DRC-Rwanda crisis

 This is taken from The Conversation.

‘In the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC),South African, Burundian and Tanzanian troops are fighting against the Rwandan army, which has deployed in support of the rebellion by the March 23 Movement, or M23.

Soldiers from South Africa and Burundi, as well as from the United Nations peacekeeping mission, have recently suffered casualties. In the crossfire, civilians have fled: seven million Congolese are now displaced due to this and multiple other crises in the DRC.

Diplomats are concerned: the conflict in the eastern DRC was the subject of a special meeting at the United Nations Security Council on 20 February 2024 and a mini-summiton the sidelines of the African Union annual meeting of heads of state on 16 February.

Rwanda, which has denied backing M23,says the Rwandan rebel group – Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Rwanda (FDLR) – which includes combatants who participated in the 1994 genocide, has been fully integrated into the Congolese army. It also claims that the Congolese government is engaged in “massive combat operations” aimed at expelling Congolese Tutsi civilians.

The Congolese government has mounted a campaign against Rwanda. In December, while he campaigned for re-election, President Félix Tshisekedi compared his Rwandan counterpart to Adolf Hitler and accused him of expansionist aims.

In January, the Burundian president Évariste Ndayishimiye closed his border with Rwanda and accused the country of backing rebels against him. He stopped just short of calling for Kagame’s ouster.

We have been working on the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for around 20 years. This wave of violence resembles previous ones, but is also different. At the root of the M23 conflict are countries such as Rwanda and Uganda, intent on projecting power and influence into the eastern DRC, while the Congolese government seems incapable and often unwilling to stabilise its own territory. Donors and United Nations peacekeepers provide humanitarian aid, but do little to transform these dynamics.

Resolving this crisis will require less hypocrisy from foreign donors, the end of Rwandan aggression, and a more accountable Congolese government. But the hopes of a grand bargain are far off, for now. The current peace processes – a ‘Nairobi process’ for domestic negotiations and a ‘Luanda process’ for regional talks – are dead or on life support.

The upcoming elections in Rwanda (July 2024) and the US (November 2024) will likely not help cool heads or focus minds. But it is clear that ending the violence will require a new approach, one that places the lives of innocent Congolese civilians at its centre.

During the early days of his presidency, Tshisekedi’s army collaborated intensely with the Rwandan army, allowing troops to conduct operations against the FDLR on Congolese territory in 2019 and 2020. In late 2019, his government even recommended dropping charges against the M23 commanders, then in exile.

Less than three years after winning power, however, Tshisekedi changed his approach, breaking his coalition with his predecessor, Joseph Kabila, and moving to cement his position in power. He declared a state of siege in two eastern provinces, shuffled generals around in the army, and sidelined key securocrats. He also shifted gears in his regional relations.

By mid-2021, Tshisekedi had begun to privilege relations with Uganda, then a bitter rival of Rwanda. Notably, Tshisekedi gave permission to the Ugandan army to deploy somewhere between 2,000 and 4,000 troops to hunt down Allied Democratic Forces rebels, an Islamist Ugandan rebellion based in the eastern DRC. Shortly after that, he did the same for the Burundian army, which had its sights on RED-Tabara, rebels based in the DRC seeking to overthrow the government of Ndayishimiye.

Rwanda suddenly felt isolated, even vulnerable, surrounded by hostile neighbours. According to United Nations investigators, it probably resumed throwing its weight behind the M23 in November 2021. It is above all these regional tensions, coupled with its goal of maintaining influence in the Congo, that pushed it to move.

Since then, the regional fault lines have shifted. Rwanda has patched up relations with Uganda, and the East African Community intervention force – Kenyan, South Sudanese, Burundian and Ugandan troops – that deployed in 2022 to help quell the violence was asked to leave just a year later. This is because their hosts saw them as dragging their feet, if not complicit with the M23. Tshisekedi, who came into office seeing east African countries as allies, has now turned southwards.

Military changes in eastern DRC

Beginning in late 2023, a new force from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) began deploying troops from South Africa, Tanzania and Malawi to take the fight to the M23, alongside the Burundian army.

Already, these forces have begun to take casualties. Two South African soldiers were killed on 14 February by a mortar strike; two others were injured when their helicopter took fire. Some sources indicate that Burundian soldiers have taken heavy losses.

The rising degree of military sophistication also raises eyebrows. The US government has accused Rwanda of deploying surface-to-air missiles, UN officials have reported armed drones striking their bases, while Tanzania has sent Soviet-era BM-21 Grad rocket launchers. The DRC has bought nine Chinese CH-4 combat drones (three of which have reportedly been shot down already).

Meanwhile, the Congolese army has partnered with private security contractors as well as with an array of local militia, collectively dubbed Wazalendo (patriots), who are poorly trained and disciplined. There are credible reports from late 2023 that, as in the previous year, they are also partnering with the Rwandan FDLR rebels.

And yet, the Congolese government has been unable to make much headway. In early February, M23 forces surrounded the lakeside town of Sake, just 30km west of the provincial capital Goma. This most recent push has displaced another 135,000 people toward Goma; there are around half a  million displaced people around the town now.

Unlike the previous M23 crisis, influential foreign actors have sent mixed signals. At the UN Security Council on 20 February, the US and France called on Rwanda to withdraw their troops from the DRC. The US has gone the furthest of all of Rwanda’s donors, sanctioning a Rwandan general, suspending all military aid, and attempting to broker a ceasefire in December 2023.

And yet, the US remains, by far, the largest donor to Rwanda, which receives the equivalent of around a third of its budget in aid. Other countries have pushed much less or not at all. While the M23 rebellion was going on, the 

British Commonwealth held its big biannual meeting in Kigali in 2022 and the UK struck a controversial asylum deal with Rwanda.

The EU gave US$22 million to support the deployment of the Rwanda Defence Force in Mozambique. On 19 February, the EU announced a deal to boost mineral exports from Rwanda.

This last piece of news caused an uproar in the DRC, touching on the popular belief that minerals are the root of the crisis. While the causes of the violence are far more complex than that, they have a point: the largest export tfrom Uganda (56% in 2021), Rwanda (23%), and Burundi (29%) in recent years has been gold, almost all of which is smuggled to their countries from the DRC.

In the long term, the DRC government will need to undertake a host of reforms to quell these cycles of conflict. They include reforming the Congolese army, a new demobilisation programme for armed groups, an economic development programme that would allow Congolese to benefit from their resources, a plan for communal reconciliation, and an end to discrimination against Kinyarwanda speakers. But none of that can happen as long as Congo’s neighbours continue to destabilise it.’

https://theconversation.com/drc-rwanda-crisis-whats-needed-to-prevent-a-regional-war-224345

Promoted by The Socialist party of Great Britain, 52 Clapham High Street, London, SW4 7UN

Heart of Darkness

Józef  Korzeniowski, better known as Joseph Conrad, returned to London 123 years ago today after many years working at sea and embarked on a writing career.  His first novel,  Almayer’s Folly, was published in 1895.   But it was Conrad's time as captain of a steamboat on the Congo River that would inspire his novella Heart of Darkness (1902).   This work is reviewed from a socialist perspective here as part of A Novel Approach to History series.

