism and Right-Wing Christianity."]

It's important that you understand this; if you do not, you will never grasp what's really occurring in Africa; so I repeat it: As in Ireland in the 1840s, FOOD IN ENORMOUS QUANTITIES IS STILL BEING PRODUCED IN AFRICA. The problem is, this food is NOT going to Africa as sustenance for the indigenous populations of that region, but rather it is going to Europe and the United States in the form of coffee, sugar, groundnuts, cotton, cocoa, wool and mohair, tobacco, palm oil, exotic wood products, tea, etc. - nice as amenities in the West, but not essential as items of sustenance. [This is to say nothing of what's happening to Africa's fabulous mineral wealth.]

The small amount of cash that actually finds its way back to Africa as the result of this insane trade is not finding its way into the pockets of average Africans, but into the bank accounts of lackey-elites that have been installed in the region through the barrel of an American M-16. Moreover, one should not labor under the misapprehension that those native workers who labor in these agribusinesses receive a just compensation for their labor. They do not! - anymore than do the workers on the banana plantations of United Fruit Company (now Dole and Chiquita Brand) in Guatemala. [Please see our article, "The American Empire: The Corporate / Pentagon / CIA / Missionary Archipelago."]

PUBLIC LAW 480 AND CONTINENTAL GRAIN COMPANY

Once bread became sufficiently established in the Congo - particularly in Kinshasa - as a result of America's "food aid program" under the Public Law 480 program, Continental Grain Company - one of the world's largest grain corporations - proposed that it build a modern flour mill near the capital. The mill was opened in 1973 with the help of President Mobutu Sese Seko, America's toady in the region, ENSURING THE CONGO'S DEPENDENCE ON IMPORTED WHEAT (and processing technology).

A year later, prices for U.S. grain sky rocketed (surprise, surprise!), while revenues from the Congo's copper mines plummeted (that is, the price that American companies paid for Congolese copper), which was an altogether too "convenient" "convergence of catastrophes" that played into the hands of the American multinationals. To say that these "catastrophes" were not an entirely "man-made" affair is to look at the color white and call it black, or visa versa.

As a result, the Congo fell behind in its payments to Continental Grain for the American wheat the grain company was using for its mill. Now think about how ironic all this is: the Congo - which was producing vast amounts of agricultural products for export to America and Europe - is forced to import wheat from America to feed its own population. What a totally RIGGED system!

By late 1976 the giant company told Mobutu that its patience was "exhausted" at the Congo's "ineptitude" (how's that for chutzpah), and it began to flex its muscles by holding back its monthly shipment of grain to its Congo facility. The mill was "forced" to reduce its daily output of flour, and "bread lines" soon began to form. Mobutu was terrified! There is, after all, nothing so horrifying to a tyrant than to see uncontrolled masses in the streets - masses produced by Continental Grain's "manufactured" food shortages. The Americans had installed Mobutu in power, and now they were showing him who was boss. [For the story of how a similar "manufactured" "convergence of catastrophes" "arranged" by the very same agribusinesses at work in the Congo devastated "family farming" in the United States, please see our article, "A Growing Rage in America's Heartland;" please also see, "The Civilian Militias & The Mythology Of The Religious Right."]

ACQUIESCENCE BY THE CONGO TO
THE DEMANDS OF CONTINENTAL GRAIN

The effect of Continental's action was immediate. Congo officials met with representatives of Continental and agreed to all the company's demands. They not only had to promise (1) that the Congo's central bank would pay cash for all subsequent wheat shipments and (2) that the Congo would start repaying its old debt at the rate of $1 million a month, but it also had to agree that (3) only American hard wheat would be imported, except in special circumstances, (4) that Continental would have exclusive rights to mill flour in the Congo, and (5) that the company would have the right to approve or disapprove all requests by others to import flour into the Congo.

