The girl-soldiers of the DRC

Eastern Congo is plagued by dozens of armed groups that prey on locals and exploit mineral reserves. Millions died between 1996 and 2003 as a regional conflict caused hunger and disease.

Girls in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo are joining armed groups because they cannot afford to go to school, while former girl soldiers struggle to return to class amid stigma from their communities, a charity said. Around a third of all children in armed groups in the country are estimated to be girls, who are often married off to militants and are vulnerable to abuse and rape, activists say. While civil society groups have had some success in getting boys out of armed groups and into re-integration programmes, this shame and fear of rejection back home has kept many girls in the bush.

"If we leave the group, we're going to be targeted ... so many girls accept and continue to live with their bush husband," said one of the 150 former girl soldiers interviewed.

Many girls in the region join militia groups to obtain food and money, to seek protection against violence, or because their families cannot afford to pay their school fees, according to a report by Child Soldiers International.

"It is deeply shocking that, because their families cannot afford to pay school fees, some girls see joining an armed group as their only option, and decide to throw themselves in harm's way," said Isabelle Guitard, director of programmes at Child Soldiers International. While primary education is free and compulsory by law, most schools in Congo charge fees for books and uniforms.

Exploiting the Bambuti

The Bambuti people were the original inhabitants of Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the oldest national park in Africa. Forbidden from living or hunting inside, the Bambuti now face repression from both park rangers and armed groups. Without access to the forest and to their ancestral lands to hunt and gather, the Bambuti have trouble surviving. Many depend on daily contractual labour from surrounding communities. Muhima Sebazungu, one of Mudja’s community leaders, said that they are starting to forget their traditional knowledge of plants and medicines.

One solution, Patrick Kipalu, of the NGO Forest People’s Program said, would be to recruit them as rangers in protecting the park but the ICCN’s (DRC’sNational Park Authority)  Jean Claude Kyungu said that there are “specific criteria” for recruiting rangers, which the Bambuti do not fulfill, including having a diploma from the state. Norbert Mushenzi, the ICCN’s deputy director of the Virunga National Park, said that the Bambuti have an “intellectual deficiency” and one way for them to benefit from the park is to “sell their cultural products and dances to tourists.” Although official policy under Mobutu’s regime aimed to ‘emancipate’ indigenous people and to consider them no different from other communities, in practice this meant promoting a sedentary lifestyle and agriculture.

A report by Survival International states that forcing “development” on indigenous people has “disastrous” impacts and that the most important factor to their well-being is whether or not their land rights are respected. According to Kipalu, the living conditions of the Bambuti are far worse now than when they were in the forest. “Being landless and living on the lands of other people means that they end up being treated almost as slaves,” he said.

The militarization of conservation

The Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo dates back to 1925 when it was first created as Albert National Park by King Albert of Belgium. The oldest national park in Africa, it was later expanded to include over seven thousand square kilometres of land. Classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979, it is now managed by a private-public partnership between the National Park Authority of the DRC (ICCN) and the EU-funded Virunga Foundation, and is home to about a quarter of the world’s mountain gorillas. Congolese farmers living around the Virunga said that the park’s colonial history creates the impression that it was “created by the Mzungu (white man), for the Mzungu.”

After independence, other national parks were established, including Maiko National Park, and Kahuzi-Biega National Park in South Kivu.  According to the Global Forest Coalition, the creation of national parks led to the eviction of thousands of indigenous people who neither gave their consent nor received compensation for their loss of land. It was, they state, “in violation of international law” and the country’s 1977 law on expropriation for public purposes.

Armed paramilitary rangers from the Virunga National Park are tasked with protecting the park from poachers and trespassers. In Congolese law, human habitation and hunting within the park is forbidden, including for the Bambuti, its original inhabitants. Aggressive conservation activities are part of a widespread trend toward what some researchers call the militarization of conservation, an approach toward protecting nature that is repressive and possibly counterproductive.

“The old school of conservation in the colonial period was ‘people out of the forest’ and ‘it’s a protected area without anyone inside,'" said Patrick Kipalu, the DRC Country Manager for the Forest People’s Program, “When the colonialists left the country, the people who managed those protected areas were trained by the Belgians that conservation should be done without people, in the old-school way. They have kept the same strategies, though the ICCN (National Park Authority of the DRC) is thinking of a conservation strategy which is supposed to include and involve communities.”