The DRC - Who benefits from the chaos

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is one of the least developed countries in the world. Yet it is also home to $24 trillion worth of untapped mineral reserves. In the eastern hills of the country, the "three Ts" - tantalum, tungsten and tin - are mined by hand, eventually making their way into electronic devices across the world.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) more than 5.4 million have killed since 1998, so coffins, are the one thing which people will spend their limited money. For the funeral undertakers, business is good. Prostitution is also a prosperous industry thanks to the war. With more than 30 armed groups in the region, there is a growing market of men seeking sex. But with little money, plenty of weapons and ample alcohol, the soldiers often rape and threaten the women.

War is another profitable activity, with many investors - both internally and externally. The United Nations, for example, sent 19,815 blue helmets to the country through its United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the DR Congo (MONUSCO), the second-largest mission in the world. For the home countries of those troops - Pakistan, India, Uruguay, Tanzania, South Africa and Malawi - the mission can be extremely profitable: the UN pays them four times the cost of the deployment.

Then there are the NGOs. More than 80 humanitarian organisations ply their trade in the DRC, as part of an arguably self-sustaining business. One NGO mission chief confessed: "I don't know what we're doing here. Our presence raises the price of food and rent, we stop people from moving on, from taking their own decisions and demanding their government take responsibility. We should have left Congo years ago."

Another booming the trafficking in blood minerals, for nothing serves this illicit trade better than a failed and unstable state that is incapable of collecting taxes and stopping neighbouring countries from looting its riches through strongman proxies.

 Rubaya in the province of Masisi is three hours' drive from Goma and the epicentre of the blood minerals war. Some tech lobbies, perhaps wishing to wash their hands of any responsibility for the exploitation of blood minerals, recently insisted that coltan is no longer used in the making of mobile phones, tablets, consoles or cameras, and that the mines were closing. But in truth, demand for the mineral is still much greater than its supply. Around 80 percent of the world's supply resides under Congolese soil. 5,000 miners, many of them children and teenagers, continue to toil in a state of quasi slavery in DRC, at first under the open sky and then, when there is no more of the mineral left on the surface, in deep tunnels where they eat, sleep and work from dawn until dusk, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Many work nearly nude, without helmets or protective gear, and some are even barefoot. Others wear fake Real Madrid or Barcelona shirts. The luckiest have wellington boots. The mines are particularly dangerous during the rainy season, when the damp earth can crumble, leaving miners at the mercy of carbonic gas or crushed inside underground caverns.

In North Kivu there are between 5,000 and 6,000 Congolese rebels spread among 30 armed groups. In addition to racial hatred, they are motivated by a desire to control the mineral resources - and will massacre entire villages in an effort to do so.

A dark web of large multinational companies, corrupt officials and unscrupulous states concealed by anonymous tax haven bank accounts participate in the ancient game of looting the DRC. The UN has denounced neighbouring countries such as Rwanda and Uganda for selling  minerals that are not theirs and for feeding armed groups in order to keep the trade alive. Meanwhile, the developed world receives its sacks of cassiterite, coltan, gold, diamonds, uranium, tungsten and manganese cheaply and promptly.

 Who then, other than the Congolese themselves, could want a conflict that sustains such a business to end?

From here

More on Leopold the Slaughterer

During the carnival in Brussels the Belgian minister of foreign affairs, Didier Reynders, decided to paint his face black and join the parade of “Noirauds” —literally, “the swarthy ones”. The Noirauds are supposed to represent African nobleman or “kings,” So the white men are dressed up like oddly archaic high-hatted blackamoors, with silk pants, black tights and flashy shoes. The original intent, back in 1876, was to collect money festively and anonymously for an orphanage.

 It was in 1876 that Belgian King Leopold II called together a meeting of 35 explorers, geographers and businessmen to talk about the so-called dark continent. The pretext was charitable or, as we’d say these days, “humanitarian.” The ostensible purpose was to stop the slave trade and bring “civilization” to the people. In fact, Leopold implemented a policy hard to describe as anything but genocidal.

“It didn’t start as a national enterprise, but was presented by the king as a international philanthropic endeavor, a personal project of Leopold II,” says David van Reybrouck, author of the acclaimed history Congo: The Epic History of a People. “It was the plan of a European head of state who wanted to rule African territory, but it was very costly to finance the colonization. He was trying to warm up the Belgian people for the project,” Van Reybrouck explained “but that only worked for the gentry and the upper middle classes.” Of course the African population’s opinion on the matter was not part of the picture.

From 1885 to 1908 the megalomaniacal Leopold ended up confiscating and brutally ruling what was called Congo-Free-State, making it his personal pet project, and the country that has since been called Zaire and the Democratic Republic of Congo is still paying the price of his misrule, with grave human rights abuses, including the use of rape as a weapon of war. Leopold exerted his power through his “Force Publique,” an army of African soldiers and white officers to whom slavery, torture, rape, beheadings and amputations were part of a daily routine, as documented in Adam Hochshild’s memorable King Leopold’s Ghost. The monarch ruled with an iron fist, pillaging the Free State’s rubber and other resources, and slaughtering or starving its people. When the full scale of the massacre became known, it was estimated that of 20 million Africans in Congo when Belgium took it, only eight million survived. 

Maybe the average Belgian of the time was blissfully unaware of this holocaust in faraway lands. But there’s no excuse today, especially for Foreign Minister Reynders. King Leopold’s ghost lives on—in blackface.

Leopold the Slaughterer - the genocide by Belgium

Take a look at the picture. Do you know who it is? Most people don't.

But you should recognise him. You see, he killed over 10 million people in the Congo. His name is King Leopold II of Belgium.

He “owned” the Congo during his reign as the constitutional monarch of Belgium. After several failed colonial attempts in Asia and Africa, he settled on the Congo. He “bought” it and enslaved its people, turning the entire country into his own personal slave plantation. He disguised his business transactions as “philanthropic” and “scientific” efforts under the banner of the International African Society. He used their enslaved labor to extract Congolese resources and services. His reign was enforced through work camps, body mutilations, executions, torture, and his private army.

Most of us aren’t taught about him in school. We don’t hear about him in the media.  He’s part of a long history of colonialism, imperialism, slavery and genocide in Africa that would clash with the social construction of the white supremacist narrative in our schools. It doesn’t fit neatly into a capitalist curriculum. Making overtly racist remarks is (sometimes) frowned upon in polite society, but it’s quite fine not to talk about genocides in Africa perpetrated by European capitalist monarchs.

Mark Twain wrote a satire about Leopold called “King Leopold’s soliloquy; a defense of his Congo rule“, where he mocked the King’s defense of his reign of terror, largely through Leopold’s own words.  Mark Twain is a popular author for American public schools. But like most political authors, we will often read some of their least political writings or read them without learning why the author wrote them (Orwell’s Animal Farm for example serves to re-inforce American anti-Socialist propaganda, but Orwell was an anti-capitalist revolutionary of a different kind – this is never pointed out). We can read about Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, but King Leopold’s Soliloquy isn’t on the reading list. This isn’t by accident. Reading lists are created by boards of education in order to prepare students to follow orders and endure boredom well. From the point of view of the Education Department, Africans have no history.

