When he ran as an opposition candidate for parliament in 2011, Christian Malanga, President of the United Congolese Party, was arrested just days before the election, and held prisoner for almost two weeks. Why?
Because I was preaching what was right, rule of law, reforming government, and bringing change to the Congo. It was the principles I believed in, and what I said, that the people are starving. I was trying to empower the women and young men, the youth, and the authority did not like that, they want people to be kept in the dark.
The government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo tortured him. They beat him, and they tortured those close to him as well. He could hear his secretary scream as agents of the state raped her.
“Everyone that is supposed to help is watching you get tortured,” Christian Malanga told me, over a phone interview earlier this week. “I had no control over the situation. In front of me is a local judge sitting there, and a guy from the Secret Service, the Congo’s version of the Secret Service, and the head of police.”
But the Carter Center saved his life, and got him freed. When Christian was released from jail, the government offered him a position as President of the Youth Affairs. He declined. It would have gone against his principles to have been so obviously bought off, he said. It was only an effort to silence him.
Instead Malanga left the Congo and began putting together a group to take on the corruption, rape, and oppression inside the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Today, he is attempting to form a government in exile, to oust the current President Kabila, who refused to leave office when his term was up.
“The Congo is the rape capital of the world. Government forces use rape to destroy families, and bring villages under control.”
Malanga sent me a short video which sums up the problems facing the Congo.
For too long, it’s government has been supported by foreign leaders, including U.S. officials, who prop up a dictatorial regime, and allow genocide to pour over the border from Rwanda.
At least six, possibly ten million, people have been killed in the Congo since 1996. Government backed rebel groups rape, murder, and pillage the abundant natural resources found in the Congo, from diamonds to cobalt, copper and 64% of the world’s coltan, needed for electronics.
It is basically the same story from when King Leopold of Belgium destroyed the Congo in the late 19th and early 20th century. He made the people into slaves, and forced them to harvest rubber.
Now, countries funded by the U.S. are looting the resources from the Congo, taking advantage of a power vacuum in a lawless country where those in charge are the worst offenders of rights.
How Will Christian Malanga Save the Congo?
Christian Malanga talks of revolution, but this is no coup he has planned. A coup takes over a government, Malanga tells me, and there is no legitimate government inside the Congo to take over. The President has postponed elections in an attempt to stay in power.
Constitutionally [Kabila] is no longer president, the seat is empty. The parliament ended, so none of those people have legitimate power, they are holding power by force. In the Constitution of the Congo it says the people have the right to stand up, it gives the right to hold the President accountable for high treason.
I must admit, I was ignorant to the severity of the situation in the Congo. I knew that Christian Malanga was running for President of the Congo. But when I asked about the election, Malanga told me, “There will be no election… if I went back I would be arrested, you would not hear from me again, I would be dead, tortured and killed.”
So how does a man run for President when there won’t be an election, and he would be killed for stepping foot in his homeland?
Right now Malanga is in Brussels, talking with business and government leaders, putting together a group of investors, with insight from human rights organizations to take back the Congo.
I look at this as a business plan, or as a blueprint; how can we have clean water, how can we have electricity. The Congo has hydroelectric that can produce enough electricity for all Africa and eastern Europe, we have that much.
There is technology, for computers, for cell phones, the materials are coming from the Congo! But it’s badly managed. With great minds, we can do something and have nothing to lose. We need to craft something that can be profitable for the people, and our outside investors.
Throughout the interview, Christian Malanga always brought the conversation back to the women of the Congo, and their extreme mistreatment at the hands of the government and government backed rebel groups.
In a country where rape is used as a tool of power, Malanga says it is of utmost important to turn that completely around and put women in positions of power. They need to be the ones making decisions and calling the shots when the new government is formed, he says.
The value of a nation is found in how they treat their women. Our mother brings us to earth carried nine months in her belly; she goes through the pains of childbirth, and she raises us. But when it comes to decision making, we don’t involve them. But when you look in villages they are the ones who farm, who run the machinery, who hold together the economy.
If it goes the way we want it to go, we will have over two million women outside in the streets. We need to give them a voice. We want an operation that takes place with well trained friends, to extract the bad guys, and arrest them. In order for that to happen we are putting together a government in exile, and from that we will move it inside, because we want to see justice. We want justice done for all the people who have perpetrated crime against women.
Using America as an Example
Christian Malanga is 34 years old, and lived in the United States as a political refugee from 1998 until 2006.
It was his time spent in the United States which gave him an appreciation for the freedom Americans enjoy. He says no other country has provided the same opportunities for so many from every culture.
Oprah Winfrey, she wouldn’t be Oprah if she was in Africa, she wouldn’t be Oprah if she was in China, she wouldn’t be Oprah is she was in Russia. But she became Oprah because she was in America with an American system.
