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The west has long sacrificed justice for short-term stability in Congo. This policy has only left it spinning in a cycle of chaos

Today the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is remembering the 50th anniversary of its independence from brutal Belgian rule. But its people have little reason to celebrate, despite the grandiose festivities organised by the Kabila regime.

Eastern Congo continues to be deeply insecure, with the internal displacement of hundreds of thousands of citizens, the vast majority of Congolese are illiterate and deprived of medical and historical 2006 election (the first since 1960) notwithstanding, democratic space is shrinking, not widening.

As in other African countries that obtained their political freedom from white domination, Congolese people dreamed of prosperity and dignity through hard work, of internal peace and good relations with the outside world. To quote Congo's first prime minister Patrice Lumumba:

\\ "We are going to show the world that a black man can do when he works in freedom, and we're going to do from the Congo in the center of Sun 's splendor to the whole of Africa ... We will monitor the land of our country so that they actually came to their children. "

Fulfilling these aspirations was never going to be easy, even with competent, committed rulers. Unfortunately, the structural factors working against emancipation (no self-governing experience, institutionalised violence, etc) were compounded by two massive, interrelated problems: the almost total impunity enjoyed by Congolese regimes, and the west's support for tyrants in exchange for access to Congo's fabulous natural resources.

An American-Belgian plot assassinated the "dangerously autonomous" Lumumba, leading to a neocolonial restoration under the Mobutu dictatorship, which allowed western companies to feaston the stern of copper, cobalt and uranium.

Meanwhile, the state withered away, as social services and infrastructure have been abandoned and the soldiers remained unpaid for a year, statistics show that in the mid-90's, 75% of the budget went to "presidential, private consumption".

In the wake of the Rwandan genocide's regional spillover, Mobutu's time was up. The US-led international community gave a green light for a Rwandan-Ugandan invasion, with Laurent Kabila as its Congolese face.

After the change of power in May 1997, to the west allowed Mobutu to die in peace, and urges the Government of Kabila 'help "national reconciliation, conveniently failure to prosecute those who plundered the people for decades.

Any hopes of a fresh start for central Africa were soon dashed when the former rebel-chiefs of Uganda, Rwanda and Congo fell out, triggering the bloodiest conflict since the second world war. Ten African states battled each other as well as dozens of militias on Congolese territory, causing the deaths of anywhere between 3 and 6 million civilians. Though the west was shocked by these atrocities, supposedly respectable multinationals made a fortune out of buying rare minerals from predatory governmental armies and rebels.

Despite charges by the international criminal court against a handful of local pseudo-generals in Ituri region, their (inter)national backers in Kinshasa, Kampala and further afield are left alone. More than 95% of crimes against humanity committed since 1996 have gone unpunished.

As so often in Congolese history, in the name of stability, justice has simply been de-prioritised by the international community.

Opponents of this myopic choice were called pessimists because "Congo needs to move on". Human rights icon Floribert Chebeya warned that while power is being concentrated by a clique of military hardliners and businessmen around Kabila, security remains absolutely abysmal, with thousands of women being raped annually in Eastern DRC. In today's Congo, such criticism is unacceptable: on 2 June, Chebeya was assassinated.

Brussels, Washington and London still regard Congo as a "fragile democracy" and money continues to flow to Kinshasa. Never mind that there is no opposition worthy of the name; that the state does not control large swathes of the territory but allows its army to misbehave; and that critics are systematically intimidated or killed. Business must go on.

Congo's 50th anniversary is an excellent opportunity for countries like Belgium, the US and Britain (the DFID pumped about £100m into DRC in 2009) to accept their devastating historical responsibility, rethink their assumptions about governance and security, and change their policy fundamentally.

Supporting the faith-based clinics, community-run schools and human rights organisations fighting for human dignity at the micro-level might not guarantee success either, but offers a far better chance of ending the "perennial" Congolese chaos in the next decade.

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