When we learn about Africa, we  see lots of pictures of starving children, we see safaris on animal shows , and we see Tarzan movies of the jungle. But we don’t learn about the Great African War or Leopold’s Reign of Terror during the Congolese Genocide. Nor do we learn about what the United States has done in Iraq and Afghanistan, potentially killing in upwards of 5-7 million people from bombs, sanctions, disease and starvation. Body counts are important. And we don’t count Afghans, Iraqis, or Congolese.

  Stories which support the white supremacist narrative about the sub-humanness of people in Africa are allowed to be entered into the records of history. The white guy who turned the Congo into his own personal part-plantation, part-concentration camp, part-Christian ministry and killed 10 to 15 million Conglese people in the process doesn’t make the cut. You see, when you kill ten million Africans, you aren’t called ‘Hitler’. That is, your name doesn’t come to symbolize the living incarnation of evil. Your name and your picture don’t produce fear, hatred, and sorrow. Your victims aren’t talked about and your name isn’t remembered.

Leopold was just one part of thousands of things that helped construct white supremacy as both an ideological narrative and material reality. He had generals, and foot soldiers, and managers who did his bidding and enforced his laws. It was a system. But that doesn’t negate the need to talk about the individuals who are symbolic of the system. But we don’t even get that. And since it isn’t talked about, what capitalism did to Africa, all the privileges that rich white people gained from the Congolese genocide are hidden. The victims of imperialism are made, like they usually are, invisible.

“I do whatever is necessary”

Since 1996, 6 million Congolese have been killed in a series of invasions and violent conflicts often instigated by armies and militias from neighboring countries such as Rwanda and Uganda, which are both U.S. allies. The battles have centered on access to Congo’s vast mineral deposits. Congo has never really been allowed to control its own destiny, save for the brief leadership of the visionary Lumumba in 1960. But Lumumba’s tenure and life were cut horribly short with the help of the CIA just months after he was democratically elected, only to be replaced by a Western backed dictator, Mobutu, who remained in power with U.S. backing for three decades. Even then, the stakes centered around Congo’s mineral wealth.

Maurice Carney, the co-founder and executive director of Friends of the Congo, in an interview said “Congo has been at the center of the unfolding of the drama ... as it relates to the geostrategic pursuit to control the riches of the African continent.” He thinks the media fail to adequately cover Congo’s conflict because “if you look at Darfur, the bogeymen were the Arabs, the Muslims and the Chinese. In Congo, the bogeyman is the West. From the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, to the imposition of Mobutu on the Congolese people, to the backing of the invasion of the Congo by Rwanda and Uganda, the West is complicit.” In fact, Carney said, “The United States has been on the wrong side of history [in the Congo] from day one.”

U.S. policy on Congo also includes propping up Presidents Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda. With respect to Kagame especially, despite the fact that several multinational bodies like the International Criminal Court have warned the Rwandan president that he could face prosecution for crimes in the Congo, “the U.S. has run diplomatic and political interference to protect its allies,” according to Carney. According to Carney, Congo’s Kabila government “lacks legitimacy among its people.” Because of that, different groups, even from outside Congo, simply enter the land and claim precious minerals. Congo’s borders are porous, even leading to serious questions of who exactly are defined as citizens.

 “Militia groups terrorize villages, particularly the women,” Carney said. He hesitated, adding, “I can’t even say they ‘rape’ the women. They will inflict a form of sexual terrorism on the women, destroy their reproductive systems, humiliate them by raping them in front of their husbands and their children, or even force the children to rape their mother.” Such unspeakable horror has led entire villages to be physically and psychologically destroyed and displaced. The invading militias then have easier access to the mineral resources such as gold, coltan or tin under the land where the villagers once lived.

Coltan, one of Congo’s most sought-after minerals, is used in the making of tantalum capacitors, which are ubiquitous in today’s electronic devices. Gold, tin and tungsten are also traded by armed militias for profit. Carney paraphrased Museveni, who likened Congo to a “banana plantation,” meaning that “everybody goes in and grabs what they want.”  The systematic pillaging of minerals without proper enforcement of environmental regulations has resulted in serious environmental devastation. For example, the mining laws of the Congo are written by the World Bank and are written in such a way as to benefit private corporations; the forestry laws are also written by the World Bank.” So, Carney concluded, “you have these multinational institutions having undue influence in the Congo.” Carney lamented that “in a sovereign nation, the government through its laws is supposed to protect the environment.” But multinational corporations, taking advantage of Congo’s weak government, are “exploiting the resources of the Congo to the point where it destroys the environment. It’s not just a question of local Congolese engagement, but it’s a global collaboration that winds up depleting and affecting the second lung of the world.”

Global oil company Soco International is planning a major drilling operation in Congo’s Virunga National Park, home to endangered gorillas famously studied by Dian Fossey, author of “Gorillas in the Mist.” Virunga is Africa’s oldest national park and a World Heritage site. Despite legal challenges by environmental groups, Soco is moving forward with its pre-exploration development. Another undertaking, called the Grand Inga Hydroelectric Project, is a massive dam slated for the lower end of the Congo River in the DRC. It would be the largest dam project on the river. Campaigners with International Rivers warns that the project is expected to have “huge ecological impacts ... affecting local agricultural lands and natural environments; and may cause huge methane emissions that will contribute to global warming. The effect of reduced flow in the Congo River may cause loss of biodiversity and a shift in the dominant species.”

 Congo’s own social movements  are attempting to organize for justice and peace. “Young people throughout the country are organizing to transform the society,” Carney said. “They believe there is a fundamental change that is needed—a new society where leaders represent the interests of the people.” Like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the American civil rights era, Congo’s youth are “going into communities and rural areas, speaking with pastors, educating their peers, training people about the responsibility and the role of Congolese as citizens, letting people know about the geostrategic game that is being played, letting people know what is at stake in the Congo.” Carney’s eyes lit up about Congo’s dynamic youth activists, who cite the slogan “I do whatever is necessary.”Congolese activists are also harnessing the very technological tools containing the minerals for which their land is being ravaged in order to strengthen their work. American and Canadian students have been sending BlackBerry phones, laptop computers and digital cameras through groups like Friends of the Congo so that Congolese activists can communicate with like-minded people in other parts of the country and beyond. Carney said this sort of solidarity is crucial for young people to be able “to broaden their vision of the world, tap into different ideas, engage in dialogue and exchange in a way that’s going to empower them.” Most importantly, Carney said, “By virtue of them being able to connect with young people outside the country, it lets them know they’re not alone.”

From here

Promises ...always promises

Soaring economic growth in many African countries is coming at the expense of the poor, according to a new report, ‘Africa Rising?’ Despite a decade of high growth across the continent, the wealth created is not being equally shared and so progress in human development in Africa has been disappointingly limited, according to the report by Christian Aid and Tax Justice Network-Africa.

But the growing gap between rich and poor is not simply the result of the rich getting richer, the authors say. They also point to money escaping offshore in illicit flows as well as tax systems that are failing to redistribute wealth and in some cases even disadvantaging the poor.

