By Raffique Shah
November 01, 2025

As I watched and listened to television news focused on the unfolding story about the massacre of hundreds of Brazilians in the slum city of Rio de Janeiro in a war against gangs and drug dealers and traffickers. I recoiled in horror when I realised this was happening in real time.

Here was I, veteran campaigner against cruel and unusual punishment and harsh actions against a people, almost enjoying these savage images of hundreds of mainly young suspected criminals/gang members and drug traffickers, and sundry crooks caught in the cross-fire. I alerted my friends to the report which we paid attention to diligently until someone asked: Is this in Sudan or the Congo?

I responded: No, this is Rio and it’s happening now. All eyes focused back on to the television set and as we scanned the crowd, watching litres of blood seep into the earth, staining the ground in a dark crimson hue.

It reminded me of the report I read earlier on the ongoings in Sudan, where Yale professors using satellite images were able to point out mass graves, trenches, strewn decomposing bodies and most significant, large areas of blood stained earth. Those images awakened feelings I had long thought were banished from my mind having lived through the famine of Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan and so many more in the past, I thought we would never get to that point again. But here we were taking part in the filming of this brutal civil war and genocide of a people, once again.

You see, African names and images were not as commonplace as they are today. When any calypsonian had to carve out a song – think Carl and Carol Jacobs’ “We want to live” and the various artistes song “Calypso for Africa- Now is the time”- about the African nations and the survival of a people through genocide, civil war and famine, we were still in the age of radio and one television station. And, even with that lack of technology, we were still able to empathise with their cause and advocate for them when their own voices were being silenced.

The Congo when it reached to fight for independence circa 1960, the people were fighting for freedom from their Belgian colonisers, but the black-white issue colorised all aspects of their struggle and forced the people to look at where the Congo was at that time.

The Congo had a large presence and great effort in its own fight for independence, and that forced many within and those on the outside to accept and place that struggle squarely on the agenda. It was a bloody and brutal war with the largest casualty being the Congolese people who were then carved-up into various tribes.

The Congolese and especially Belgian-Congolese names featured in calypso and freedom-fighters such as Patrice Lumumba, Jono Kenyatta and Kasabubu were now staple names in Trinidadian household due to their recognition in song. They all featured upfront in a war that ran for years.

Unlike Trinidad, which like most other British colonies called a few names and voila, Independence, it was never the same for countries like the Congo. The Congo has immense rare metal reserves and just about every rare metal that existed was present in their soil. So, anyone who controlled the Congo, controlled their wealth and by extension their relationship with Europe and other countries within the African continent.

The Dark Continent descended into a blood-letting spree in the fight for tribal supremacy, and that was back then. Today we are right back there, but with more arms and ammunition and sociopathic mercenaries with their ‘rent an army-pay in blood’ greed. They have tonnes of cash now to pay these fighters-for-hire or simply murderers, who willingly take up residence in whatever country is willing to pay their price, such is their depravity.

The re-igniting of racial strife in former colonies that thought they had advanced way ahead of their colonised era, brings to the fore across the world, but especially in continents and land-masses richly endowed with resources, naked greed. Greed which plagues even your so-called friendly neighbour when it comes to fighting for land he doesn’t even own, such is man’s need for control. Do not buy into their “Saviour Returns” gimmick. Watch them carefully, closely, in the Congo, Claxton Bay, Caracas, wherever.

We should learn some important and serious lessons from this narrative, the White-Master and especially the man in “That House”, whose aim was never to assist with development, fair mediation or handing back to a people a country that is heavily endowed.

His aim was never to leave a country better than he found it, for him it has always been about looting and pillaging and making way for the next puppet whose strings he controls. He has several aliases, Bush, Trump, Obama, Clinton, but his agenda is always greed-driven. Watch yuh back!