Africans just need free markets, and they’ll stop fighting

That’s the gist of an opinion piece in The New York Times today discussing solutions to the extremely violent and decade-long war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a war that implicates multiple countries in the Central African region as well as multinational firms scrambling for resources.

The piece is by Herman J Cohen, a former senior diplomat who served under George H.W.Bush who is fond of promoting “free markets” while  representing some of the most dubious regimes on the continent. His resume includes, as a diplomat, very close relations with Mobuto sese Seko and Apartheid South Africa and as a lobbyist, promoting the Gabonese dictator Omar Bongo, Charles Taylor of Liberia, the late Laurent Kabila, the corrupt Angolan government, and more recently, yes, Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwean junta for a five-year $600,000 PR contract).