“Inequality has been exacerbated by the growth model in many countries which has seen a concentration of income,” said Alvin Mosioma at Tax Justice Network-Africa. “It also reflects the inability of governments to tax the proceeds of growth, either because so much is given away in corporate tax breaks, or has escaped offshore into tax havens. Until tax dodging is tackled effectively, nationally and internationally, and illicit finance flows from the continent halted, economic inequality will continue to rise.”

Standard Chartered said that the 16 percent annual increase in African revenue in the past five years is “sustainable.” Viswanathan Shankar, chief executive officer for Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas  of the London-based bank explained “There is huge interest in Africa; it is a continent of hope and of rising world interest,” Shankar said. “If you look at World Bank data 7 of the top 10 fastest-growing economies over the next 10 years are projected to be in Africa.”

Standard Chartered was the biggest arranger of syndicated loans in sub-Saharan Africa in 2013, its deals included raising $3.25 billion in a seven-year term-loan for Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote’s Dangote Industries Ltd. and $1.99 billion in three- and five-year financing for Aspen Global Inc., a Mauritius-based company with interests in medical products. Standard Chartered’s operating profit from Africa grew 9.8 percent in the first half of 2013 to $357 million, while revenue climbed 16 percent to $853 million, making up 8.7% percent of overall income. Growth in Africa will be led by Nigeria, Ghana, which has a history of good economic and political governance, Kenya and Angola and the increasing use of financial products like bonds, loans and mortgages.

Meantime while the financial sector boasts of promising profits in the future a lack of electricity continues to be a major problem in parts of Africa. According to the Washington Post, only 14 percent of people get any electricity at all in Tanzania, and across sub-Saharan Africa, nearly 590 million people lack access to power. This problem has had severe effects. Indoor air pollution from wood stoves kills 3.5 million people per year, more than AIDS and malaria combined.

The legacy of Belgium’s empire left just a few dozen Congolese university graduates and an economy built chiefly to supply Belgium with raw materials. Even today, there is just 2,000 km (1,250 miles) of paved road in a nation the size of Western Europe. Millions of Congolese are estimated to have died and the country was decimated between 1885 and 1908 after King Leopold II declared Congo his personal property. The king's troops were ordered to collect the hands of victims, often shot for resisting slave labour, to prove they had not wasted bullets. Leopold even imported Congolese for a human zoo to show life in the country he never visited.
Adam Hochschild, author of "King Leopold's Ghost" describes Leopold's unrestrained plunder of Congo, told Reuters he has been surprised at many Belgians' ignorance of what happened in colonial times. Belgium may not be the power it once was, but its people are among the richest Europeans. Much of that prosperity can be traced to the colonial past, when the country stood among the globe's most successful trading economies. Over the first six decades of the 20th century, ivory, rubber, copper and diamonds all flowed from Africa to Belgium. The royal family's wealth is reflected in its sprawling palace, extended by Leopold and modeled on Versailles.
In the more than half-century that Belgium ran Congo from 1908 to 1960, hundreds of thousands of Belgians worked there in everything from business to colonial administration yet exports from Congo were little more than 280 million euros last year.

Promises turn into lies if they are not kept. It is too easy to come up with an impressive list of things to do, knowing too well that it's just a pipe dream that will fizzle out. For far too long citizens have fallen for those with the rhetoric and have paid dearly. The time has come to interrogate what they say to us. It does not help democracy or our future if we allow politicians to continue making promises they won't honour. We have been told how millions of our people will be employed and how corruption will be squashed, but all the talk is short on detail. In the global world in which we live, it is imperative that we look beyond our borders.

Less aid for the Congo

The UN World Food Program (WFP) said  that it has raised only 25 percent of its USD 478 million plan to feed 4.2 million people in Congo through December 2015. 

The agency has already been forced to reduce half of its food rations to people in North Kivu Province in eastern Congo, affecting 300,000 internally-displaced people. 

Without additional funds, the WFP will be “forced to start a significant down-scale of activities in the provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu, Equateur, Kasai and Orientale,” said agency spokesperson Elisabeth Byrs, adding that the reduction will hurt school children, refugees and people in food-for-work programs.

 One out of every 10 children in the country suffers from acute malnutrition, with about 10 percent of the people facing hunger and needing food assistance, the agency said. 

Congo has witnessed numerous problems over the past few decades, such as grinding poverty, crumbling infrastructure, and a war in the east of the country that has dragged on since 1998 and left over 5.5 million people dead. 

Since early May 2012, nearly three million people have fled their homes in the eastern Congo. About 2.5 million resettled in Congo, but about 500,000 crossed into neighboring Rwanda and Uganda. 

Leopold - Africa's Hitler

King Leopold II of Belgium “owned” the Congo during his reign as the constitutional monarch of Belgium. After several failed colonial attempts in Asia and Africa, he settled on the Congo. He “bought” it and enslaved its people, turning the entire country into his own personal slave plantation. He disguised his business transactions as “philanthropic” and “scientific” efforts under the banner of the International African Society. He used their enslaved labor to extract Congolese resources and services. His reign was enforced through work camps, body mutilations, torture, executions, and his own private army.

Most of us aren’t taught about him in school. We don’t hear about him in the media. He’s not part of the widely-repeated narrative of oppression (which includes things like the Holocaust during World War II). He’s part of a long history of colonialism, imperialism, slavery, and genocide in Africa that would clash with the social construction of a white supremacist narrative in our schools. It doesn’t fit neatly into school curriculums in a capitalist society. Making overtly racist remarks is (sometimes) frowned upon in ‘polite’ society, but it’s quite fine not to talk about genocide in Africa perpetrated by European capitalist monarchs.

Mark Twain wrote a satire about Leopold called “King Leopold’s Soliloquy; A Defense of His Congo Rule”, where he mocked the King’s defense of his reign of terror, largely through Leopold’s own words. It’s an easy read at 49 pages. Mark Twain is a popular author in American public schools. But like most political authors, we will often read some of their least political writings or read them without learning why the author wrote them in the first place. Orwell’s Animal Farm, for example, serves to reinforce American anti-socialist propaganda about how egalitarian societies are doomed to turn into their dystopian opposites. But Orwell was an anti-capitalist revolutionary of a different kind—and that is never pointed out. We can read about Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, but “King Leopold’s Soliloquy” isn’t on the reading list. This isn’t by accident. Reading lists are created by boards of education in order to prepare students to follow orders and endure boredom. From the point of view of the Department of Education, Africans have no history.

When we learn about Africa, we learn about a caricatured Egypt, about the HIV epidemic (but never its causes), about the surface level effects of the slave trade, and maybe about South African Apartheid (the effects of which, we are taught, are now long, long over). We also see lots of pictures of starving children on Christian Ministry commercials, we see safaris on animal shows, and we see pictures of deserts in films and movies. But we don’t learn about the Great African War or Leopold’s Reign of Terror during the Congolese Genocide. Nor do we learn about what the United States has done in Iraq and Afghanistan, killing millions of people through bombs, sanctions, disease, and starvation. Body counts are important. And the United States Government doesn’t count Afghan, Iraqi, or Congolese people.