THUS CONTINENTAL GRAIN COMPANY BECAME THE CONGO'S SOLE IMPORTER OF WHEAT, ITS SOLE MANUFACTURER OF FLOUR, AND IT RECEIVED AUTHORITY TO CONTROL IMPORTS OF ANY COMPETING FLOUR, ALMOST AS IF IT WERE A GOVERNMENT AGENCY. In effect, Continental Grain became to the Congo what the United Fruit Company had become to Guatemala.

THE PICTURE OF AFRICA TODAY

This is just a small example of what the U.S. has been doing in the Congo, and - for that matter - in all of Africa. The result has been HORRIFIC: the great majority of the Congo's people have been forced out of the countryside and into the cities which are fast becoming a locus of savage Darwinian conflict where only the strongest and most ruthless can survive.

Still the people keep coming, pouring out of the rural areas and into the disintegrating cities where food is at least available as a result of food shipments from the outside. What the American elites are doing here is clearing Africa's rural area of its population so that the countryside can be given over to a kind of "plantation farming" (analogous to the kind developed in the American South prior to the Civil War), and to powerful American mining interests who are stripping the land of all its mineral wealth.

In addition to all that, powerful American pharmaceutical companies are now using Africa's left-over rural population as "guinea pigs" to test extremely dangerous vaccines - tests that would be forbidden in America and Europe. [Please see our article, "The Drug Epidemic, Viruses, Ebola, And AIDs."]

Today, Africa's cities are filled with crumbling buildings, tin-roofed shacks and open sewers; places where electrical systems don't work, where businesses are intricately linked to "bribe-taking," and where extortion by law enforcement and immigration officials is the "rule." They're ruled over by gangs of armed thugs and carjackers which are linked to favored families, clans, or other similar groups, which are then in turn tied one way or another into the lackey elites that run the country in the interests of the American New World Order System; corrupt, ruthless tyrants not unlike their depraved cousins in Latin America.

These tyrants are despots of the worst kind - all spouting the same kind of perverted Christianity that their cousins in Latin America spout; the kind that grant special mining privileges (e.g., diamonds, gold, silver, etc.) to IDIOTS like Pat Robertson, and who sponsor Christian Crusades (so-called) by DOLTS like Bennie Hinn, Morris Ceruillo and others of their ilk who are striving with all their might to link up Africa's churches to the "New Christianity" of the American New World Order System - the very system that is responsible for the poverty of the African continent.

ALL IN THE NAME OF CHRIST

These despots - these lackeys of America's New World Order System - systematically subvert prevailing democratic norms, coerce legislatures and bureaucracies into subservience, strangle judicial independence, block civil society, and gain control over security and defense forces - ALL IN THE NAME OF CHRIST!

These "Christian" tyrants - all of them - are a SHAME to the church of Jesus Christ; but there they are - driving grandly down city boulevards in motorcades, commandeering commercial aircraft for foreign excursions, and putting their faces prominently on the local currency and on oversize photographs in public places. And there's Pat Robertson, Bennie Hinn, Morris Ceruillo, Mike Bickle, Jim Goll, John Paul Jackson, James Ryle, Frank Damazio, Ed Silvoso, Carlos Annacondia, Claudio Freidzon, Roger Mitchell, Ted Haggart, Paul Cain, Chuck Pierce, Rick Joyner, Kingsley Fletcher ad nauseum riding along with them, acting as "ambassadors of Christ" and promoting the grandeur and resplendence of the American New World Order System.

EVIL, WICKED people - all of them - who have WHORED the church out to the rich of the earth, and made merchandise of the poor and dispossessed of Africa. These are the people about whom the Bible says -

"... have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her [i.e., Babylon] ..." (Rev. 18:9)

FAILED STATES

People in the West - and most particularly in the United States call the nations of Africa "FAILED STATES," and - to add insult to injury - to hear the U.S. elites tell it, the Africans must bear the brunt of the responsibility for this failure. For example, one insipid little bootlicker to the American elites, Robert I. Rotberg of Harvard University, speaking about the Congo, writes:

"Destructive decisions by individual (African) leaders have almost always paved the way to state failure. President Mobutu Sese Seko's three-plus decades of kleptocratic rule sucked Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or DRC) dry until he was deposed in 1997. [Mobutu was] ... personally greedy, but as a predatory patrimonialist [he] ... also licensed and sponsored the avarice of others, thus preordaining the destruction of ... [his] state."

