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Podcast: Anti-Imperialist Network Podcast
Episode: Unequal Exchange in the Congo Episode 1: Patrice Lumumba and Arghiri Emmanuel, Against the Imperialist and Settler Exploitation of the Congo
Description: In the 1960s, the independence of the Congo seemed to herald the delinking of one of Africa's most powerful economies and nations from Western imperialism. Patrice Lumumba presented a vision of a unified, Pan-African Congo whose resources "would actually benefit its children". This posed an immense challenge to the rule of Belgian high finance, the major mining companies in the Katanga province led by Union Minière du Haut-Katanga, and not least the white settlers who by 1960 numbered 110,000 throughout the Congo, yet accrued half of the value of the entire country. And of course, the rising imperial hegemon of t...