Though the Congolese Genocide isn’t included on Wikipedia’s “Genocides in History” page, it does mention the Congo. What’s now called the Democratic Republic of the Congo is listed in reference to the Second Congo War (also called Africa’s World War and the Great War of Africa), where both sides of the multinational conflict hunted down Bambenga people—a regional ethnic group—and cannibalized them. Cannibalism and slavery are horrendous evils which must be entered into history for sure, but I couldn’t help thinking whose interests were served when the only mention of the Congo on the page was in reference to multinational incidents where a tiny minority of people in Africa were eating each other (completely devoid of the conditions which created the conflict). Stories which support the white supremacist narrative about the subhumanness of people in Africa are allowed to be entered into the records of history. The white guy who turned the Congo into his own personal part-plantation, part-concentration camp, part-Christian ministry—and killed 10 to 15 million Congolese people in the process—doesn’t make the cut.

You see, when you kill ten million Africans, you aren’t called ‘Hitler’. That is, your name doesn’t come to symbolize the living incarnation of evil. Your name and your picture don’t produce fear, hatred, and sorrow. Your victims aren’t talked about and your name isn’t remembered.

Leopold was just one of thousands of things that helped construct white supremacy as both an ideological narrative and material reality. I don’t pretend that he was the source of all evil in the Congo. He had generals, and foot soldiers, and managers who did his bidding and enforced his laws. He was at the head of a system. But that doesn’t negate the need to talk about the individuals who are symbolic of the system. But we don’t even get that. And since it isn’t talked about, what capitalism did to Africa, all the privileges that rich white people gained from the Congolese genocide, remain hidden. The victims of imperialism are made, like they usually are, invisible.

Taken from here 

Congo Gold

Argor-Heraeus SA, owned partly by German company Heraeus, Commerzbank, and the Austrian Mint,  a major Swiss gold refiner is being investigated on suspicion of money laundering linked to the processing of gold allegedly looted from DR Congo.

Swiss federal prosecutors confirmed criminal proceedings against Argor-Heraeus SA, over claims it knew gold it handled in 2004 and 2005 had been taken from DR Congo during an armed conflict. The case has been brought by the Swiss non-governmental organisation TRIAL. The Swiss federal prosecutor's office said on Monday that after reviewing the criminal complaint submitted by TRIAL, it had decided to initiate proceedings against Argor-Heraeus "for suspected money laundering in connection with a war crime and complicity in war crimes".

TRIAL alleges that gold looted from DR Congo in 2004 and 2005 was smuggled to Uganda and then refined in Switzerland by Argor-Heraeus. According to TRIAL, the refinery knew or should have assumed that the gold resulted from pillage, a war crime. TRIAL says the sale of the gold "contributed to financing the operations of an unlawful armed group in a brutal conflict".

A report at the time by a UN Group of Experts recommended sanctions against Argor, saying the company must have known the gold was obtained illegally.

Sanctions were imposed only on Ugandan businesses involved in the trade. TRIAL alleges that Argor escaped sanctions because of pressure applied at the UN by Swiss diplomats.

Gertler's Congo

Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler has been accused of making most of his $2.5bn fortune from "looting Congo at the expense of its people" which remains at the foot of the UN's development index. Most of Congo's 68m population do not have access to electricity or running water, and one in five children die before their fifth birthday. The nation's per capita income is $280 – below the level it was at when the country, formerly known as Zaire, gained independence from Belgium in 1960.

Gertler, who normally avoids the public eye, declared in an interview "I should get a Nobel prize. They need people like us, who come and put billions in the ground. Without this, the resources are worth nothing."

Mining company Eurasian Natural Resources Company (ENRC) has spent $550m (£340m) buying itself out of a Congo copper-mining partnership with Gertler. ENRC ended its relationship with Gertler this weekend after mounting pressure from politicians, investors and campaign groups demanding that it clean up its reputation and be more transparent in demonstrating how local people benefit from its activities. Gertler used his close relationship with the government to secure preferential treatment, and the Serious Fraud Office has been called on to investigate. British MPs are also demanding that the UK slash aid spending to Congo because the country has failed to show that profits from its mines are benefiting local people. The International Monetary Fund froze loans to Congo because the government refused to publish details of a deal between a state-owned mining firm and companies said to be linked to Gertler.

The transparency campaign group Global Witness, which has criticised ENRC for using Congo partners that work with offshore companies which they claim could be benefiting corrupt local politicians, said: "Instead of the Congolese state benefiting from the sales of the country's most valuable mines, the bulk of the money is going to secretive companies in offshore countries, mainly in the British Virgin Islands. "Mr Gertler and the FTSE 100 companies partnering up with him should publish full details of their dealings in the Congo, including the names of the offshore companies' beneficiaries. The public should be assured that these beneficiaries do not include corrupt Congolese officials".

Gertler said it was the Congolese government's role to disclose the deals, not his. "We're a private company. Why should we announce?"

Who is going to protect us from our protectors

The world has turned its attention to  the fight against the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). The LRA is a Ugandan organisation with a bloody history. The Ugandan reaction to the LRA has been equally brutal. Joseph Kony is the head of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) He has declared that the LRA will conduct a political, military and spiritual campaign to establish theocratic government based on the Ten Commandments in Uganda. The LRA say that God sent spirits to communicate this mission directly to Kony. The LRA has earned a reputation for its untrammelled violence against the people of several countries, including northern Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Sudan. The LRA has derived most of its support from the displaced and dominated Acholi people who have been driven from their homes and whose families remain in displacement camps. The LRA has abducted and forced an estimated 66,000 children to fight for them, and has also forced the internal displacement of over 2 million people since its rebellion began in 1986. There were many international attempts at peace and an end to the abduction of children by the LRA between 1996 and 2001. All of them failed to end the abductions, rape, child soldiers, and civilian casualties including attacks on refugee camps. After the September 11th attacks, the United States declared the Lord's Resistance Army a terrorist group and Joseph Kony a terrorist.

Following the breakdown of peace talks in late 2008, the National Security Council authorised AFRICOM to support a military operation (one of the first publicly-acknowledged AFRICOM operations) against the LRA, which was believed to be in the Congo at the time. AFRICOM provided training and US$1 million in financial support for 'Operation Lightning Thunder' - a joint endeavour of the Ugandan, Congolese and South Sudan forces in Congolese territory launched in December 2008 to 'eliminate the threat posed by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA)'. According to the United Nations, the offensive 'never consulted with partners on the ground on the requirements of civilian protection. Stretching over a three-month period, it failed in its mission and the LRA scattered and retaliated against the Congolese population; over 1,000 people were killed and up to 200,000 displaced. In October 2011, US President Obama authorised the deployment of approximately 100 combat-equipped U.S. troops to central Africa. They will help regional forces 'remove from the battlefield' Joseph Kony and senior LRA leaders. 'Although the U.S. forces are combat-equipped, they will only be providing information, advice, and assistance to partner nation forces, and they will not themselves engage LRA forces unless necessary for self-defence', Obama said to Congress.