The Bambuti living in Mudja said that at times they defy these laws to venture into the park for collecting wood, hunting small animals and gathering non-timber products, but recently it has become more difficult.

“A pygmy cannot live without the park. Before, they could enter secretly,” said Felix Maroy, an agronomist and livestock farmer who works with Bambuti communities. “Since January 2015, the guards are always patrolling the area. And there are other armed groups too, like the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).”

 A 2004 report by a consultant to the World Bank, Dr Kai Schmidt-Soltau, found that the ICCN, along with WWF, claimed to have resettled 35,000 people from an area south-east of Lake Edward through a voluntary process, but that in fact the resettlement was carried out “at gun-point.”

Who are the culprits in the Congo?

Attacks on civilians in the Beni region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo have killed more than 500 people in the past 18 months. Congolese officials accuse the Allied Democratic Forces, an Islamist rebel group with links to Uganda, of committing the massacres. Local political leaders refer to the ADF as an Islamist militia and stress its ties to extremist networks across the region, such as al-Shabab in Somalia and Kenya. But it’s not that simple. Behind the narrative of an Islamist menace there is evidence of Congolese military involvement, with potential links to smuggling rackets. But some civil society leaders and human rights groups believe the authorities are deliberately exaggerating the ADF’s role. “To directly point out ADF as responsible for a certain attack is very difficult,” said Michel Musafiri, a researcher with a human rights group in Beni. “So far, only a few attackers have been identified. When authorities and others claimed fighters were members of the ADF, it later turned this was not the case.”

The ADF has been based in Congo for more than two decades. It has forged strong links with local political and economic figures and has tapped into trafficking networks, mainly timber, taking advantage of corruption within the FARDC and the local administration. This illicit economy has been at the heart of the violence and instability in the east for decades.

While there is no doubt the ADF is responsible for a number of abuses, including murder, rape and the recruitment of children, a recent report by the Congo Research Group, a project monitoring violence in the east, has questioned that official line. It has called on the government to launch an urgent investigation led by a senior military prosecutor. “The ADF is not really what people make it out be,” said Jason Stearns, the report’s lead researcher. “It’s not a foreign Islamist organisation, but a militia deeply rooted in local society with links to political and economic actors. While ADF are responsible for a majority of the massacres, it is clear that other groups, including Congolese soldiers, were involved as well.”

The researchers spent six months interviewing more than 100 people, including victims, civil society leaders and officers from the national army, the FARDC. It concluded that, “In addition to commanders directly tied to the ADF, members of the… national army; former members of the rebel Rassemblement Congolais pour la Démocratie—Kisangani/Mouvement de Libération (RCD–K/ML); as well as members of communal militias have also been involved in attacks on the civilian population.”

When massacres have taken place close to where peacekeepers and FARDC troops were stationed, the troops have failed to intervene. In some cases, FARDC commanders have allegedly ordered their troops not to respond. “The authorities have focused all their efforts on fighting the ADF without properly investigating who is behind the attacks and making sure the responsible are brought to justice,” said Musafiri. The authorities have arrested a number of individuals believed to be associated with the ADF, but no one has ever been tried or convicted. This has led human rights groups to believe there may have been high-level complicity. 

“Recognising that many of the violations are driven by local rivalries is key to bringing stability to North Kivu,” said Teddy Kataliko, a civil society leader, referring to the province that includes Beni.

According to the Congo Research Group, “it is clear that the Congolese government and MONUSCO (the UN’s peacekeeping and stabilisation mission in Congo)  have not put sufficient effort into addressing this crisis and have incorrectly identified the enemy.”