Economic freedom is especially important to Malanga who ran several small businesses during his time in the United States. He believes the lack of economic freedom in the Congo is why the country is so rich in resources but so poor in practice.
A lot [of my love for freedom] came from Founding Fathers, free thinkers who really changed things. Coming in as a political refugee and still having choice, still being able to be successful.
America has a universal culture; there are people from all walks of the Earth, every tribe and region and culture and nationality is found in USA. It is a melting pot, with all living under one law… There is a way of life where refugees can adapt and understand laws… how can such a large country be so peaceful while the small ones kill each other?
In 2006 Malanga returned to the Congo and joined the military, achieving the rank of Captain, with hundreds of men under his command. He said as a military officer, he tried to raise the morale of the troops by sharing the principles of freedom he learned in America.
Christian felt like a stranger in his own country, with such a different philosophy from the ideas of the Congolese army; basically giving badges and guns to criminals. The troops needed rule of law, because the military amounted to thugs in high ranks giving orders. Instead he focused the troops attention on the need to liberate the people; a lesson he says was learned from George Washington standing up to free the American people from England.
After he ran for parliament in 2011, being imprisoned and tortured for weeks, he fled the country once again, and has ever since been working to return triumphantly to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to free a people he says have been robbed of their culture, and their ancestry.
Moving Forward
I wanted to know what the time frame was for this new government to be installed. The way Christian was talking, it seemed like it would be some time before he was ready to go back into the Congo with enough outside support to oust the President, and allow for elections. I was surprised that he is ready for action.
“In 90 days we can accomplish anything, and we can come up with something right. 90 days is the minimum, five months is maximum. We can put a great team together; people with a vision.”
Malanga wants to run the Congo like a business, which opens up vast opportunities for investors in business as well as experimental government. Guided by the free market, Christian Malanga is willing to try anything that will work to bring the people out of poverty, and out of the dangers associated with dictatorial rule and hostile neighbor governments.
Our shareholders are the people, we are coming in as CEO, so how can we run this country right? I want to get the best economists, great ideas, new minds, not old minds, 21st century thinking; how can we change things in the country? And from there I want to get advice from the military side, who can say, ‘Christian this is how the military of the 21st century can look like to protect your people.’
If the melting pot of America is what made the country so great, Malanga intends to bring that diversity of ideas into forming a new government.
He is focused on using technology to augment fresh systems of government, and form a new type of society that is not only beneficial for the Congo, but a hallmark example for the rest of the world to follow.
Malanga is putting together a “surgical operation” to extract those in power, and hold them accountable for their crimes. He says that President Kabila is cut off from the world, has been told to step down by foreign nations, and has been sanctioned internationally.
It’s not too late to liberate people, lets go do this, because right now as we speak the power, the government is in the streets [oppressing people], so anyone who comes in with a great plan, we can have the support of the people…
We have the military on our back, we have the military, the government are not loved by anybody, nobody wants the government in place, everyone is looking for a leader.
Christian Malanga intends to be that leader, that will once and for all free the people of the Congo and usher in a new age of technological advance, modern economy, and prosperity that comes from freedom.
What he envisions for the Congo is what he loves so much about America; the diversity, the melting pot of cultures and ideas, and the free market to let the people prosper. He wants the Congo to be a place for vacation, a place for technology, clean energy, and a place for a new start for people from all over the world.
It is an open door for Western entrepreneurs, to Western investors that we open the doors to. Some people have ideas in development to see how we can transform the rape capital of the world into a little heaven, a mini paradise.
Malanga sees a thriving tourist industry from the snowy mountains to the tropical riverside jungles filled with exotic animals; he sees a fertile ground for emerging technologies, and he sees the Congo playing a key role in the future of environmentalism, hosting large swaths of rain forest important to the health of the worldwide ecosystem.
How can we bring the Congo into the world market for trade, how can we bring in housing? Right now it is a complete jungle, unbuilt, but if we bring together friends who see the future, the Congo can become a shining star in the hearts of Africa!
But it needs to be managed right, there’s not any book I can read that will tell me how to have a revolution or be president, everyday we improvise because there’s no guidance, there are no elders or ancestors who say this is how to do it. Right now we are creating our own path.
Our revolution is starting from outside; inside the people are ready, 90 million are ready and screaming for help, they are looking for a leader.
The Daily Bell will remain in constant contact with Christian Malanga, ready to break the news about his project. We will be exploring the details of the plan, so that if it looks promising, we can all become involved in helping to free the Congo. As opportunities arise for investors, you will be the first to know, and the first to have the chance to make a real difference.
This is an opportunity to form a new government unlike any other in existence. This could be a historical formation of an experimental government, the likes of which the world has not seen since the forming of America.
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