There is no doubt that the LRA is a vicious, sociopathic organisation which engages in brutal behaviour. However, the people who are leading the fight against the LRA (Yoweri Museveni and Paul Kagame) have committed and continue to commit equally outrageous crimes and attacks of a similar nature, especially among the displaced wanderers of the Eastern Congo, but are feted and rewarded by the US Government for their willingness to provide mercenaries for the US 'War on Terror' and the protection of the newly emerging oil industry in their countries and region. Unfortunately, the area in which the LRA conduct their atrocities is exactly where major new finds of oil have been discovered. Underpinning the Western interest in the region is the discovery of oil in Kenya, Uganda and along the shores of Lake Albert. The war between Sudan and South Sudan has made it imperative to find a route for the oil to reach the ports of the Indian Ocean as the Sudan pipeline is closed to them. The routes out all go through the territory of the rump of the remaining LRA (there are less than 600 fighters left). This struggle against the LRA has allowed the US to continue its policy of building African mercenary armies to fight its battles against 'Global Terror' in the Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and Kenya. It supplies weapons, instructors and communication facilities to the Ugandan and Rwandan armies to combat the LRA and to fight against the US' enemies in Somalia. Unfortunately this has also empowered the Ugandans and Rwandans in the rape of the Eastern Congo in the name of fighting the LRA.

The US does not have the public support for the sending of combat troops to East and Central Africa. It does have the equipment, cash and trainers to create surrogate forces in the area. In this, having a common enemy, like the LRA, is a convenient hook on which to hang a commercial policy. The LRA doesn't have to be strong; it just has to be considered vicious and beyond the pale. It matches those criteria. The US interests and the Ugandan and Rwandan military ambitions overlap and the two armies are being paid vast sums to act as US surrogates. Museveni and Kagame are feted by the West as valuable allies, despite their activities in the DRC. This policy is likely to continue the unrestrained pillage of the Eastern Congo and the continued misery, poverty, fear and violence of and to the Congolese people. The Congolese echo the question posed originally by the Tribune of the People, Tiberius Gracchus, "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" (Who is going to protect us from our protectors?).

Source

The resource curse once again

The largest mining investment in the Democratic Republic of the Congo should have brought jobs, growth and development to the surrounding community, but has instead brought poverty, according to a report by Southern Africa Resource Watch. The mine produced about 115,000 tonnes of copper and 8,000 tonnes of cobalt in 2010.

The US$2 billion investment by Tenke Fungurume Mining (TFM) in the copper and cobalt mine in Fungurume has resulted in a decline in the community's once thriving agriculture sector and the closure of many small businesses due to a drying up of money in the area. Since the mine's operation, many people had abandoned agriculture in an attempt to find jobs at the mine, which were ultimately not made available to locals. Furthermore, the 1,600 square kilometre concession area had meant that agriculture was no longer allowed in many areas, he said, adding that people were not told where they were and were not allowed to farm.

The company said that between 2006 and September 2011, it made social investments of $42 million. The few social projects that the company had carried out had "not brought value to the community" because the community was not consulted at all, Southern Africa Resource Watch director and co-author of the report, Claude Kabemba said. "It is like 'an elephant which passes through a village and does not pay any attention to the barking dog'." Kabemba said that as part of its social project, TFM had rebuilt some schools, although not as promised and without consultation with the locals, and had put a clean water supply into the community, although this was only at one point which was a far walk for most people. The few things that had been done had been done poorly and without any interaction with the community. "This reflects a lack of seriousness and attention to social responsibility," he said.

TFM's own report said that it contributes 0.3% of net metal sales revenue to the TFM Social Community Fund, and since the commencement of commercial production, these contributions have totalled $7 million. Claude Kabemba countered that the community could not access this fund and while the fund definitely did exist, it was not clear how it was being used.

While the company said that approximately 98% of direct TFM employees are DRC citizens, the report found that no Fungurume locals had been employed at the mine, and TFM had brought in workers from other areas. These workers stayed at a camp outside of Fungurume, and therefore had little exposure to the community. This meant that workers did not spend any of their incomes in the village and as a result, there was no money in circulation. Kabemba believed that the only reason the company would choose to find workers elsewhere was a "strategy to ensure the community does not have a say", and an attempt to avoid strikes or any community involvement. Also, many small businesses had to close because of a lack of money in the community, and the local economy had become "stagnant", he said.

Crippled Congo

The outlook for people living with disabilities in the Democratic Republic of Congo remains bleak

"There are roughly 9.1 million people with disabilities in Congo, 11 percent of the total population of 60 million," said Patrick Pindu, coordinator of the National Federation of Associations of People Living with a Disability in Congo. "Amongst people with disabilities, 90 percent are illiterate, 93 percent are jobless and 96 percent live in an unhealthy and inhumane environment."

Jolie Apelo is a member of the Kikwit Association of Disabled Persons. "As you see me here, I don't eat properly due to a lack of financial resources. I'm unable to buy clothes so I can present myself like a human being worthy of the name, even if I am a member of an association."

Godefroid Kiyaka gets around the capital, Kinshasa, on his hands and knees because of the extreme deformity of his legs. "I don't have a wheelchair to go longer distances," he told IPS. "Many people turn away from me when I ask them for donations."

22-year-old Alphonse Mumbaka relies on crutches for limited mobility. His father died when he was young, and left to his own devices, Mumbaka never went to school or learned to read. "No one educated me."

"It's not acceptable that the government still doesn't get involved in resolving the problems facing the disabled. These people must enjoy their full rights like everyone," said Cyrile Mupasa, from the League for the Defence of the Rights of Children and Students in the Central Africa zone.

http://www.ipsnews.net/text/news.asp?idnews=107003

Congo ignored

Over the years, Congo has faced numerous problems such as grinding poverty, crumbling infrastructure, and a war in the east of the country that has dragged on for over a decade and left over 5.4 million people dead.

Congo is rich in diamonds, oil and minerals including tin, tantalum, tungsten which are widely used by the UK firms for producing mobile phones and laptops. The brutal way through which these materials are exploited, such as mass rape and the massacre of children, has led them to be dubbed as "blood minerals."

A British writer, Judith Ammanthishas, condemned the UK government for having turned a blind eye to the severe crisis taking place in the central African nation, because “The crisis in Congo is of no interest to UK government and media, and surprisingly they are happy with the violence occurring in the country. It’s quite scandalous that UK government has not addressed the Congo crises, but it is very transparent why this is happening, because it is of no interest to them whether people die or don’t die, they only consider UK’s financial interests in the region”

President Joseph Kabila has been strongly supported by the western governments, as his People's Party for Reconstruction and Democracy was responsible for militarizing the mining industry, and continued to sell off the Congolese owned mining assets to western firms, specially to UK-based mining company, Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation, that has profited greatly from the situation in Congo.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/227388.html

south africa grabs the congo

Land concession agreements have proliferated across Africa and elsewhere, leading to concerns that the promised benefits for locals - especially jobs - are never realized, while potential environmental and political damages are undersold. A 2011 World Bank report studied the increasing number of land deals from the past two years and concluded that "the risks are often large. Case studies demonstrate that even some of the profitable projects do not generate satisfactory local benefits, while, of course, none of the unprofitable or non-cooperational ones do."