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

Rape - Weapon of Mass Destuction

Rape, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, like many war-ravaged countries, is strategy, an implement to seize power – control, not only over entire communities and regions but, crucially, in this immense country, over the great mineral wealth. The trauma – physical, psychological – disables. And it is free. The cheapest weapon of mass destruction. It is no secret why and how this happens. Rape emblemises Congo's history – an area brutalised for 500 years by leaders and nations crazed with greed in a rush for natural resources: rubber, oil, diamonds, copper, uranium, cobalt and coltan. The last of these is used liberally in mobile phones, cameras, printers and laptops. First came the Portuguese, in the 1480s, enslaving and destablising as British ships arrived taking captives. In the late 19th century, as demand for rubber spiked, Belgium's King Leopold II claimed the country, ordering further gargantuan enslavements, commanding torture and murder on an unfathomable scale: more than 10 million died. By 1960, when independence was declared, the traumatised nation was ripped asunder, fractured, drained not only of minerals but of human resources: an insufficiently educated nation left to stagger on unaided. The former army officer and police sergeant Joseph-Desire Mobutu exploited the power vacuum, seized control and bled the resources further. When Rwanda invaded in 1996 (the First Congo War), helping other neighbouring countries topple Mobutu – who had been backed by Western governments – little improved. A year later, when the Second Congo War erupted, drawing in nine nations, the turmoil was anarchic, dozens of rival militia groups, rebels and army factions killing and enslaving to gain control of the mines – a dire cacophony of child soldiers and mass starvation, collapsing infrastructure and, all along, rape.

Dr Denis Mukwege tries to help all who arrive at Panzi Hospital, the clinic he set up 15 years ago in the hills above Bukavu, eastern Congo. After training in France to become a gynaecologist, he was hoping to devote his career to treating women in pregnancy and labour. Instead, the results of the Second Congo War arrived – wave after wave of rape victims, girls as young as two, women in their eighties. Entire villages of women come. Dr Mukwege specialises in repairing vaginal fistulas – holes created either between the vagina and rectum, or vagina and bladder – a common occurrence after violent rape. "Women who have been severely violated are completely destroyed – some we simply cannot cure," he says. "And unfortunately, these are often young girls aged 14, 15, 16, 17. They have to wear a colostomy bag for the rest of their lives." Without medical intervention, urine, blood and faeces trickle down, causing burns, infections, ulcerations, abscesses and dehydration. The smell from infections ensures everyone in the village knows what has happened. Many are shunned. Isolation engulfs. Fistulas can also lead to nerve damage called "foot drop" in which the lower limbs become paralysed. Women are left unable to walk.

Dr Mukwege treats 10 women a day in theatre. He has, in total, tended to more than 30,000 survivors. In what psychological state are patients when they arrive? "They are dehumanised," he says. "Most are shamed by what happened to them. Most are excluded from their own community. They feel life has no sense." He cites the plentiful research into the psychological trauma that survivors carry, often forever. By the time women are in Mukwege's care, the trauma has fanned out in all directions. "If a child has seen his mother being raped he will never be the same again," he says. "And if husbands stood by during attacks, unable to help their wife, it completely changes their relationship. This problem destroys families as a whole."

There is another important consequence, which, for Mukwege is a "time bomb": the babies. "They are often not loved when they arrive because they are the result of rape. People sometimes blame the children. Often families say, 'This is a horrible child; he does not belong to us.' We are raising a crisis." He continues  "There is one lady. She was raped and taken into the bush and kept as a slave for three years. She was also, as a result of the rapes, contaminated with Aids. When she came home she found that while she was gone all her family – her husband, father, mother and four children – were killed." The woman eventually returned to her village but with a baby, born from the innumerable rapes she endured. "It was very hard for her…" says Mukwege, his voice unsteady "to keep this child, to know, 'She is the child of the one who raped me, killed all my family and contaminated me with Aids'." He stops again, frowning, wincing. "How can all this happen in the life of someone?" Yet he carries on to say "Today she not only supports her child but also other patients living with Aids. She's really strong. She built her own house. She built her own business. She is a leader in her community."

In 2011, Mukwege compared the international reaction to that of Bosnia in the 1990s. "Since Bosnia was on Europe's doorstep, and Europe was ashamed, it didn't last so long," he said. "When it happens in Africa, people say, 'It's cultural. It's African. It's far away'." A year later, in an address at the UN he spoke of the "deafening silence and the lack of courage of the international community". Some see such silence as deliberate, in order that the coltan keeps coming. "The West has a responsibility because it knows how coltan is produced," says Mukwege. "They can get this without destroying women."

