Chanda Katonga | + Follow Poet |
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The Military Industry

I was there,
and I saw it with my own eyes—
that war is the most profitable business
under the burning Sun.

The world counts blood in numbers:
Global defense spending
rises past two and a half trillion dollars,
and still the clock ticks higher—
day and night,
like a metronome for death.

Do not be deceived.
Arms-trade corruption
runs deeper than bribes in envelopes.
It is a bloodstream,
feeding rebels, feeding kings,
feeding the merchants of ruin.

In Congo, in Sudan,
I walked among dangerous rebels.
Their rifles gleamed with foreign steel,
their rockets bore names
from Russia, from China,
but mostly, America.

I asked them—
“How can you afford
what even your governments cannot?”
They smiled like hyenas,
and led me into the bush.

There,
beneath a sky heavy with silence,
a helicopter descended.
Its belly opened,
pouring out crates of fire and iron.
Money changed hands,
but so did promises.
Private companies,
hidden governments,
all investing in chaos
where minerals sleep beneath the soil.

Ask yourself,
when you hear of wars in Africa,
in Ukraine, in the Middle East—
who is the sponsor?
Follow the blood,
and you will find the banker.

For war is not madness.
War is a ledger.
And the largest investors sit
in America and in Europe,
feeding on Africa,
devouring the Middle East,
counting billions
as mothers bury children.

But hear me well—
the wheel turns.
What you sow abroad
will sprout in your own gardens.
Very soon,
the wars you sponsor
will blaze on European streets,
will roar on American soil.

The Global South will learn your craft,
will return the theater to your doorstep.
And you will discover
that the iron you forged for others
is the very iron
that pierces your own heart.

For what goes around,
comes around.
And the blood you sold as profit
shall be the price you pay.

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