"Congo has been waiting for an investment initiative like this, the creation of thousands of jobs. More than anything else, the country is expecting abundant food since the South African farmers will produce crops and raise livestock," said Minister of Land Affairs and Public Domain Pierre Mabiala.

40 South African farmers are leasing government-owned land for 30 years, with the provision to extend it for two terms. The farmlands include 63,000ha in Niari and 17,000ha in Bouenza, in the southwest.

Arable land occupies just 11 per cent of the Earth’s surface at present. As James Heartfield has argued ‘Between 1982 and 2003, national parks grew from nine million square kilometres to 19million, 12.5 per cent of the earth’s surface – or more than the combined land of China and South-East Asia. In the US more than one billion acres of agricultural land is lying fallow.’ In Europe, farmers have received payments to not grow food - ‘set-aside’ (although the practice has effectively been suspended since 2008, after food prices rose sharply that year). Meanwhile, developing countries are starting to act to turn once-infertile land into farmland. In Brazil, a huge area of dry savannah called the cerrado has been converted into productive land. The amount of land we have available for food is flexible.

There are 10 to 12 million hectares of land with agricultural potential in Congo, according to government data, but only 2 percent is farmed.

Wynand du Toit, vice-president of the Association of South African farmers who signed the deal explained "Our priority is to help produce enough to feed the country - we are not looking at exports for at least two or three years and then only if we produce a surplus which we cannot sell to the domestic market. If we do end up producing more than we can sell here then we might consider selling to neighbouring Gabon and the Central African Republic." Du Toit said the farmers viewed the acquisition as a business venture, and a way of diversifying investments.

Critics say bringing in foreign farmers is not the way to address food insecurity in the country. "We don't actually need operators or farmers from elsewhere to nourish us. We have a clear problem: our authorities do not assist our own farmers as they should," complained Dieudonné Mingui, head of the NGO Initiatives for Development and Progress. "Farmers right here don't lack initiative, they lack the means to develop large projects,"

Joseph Moutanda Kassao, president of a cooperative of 320 growers based in Brazzaville said "If the South African farmers are really coming to produce and sell all the produce on the local market, it's a good thing. But if they're coming for their own interests, it will be a shame...Let's wait and see."

Lets wait and see...can the capitalist leopard change its spots?

rape is power

A new study published by the American Journal of Public Health indicates that nearly 2 million women in the Democratic Republic of Congo have been raped. Many rapes are a part of military operations, designed to terrorize and control the population. Rates of domestic rape and rape by civilians, however, also appear to be growing rapidly in the DRC. Last year, a study commissioned by Oxfam showed that incidents of domestic rape grew 17-fold between 2004 and 2008.

Dr. Guylain Mvuama, said the main reason rural Congolese women are such frequent victims of rape is simple. It is part of the war. Mvuama said armed groups raid and loot villages, raping women, children and sometimes babies or men to control the people though terror. The doctor says , what better way is there to keep everyone subdued, than to rape every man’s mother, sister or wife?

Congolese Army Colonel Seraphin Mirindi said soldiers still rape as a direct result of extreme poverty. Between low pay, and corruption among commanders, soldiers take home between $17 and $55 a month. About 30 percent of soldiers desert their posts, he said, and since they receive hardy any salaries, they also are immune from punishment when they leave. Most deserters, he said, also take their gun with them when they go and with almost no money, soldiers and deserters are tempted to rape because they are isolated deep in the forest, and cannot afford wives or prostitutes.

Attorney and victim’s rights activist Gilbert Kasereka said that while soldiers do rape because they are isolated, poor or as part of an attack, many rapes also occur in Congo for more unusual reasons. With the absence of regular, informed medical care, many people believe they can gain power or good health by raping the young. Kasereka said some people believe military prowess can be derived from raping a teenager or someone who is an ethnic minority, like Congolese Pygmies. Others believe the rape of a baby will cure AIDs.

For some activists, no programs to reduce rape numbers will be completely effective without ending the conflict for good. They say as long as much of Eastern Congo continues to be overrun with militias fighting each other and the government, and battling for control of what is believed to be $24 trillion worth of mineral wealth under the ground, sexual violence will continue to be a fact of life.

Independence for what ?

2010 is the year 17 countries celebrate 50 years of independence since colonial rule. Independence anniversaries in post-colonial countries used to be a time of celebration for those workers who believed they were commemorating their freedom. Africans resisted the colonialists on grounds of segregation, slavery, exploitation and domination. But today African countries still struggle with development and human rights issues and the governments in power have done nothing to change the situation.

Ghana was the first sub-Saharan country in colonial Africa to gain its independence on March 6, 1957. In Ghana 45 percent of the population live on less than $1 a day and 79 percent on less than $2 a day.

The Somali Democratic Republic received its independence from Italy on July 1, 1960 when they joined with their northern neighbour, Somaliland, who had gained independence from the British on June 26, 1960. In Somalia 60% population lives below the $1 per day poverty line. An estimated 40 percent of the population were in need of relief assistance in 2009 - the largest proportion of the population requiring relief of any country in the world. Somalia has the worst health indicators in Africa with less than 0.5 doctors and two nurses per 100,000 people.

On June 30, 2010, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) celebrated 50 years of independence. In Congo 70 percent of the population live in poverty. Congo was ranked 139 out of 177 countries in the 2007 UNDP Human Development Index. Life expectancy is 52.8 years and 49 percent of the population do not have access to an improved water source. Infant mortality rates are estimated at 93.86 deaths per 1,000 live births. In 2003 the adult HIV infection rate was estimated at 4.9%, with 100,000 deaths from the disease in the same year.

Burkina Faso received independence from France in August 1960. Burkina Faso is ranked by the World Bank as the 13th poorest country in the world in 2002. The UNDP's 2005 Human Development Index ranked it at 175 out of 177 countries. Life expectancy is 47.5 years.

Independence solved none of the problems resulting from exploitation. Independence for the vast majority has simply meant the exchange of one set of exploiters for another. Nothing changed except the personnel of the State machinery. Poverty in the midst of a potential for plenty remains a running sore, exploitation and massive disparities of wealth continue to exist. Environmental degradation continues virtually unabated. Independence will not solve the peasant or working-class problems, only the establishment of socialism can do that. The festering of tribalist, nationalist and racist sentiment are nurtured and sustained by the capitalist system of production which produces only for profits and not for needs. Religion, secessionist movements and nationalism are generally tools used by the ruling classes to perpetrate the status quo. But the only solution is to uproot the real cause of the problems – the overthrow of the unjust economic system in operation in today's world. Socialism will depend on contribution to society by individuals based on individuals' ability and individuals will take from society according to their self-determined needs. It's time for the people of Africa to discover the truth, that they need to unite and fight for socialism. The struggle remains the same – the class struggle. Masters are uneasy when servants are awake.

See also Financial wizards or great pretenders?

The Looting of Africa

In terms of natural resources, Africa is the most abundant continent on earth.