Dr Mukwege is the recipient of the Sakharov Prize For Freedom of Thought, the highest human-rights award bestowed by the European Parliament.

"This prize is not really for me," he says softly. "It belongs to the women who have been fighting for 15 years for their rights, for their dignity, for their freedom. But I am very happy this prize came now because the world does not understand what it means to be raped with extreme violence. We need to highlight what is going on in this region. It is a terrible disease, women destroyed in a way that denies their humanity."

He describes the "four pillars" of his approach. "We treat them medically – surgically; psychologically – the trauma; legally – to teach them their rights and help them go to court, if they want to," he says. "The fourth way is to support them economically so they can be strong and fight for their own rights."

Full story here

“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.

The Complicated Congo

Mention the Democratic Republic of Congo to people and they think of Goma, M23, North and South Kivu and the capital Kinshasa. Mention Katanga province in the south and many people have no idea. The Mayi Mayi Kata Katanga rebels,say they are fighting to break away from the DRC and govern themselves. At the heart of the battle are huge mineral reserves of copper and cobalt. Ultimately all government officials - and whoever is backing the armed movement - want power and control of the wealth.

Caught in the middle are the civilians who are mostly poor villagers. When rebels and soldiers fight their homes get burnt down, women and girls are raped, children are abducted. It can be a living hell for someone caught up in the fighting. People say they feel they have been forgotten by their government and the international community. But bad roads and ongoing violence makes it sometimes hard for aid workers to reach people in remote areas. They are also not getting enough media attention or political will.

The main focus in the DRC in some circles seems to be M23 rebels in the east. The capital of Katanga province Lubumbashi, was attacked by rebels late last year. The story was hardly reported by the international media.

From here 

World Bank Favours Mining Corporations Over DRC Population

In a strange twist, the World Bank’s biggest ever hydropower project is now set to serve the interests of mining corporations rather than the people of DR Congo

International Rivers has learned that the World Bank has abruptly decided to develop the Inga 3 Dam in the Democratic Republic of Congo as a private investment through the International Finance Corporation, rather than as a public sector project. The Bank withdrew a US$73 million IDA grant for the project, which was scheduled for approval by its board of directors on February 11. The move will compound the problems of the World Bank’s biggest ever hydropower project, and ensure the project will serve the interests of mining corporations rather than the DRC population.

According to internal sources, the IFC will support a private investment in the Inga 3 Dam by Chinese companies in a deal that was brokered by the administrator of USAID. International Rivers decries the World Bank’s decision for the following reasons:

The International Finance Corporation has a poor social and environmental track record. In recent months, the Corporation was admonished by its own ombudsperson for serious abuses in the Tata Mundra thermal power plant in India and the Dinant palm oil project in Honduras. The IFC does not have the safeguard policies or the expertise to ensure proper social and environmental impact assessments for this huge project. Handing the Inga 3 Dam over to the private sector will lead to further environmental shortcuts and compromises in the project.

The Inga 3 Dam would generate electricity for mining companies and the South Africa market, not for the more than 90% of the DRC population with no access to electricity. Expanding energy access for the Congolese population is a development priority, but is not of commercial interest to investors. Handing the project over to a private investor will make it even less likely the country’s poor people would benefit from the project.

The IFC deal was arranged behind closed doors without any accountability to the DRC parliament, the World Bank’s board of directors, or civil society. It was reportedly brokered in a personal initiative by USAID administrator Rajiv Shah, just weeks after the US Congress instructed the US government to oppose supporting large hydropower projects such as Inga 3 through international financial institutions. Non-transparent deals such as the Inga 3 Dam are the best recipe for deepening corruption in the DRC. They will not strengthen the public accountability that is necessary for social and economic development.

Working with civil society partners in the DRC, International Rivers will continue to oppose destructive megaprojects such as the Inga 3 Dam, and will promote clean local energy solutions that are more effective at reducing poverty and protecting the environment.

From here

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. 

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.