Rotberg goes on to piously declare that -

"Today's failed states [in Africa] ... are incapable of projecting power and asserting authority within their own borders, leaving their territories governmentally empty ... Failed states have come to be feared as 'breeding grounds of instability, mass migration and murder' as well as reservoirs and exporters of terror ..."

But Rotberg is being a complete IDIOT here; he's an academician on the payroll of Wall Street; a conceliorie for the U.S. elites - today's real Mafioso. After all, who put Mobutu in power in the Congo in 1967? It was CONTINENTAL GRAIN COMPANY and the power of the U.S. military and its lackey Belgian counterpart that did so! Mobutu was Continental's LACKEY; their man in the Congo who then turned around and granted Continental Grain EXCLUSIVE rights to mill flour in the Congo; he then made the Continental Grain Company a virtual arm of his government - a government agency, as it were. And if Mobutu's Congo became a "kleptocracy," it was a kleptocracy in the employ of the American New World Order System. And the same thing is true with regard to countless other African countries.

CONGRESSWOMAN CYNTHIA McKINNEY

On April 6, 2001 Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D), Georgia - a very COURAGEOUS black congresswoman whom the U.S. elites HATE and LOATH with a passion reserved for their worst enemies - boldly sponsored a forum on the way U.S. multinationals are raping Africa of its wealth. In her opening statement at the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington D.C., McKinney said:

"I want to thank you all for coming today. I especially want to thank our esteemed speakers for traveling, in some instances quite a long way, to be with us today. Our speakers are courageous individuals who have gone to many of Africa's most dangerous and desperately poor locations, not for wealth or riches, but in order to merely discover the truth. They provide us with a remarkable insight into what has gone on in Africa and what continues to go on in Africa today.

"Much of what you will hear today has not been widely reported in the public media. POWERFUL FORCES HAVE FOUGHT TO SUPPRESS THESE STORIES FROM ENTERING THE PUBLIC DOMAIN. Their investigations into the activities of Western governments and Western businessmen in post-colonial Africa provide clear evidence of the West's long-standing propensity for cruelty, avarice, and treachery. The misconduct of Western nations in Africa is not due to momentary lapses, individual defects, or errors of common human frailty. Instead, they form part of long-term malignant policy designed to access and plunder Africa's wealth at the expense of Africa's people. In short, the accounts you are about to hear provide an indictment of Western activities in Africa.

"The West has, for decades, plundered Africa's wealth and permitted, and even, assisted in slaughtering Africa's people. The West has been able to do this while still shrewdly cultivating the myth that much of Africa's problems are African made - we have all heard the usual Western defenses that Africa's problems are the fault of unsophisticated peoples. But we know that those statements are all a lie. We have always known it. The accounts we are about to hear today assist us in understanding just why Africa is in the state it is in today. You will hear that at the heart of Africa's suffering is the West's, AND MOST NOTABLY THE UNITED STATES', desire to access Africa's diamonds, oil, natural gas, and other precious resources.

"You will hear that the West, AND MOST NOTABLY THE UNITED STATES, has set in motion a policy of oppression, destabilization and tempered, not by moral principle, but by a ruthless desire to enrich itself on Africa's fabulous wealth. While falsely pretending to be the friends and allies of many African countries, so desperate for help and assistance, many western nations have in reality betrayed those countries' trust - and instead, have relentlessly pursued their own selfish military and economic policies. Western countries have incited rebellion against stable African governments by encouraging and even arming opposition parties and rebel groups to begin armed insurrection.