BP has stated that Africa holds 127 billion barrels of untapped oil, almost ten per cent of global reserves.Oil was first drilled commercially in Africa in Oloibiri in the Niger Delta, in 1956 by the Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell. There are now ten oil exporting nations in Africa, with another three soon to join that list.

There are ten major diamond producing nations in Africa, the largest being Botswana, where the industry is worth $158bn a year.Diamond production remains a major source of revenue for Africa. In Sierra Leone, income from the diamond trade rose by a quarter to $35m in the first six months of the 2010.

Coltan or "colombo-tantalite ore" is a mineral used to make electric capacitors in computers, gaming consoles and mobile phones. One of the world's largest reserves is in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

But rather than a blessing, most of Africa's commodities have proved a burden; allegedly stoking conflict, funding wars and leading to rampant labour market abuse.

Africa's largest single oil exporting nation is Nigeria. While no official figures exist, Standard Bank estimates the country has made $6 trillion in oil revenue over the last 50 years. The International Energy Agency says Nigeria holds 37 billion barrels of reserve oil, dwarfing that of Norway which has just 6 billion. Yet 70% of Nigerians live under the poverty line and the country has consistently been ranked among the most corrupt on earth by international observers.Despite its oil wealth, Nigeria has to import 60% of its own fuel.

The portability and high value of diamonds have made them a favourite source of funding for rebel groups across the continent. Angola, Congo and the Cote D'Ivoire have all been subject to the trade in so called "blood diamonds"..During the brutal 10 year civil war in Sierra Leone, the diamond mines in Kono were controlled by the rebel RUF forces, led by Foday Sankoh. Diamonds smuggled from the region were allegedly passed on to Charles Taylor, president of neighbouring Liberia, who in turn helped arm the rebel movement.Diamonds from blacklisted countries like Zimbabwe are still routinely being traded on the international market.

Most of the coltan mines in the DRC are in the remote South Kivu district. In 2001 a report by the United Nation Security Council claimed that rebel forces, regrouping in the country after the Rwandan genocide, had taken control of the mines and were using coltan to fund their operations, often using forced or child labour. These groups included the CNDP, a Tutsi rebel force led by General Laurent Nkunda, and the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, a Hutu rebel group responsible for the Rwandan genocide of 1994, which had the backing of the Congolese government under President Mobutu.The report concluded that the DRC was suffering a "systemic and systematic" looting of natural resources, with the CNDP alone raising $250m over 18 months by selling coltan.A follow up report by the UN in 2008 claimed the looting of the mineral in the DRC was still rife. Rwanda is estimated to have made $19m from coltan sales in 2008, a rise of 72% on the previous year, even though no coltan is mined within Rwandan borders.

Blood and Treasure

The tragic and often bloody conditions of the Congo is rarely out of the news and it is often commented upon . Socialist Banner read this about the Democratic Republic of Congo .

One of the world's richest countries is also one of its poorest.As far back as Congo's history is recorded, the wealth from this vast natural treasure house has flowed almost entirely overseas, leaving some of the planet's best-endowed land with some of its poorest people. It is often heard, "We wouldn't have so much trouble if we weren't so rich."

Gold is only one of a half-dozen or more lucrative minerals to be found in Congo, and together they constitute what may be the worst case on Earth of what has come to be known as the "resource curse" . As inevitably as oil drew the United States into Iraq, it is the temptations of this wealth—more than ethnic rivalries, the legacy of colonialism, or anything else—that has turned Congo into the horrific battleground it has been in recent years. A country with a lavish array of natural riches and a dysfunctional government is like a child heiress without a guardian: Everyone schemes for a piece of what she's got. Multinational corporations prefer a government weak enough not to tax and regulate heavily but strong enough to guarantee order.A failed state fails its people in many ways, and one of them is that, in a world of powerful corporate players, a weak and corrupt government has no bargaining power.

Congo has been in the grips of a fiendishly complex and brutal war whose exact toll no one knows. It may well be in the millions if you count those who died because fleeing their homes or living in packed, disease-ridden refugee camps cut them off from adequate food and medical care. Women and girls by at least the tens of thousands have been gang-raped by government soldiers and rebel militias. This has not been a civil war driven by ideology, but rather a multisided free-for-all driven by plunder.The warring militias assume that multinational corporations would have few scruples about dealing with warlords if the stakes were high enough. They turn out to be right.Congo has virtually no public health system, and AngloGold Ashanti,the world's third-largest gold mining company, a multinational company spending millions prospecting for gold in the desperately poor community, have largely ignored pleas for help.While spending millions of dollars prospecting, it has made only small contributions to a local hospital, schools, a soccer tournament, and the like, keeping at arm's length a coalition of local groups and churches lobbying for this desperately poor community. "Of everything we've put in our list of demands and grievances," says Richard Magabusini, an elected chief .
AngloGold Ashanti recently finalized a series of agreements with the government. Four other multinationals—based in London, Canada, and South Africa—have likewise concluded closed-door agreements over mining rights. No one will ever know what Congolese government officials may have reaped from these deals in the way of quietly promised jobs, favors, or money under the table, in a country where such rewards are routine. As the company takes its slice of the African cake, only a tiny percentage of the proceeds from those 2.5 million ounces of gold is likely to stay in Congo—and even then, much of what does will probably leak into high officials' private bank accounts.More than 97 percent of Congo's gold leaves the country without ever being taxed, according to one recent estimate by the Ministry of Mines. AngloGold Ashanti mined more than $1.5 billion worth of gold in neighboring Tanzania between 2000 and 2007, but only 9 percent of that money has remained in the country as taxes or royalties. Where do the profits go instead? A good chunk comes to the United States, for even though the company is based in South Africa, its largest single shareholder—hedge fund billionaire John Paulson—lives on the Upper East Side and summers in the Hamptons. He owns 12 percent of the company, and a number of other Americans have shares.

The big money in gold mining comes to those who can afford to dig massive mines and build refineries to process the ore. But those who cannot, an estimated 70,000 to 100,000 people in Congo's northeast—including some 10,000 children—dig for gold literally by hand, much the way men did in California in 1849. Sometimes, risking great danger in the hope of richer ore, these freelance miners slip into abandoned, partly flooded underground mines with rotted roof supports and hack out new tunnels. Health and safety regulations are in long-forgotten law books only, and no one even records the number of miners maimed or killed each year.

In the 60s, many Americans boycotted Californian grapes to help farmworkers unionize; in the '70s and '80s, many boycotted South Africa to help the anti-apartheid movement. In the late 1990s there was the push to ban "conflict diamonds," which led to the 2002 agreement, now signed by some 75 countries, to boycott diamonds produced by armed rebel groups in Africa and elsewhere. Shouldn't we help war-torn Congo by boycotting "conflict minerals"? Unfortunately, it's not clear that a boycott would do much more than put tens of thousands of miserably paid miners out of work. Take the rather toothless conflict diamonds accord (which came about only because the international diamond cartel saw "blood diamonds" undercutting its inflated prices): It already applies to Congo, but makes no practical difference since the country's diamonds, like the overwhelming majority of its other exports, don't come from areas currently at war.The real problem is not conflict minerals, but the fact that Congo's long-suffering people reap only a tiny share of their country's vast wealth.