"The Western nations have even actively participated in the assassination of duly elected and legitimate African Heads of State and replaced them with corrupted and malleable officials. Western nations have even encouraged and been complicit in the unlawful invasions by African nations into neighboring countries.

"I invite you to listen and learn first-hand of the West's activities in Africa."

BE A MENSCH: HAVE THE
COURAGE OF YOUR CONVICTIONS

Brothers and sisters in Christ, there will be a reckoning some day in the not too distant future. In the interim, we in Antipas URGE all of you to get out of the U.S. Don't be a party to what's happening. Your very presence in the United States makes you a party to what the U.S. is doing in the world today. You may say otherwise, but it's the truth. In the name of all that is decent, and honest, and pure - GET OUT! Most of you, I know, are worried about the poverty that may eventually befall you if you leave the United States; but as Gustavo Gutierrez, a Peruvian Roman Catholic priest and the titular founder of what has become known as Liberation Theology, has said:

"There are ... [several] meanings of poverty: first there is the dehumanizing lack of material goods ... which the Bible says results from the oppression of the poor by the rich and powerful ... [And then] there's VOLUNTARY POVERTY which is considered an act of love and liberation, of solidarity with the poor and those who suffer injustice. This commitment calls for giving up the relatively comfortable life and going to a barrio or a rural area to live with the people [as Hudson Taylor did in his China Inland Mission] ..."

Are you afraid of this kind of poverty? - the kind that Gutierrez is describing here? If you are, you CANNOT be a disciple of Christ! After all, you certainly are not the first person to whom Christ said -

"... If ANY man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." (Matt. 16:24)

That's ANY man. And He went on to say,

"He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." (Matt. 10:37)

BE CAREFUL WHEN YOU CONDEMN
GUITIERREZ AND BOFF

There are, of course, those in the American church - evangelical adherents of today's "New Christianity" - who would condemn us for citing Gutierrez and using him as an example of Christian love. Gutierrez, Leonardo Boff, Clodovis Boff, Carlos Meister, Frei Betto, Archbishop Oscar Romero, Archbishop Dom Helder Camara, Archbishop Paulo Evaristo Arns, Ernesto Cardenal and countless others like them are condemned not only by evangelicals as "New Agers," but as "communists" and "Marxists" by the hierarchy of today's Roman Catholic Church - the Church of John Paul II and Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI).

They have been pursued more ruthlessly by the Roman Church than were the Protestant Reformers and the Jews in Spain during the Inquisition. Their bishoprics and parishes have been broken up, many of them have been forced into "retirement" in far-away places, others have been replaced by John Paul II with followers of Opus Dei, and still others have been ruthlessly killed by Death Squads acting in conjunction with the Vatican's ally in the Third World, the American military and the CIA. [More about this in our next article.]

Yes! - it's true, there are "New Age" tendencies within the "conceptual constructs" of Liberation Theology, and there is a propensity towards "Marxist communalism;" there is also a penchant towards violence in the radical fringes of the movement - but nowhere to the degree evidenced by the "evangelical" proponents of the American New World Order System. [Please see our article, "The Death Squads: Bringing in the Kingdom of God through Terror, Torture and Death."]

This isn't to say that we in any way advocate the tenets of Roman Catholicism - even in its most "moderate" and palatable form. We do not! [Please see our section on the Roman Catholic Church in the Antipas Papers, "What is the Roman Catholic Church?" Please also see our "Statement of Faith."]

But you must understand something here concerning Gutierrez and his compatriots: Whatever most evangelicals know of Liberation Theology, they have probably gleaned from such CIA front organizations as the Puebla Institute, the Rand Corporation, and the Institute of Religion and Democracy. These are organizations that do not anathematize the followers of Liberation Theology merely for doctrinal reasons. They have no real interest in Christian doctrine, and they surely have no interest in the poor Carpenter of Nazareth who said of Himself: "... foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head." (Matt. 8:20) Their only interest in condemning the beliefs of this "theological construct" is in preserving the far-flung interests of America's multinational corporations in Latin America, Africa, and Asia from the dangers of "people power."

GIVING A DRINK TO THE
"LITTLE ONES" OF THE EARTH

In speaking of Gutierrez, Boff, Meister, Betto, Romero, Camara, Arns, Cardenal and others like them, I tell you the truth when I say that it will go easier for them on the Day of Judgment than it will for IDIOTS and DOLTS like C. Peter Wagner, John Wimber, D. James Kennedy, Charles Stanley, James Dobson, etc. who have been so thoroughly identified with the "New Christianity" of today's American New World Order System that they are now compromised beyond any hope of spiritual resuscitation. After all, what's the difference between the so-called "New Christianity" with which they have been identified (together with Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, Bennie Hinn, etc.) and the "Christianity" of the Roman Catholic Church? Not much, that's for sure. [Please see our articles, "A Luciferic Christianity" and "The God-Men of Today's American new World Order System."]

These men (i.e., Gutierrez, Boff, et. al..) are those about whom Christ said:

"And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward." (Matt. 10:42)

The truth is, for all of their doctrinal problems - and there are many - these men have certainly stooped low to give the "little ones" of the earth a drink of water - and they have done so in the precious name of Jesus Christ. Have you done that?

One day a certain man asked Jesus,

"... who is my neighbour?

"And Jesus answering said, A certain man [an evangelical, as it were) went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.

"And by chance there came down a certain priest [a Baptist pastor, so to speak] that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.

"And likewise a Levite [a Bible-thumping evangelical in our "construct" here], when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.

"But a certain Samaritan [a Catholic (as it were) - and more than just a Catholic, but a follower of Gutierrez and Boff and Camara], as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him,

"And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.

"And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence (two full days of wages), and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.

"Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?

"And he said, He that showed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise." (Luke 10:29-37)

"Go and do thou likewise" - what do you think about that? You must admit, after all - that is, if you honestly look at the facts - that at least the proponents of Liberation Theology have identified themselves with the poor of the earth, something that the proponents of today's "New Christianity" (to say nothing of the Vatican itself) are loathe to do - and they (i.e., the adherents of Liberation Theology) have validated their identity with the poor by actually living with them! That's a "hell of a lot more" than most evangelical Christians in the United States - who view their wealth as a validation of their "successful" Christian living - are prepared to do.

Are you willing to do that? Are you willing to live "communally" with the poor as the early church did? (Acts 4:33 - 37) This is what we're doing here on the ranch - and because we do, we have actually been accused of promoting Liberation Theology by our enemies because of our communal living, even though we denounce in no uncertain terms the actual tenets of Roman Catholicism - something that C. Peter Wagner, Richard Land, D. James Kennedy, Jerry Falwell, etc. no longer do in their pathetic and miserable efforts to ingratiate themselves with the Vatican. [Please see our article, "The Jesus Revolution."]

THIS MESSAGE IS NOT A POPULAR ONE

Obviously, this is not a popular message, and - as a result - we need those of you who identify with us and our message to help us out financially so that we can get this message out! We desperately need your financial assistance. Please take the time to help us a little month by month. If we have fed you spiritually, if we have helped in any way to open your eyes (and your heart) to what is really happening in the world today - for example, by giving you some insight as to what's really occurring in the Congo and in Africa in general, or in the material you read in our article, "The God-Men of America's New World Order System" - then return the favor by helping us. We entreat you to remember the words of the apostle Paul when he said:

"If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal (material) things?" (1 Cor. 9:11)

Until next time, God bless you all

S.R. Shearer
Antipas Ministries

P.S. Please see my letter of April 7, 2005, "An Important Letter From S.R. Shearer:"