Not all gold glitters

There is no refuge from the blistering heat at this artisanal gold mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Any trees that might have provided shade have been consumed by the mine, which covers an area the size of five or six football fields. About a thousand people - men, women and some children - swarm across the open-cast mine near Iga-Barrière, about 25km east of Bunia, the administrative town of the Ituri Region. Local NGOs put the numbers of artisanal gold miners in Ituri between 130,000 and 150,000. Women, some with babies strapped to their backs, form human chains to pass plastic basins of mud from men excavating the shafts. They all work 13 hour days, six days a week. Some earn as little as US$0.21 a day.

It can take up to three weeks to dig, by hand, an 8m-deep shaft to where the gold-bearing sands lie at Iga-Barrière. Narrower shafts requiring less work carry greater risks.

A stake at the artisanal gold mine costs about $250, or five grams of gold, and is paid to the Société des Mines d'Or de Kilo Moto (SOKIMO), a public company. SOKIMO is a relic from Belgium, the former colonial power. Created in 1926, the company enjoyed boom years during the 1960s and 1970s, employing about 6,000 people and providing housing, clinics and schools for its employees. However, its nationalization in 1966 by then-Zaire's President Mobuto Sese-Seko, who used the company to support his lavish lifestyle, eventually took a toll. By the late 1980s, the company's only source of revenue was the taxing of artisanal and small-scale miners. Makuza Boniface, SOKIMO director at Iga-Barrière, told IRIN the company imposes a 30 percent tax on all gold produced at the site by the artisanal miners. Gold is being smuggled across the borders by gold dealers exploiting a tax loophole, Kitene said, to maximise profits.

Lobho Faustin, 30, cannot afford his own claim. He is part of a group of eight diggers, earning a wage to support his three children. "It's a job to live and survive on. How much money you make depends on how lucky you are. Sometimes I get $50 in a week and sometimes nothing. You can work for weeks and not get paid. I work for someone else. But it all depends. If we find gold then we get paid. There is nothing else to do," he said.

Artisanal miners face an array of occupational hazards, including: mercury inhalation while extracting gold from ore; tunnel and open-shaft mine collapses; women experiencing spontaneous abortions due to heavy labour; and the complete absence of water and sanitation facilities. "Health and safety is set down in the Mining Code, but most miners don't seem to care. It is very difficult to prosecute people as most are not educated and many were in militias during the war," Toto Bosingaka, the chief of the Service d'Assistance et d'Encadrement d'Artisanal (SAESSCAM), told IRIN.

As elsewhere in the eastern DRC, Ituri encountered a succession of international and local conflicts, and a variety of militias and foreign national armies imposed their own taxation system on the artisanal gold miners. Ndele Tanzi, coordinator for the Bunia-based NGO Honesty and Peace, told IRIN gold mining was a major threat to peace and stability. "The Ituri war was cast as an ethnic war, but if you look carefully it was about resources."
Although Ituri has returned to relative peace, gaining access to Iga-Barrière requires passing through numerous roadblocks staffed by security forces and government officials, who impose random "road taxes" on vehicles and pedestrians alike. The peace dividend has not provided any respite from a culture of backhander payments.

"While the exploitation of artisanal and small-scale miners continues, the identity of those responsible has now changed. They are no longer warlords and militia leaders but government administrators, members of the government's military and security organizations, and many regional traders," A November 2012 report, Conflict Gold to Criminal Gold, published by Southern Africa Resource Watch, said.

Louis Bedidj Fuarwingo, coordinator of the artisanal miner organization the Association Exploit dans Mineur Artisnal pur le pacification et reconstruction Ituri (AEMAPRI), told IRIN, "Sometimes authorities harass miners and make them pay for small things to let them work. They can make people very angry and demand as much as $750. "They ask for non-existent certificates, like 'scientific training' and 'expertise in mining'. They just create such lists to pick money from the miners. Police come to the mining camp and go to the mine boss and then all the miners have to contribute."

From here

Congo and Cobalt

Many of the fastest-growing countries in the world are in Africa, the poorest continent on the planet. World Bank statistics indicate that the world's heaviest concentration of malnutrition remains in Africa, afflicting as many as 15 percent of all children under 5 in some countries in the southern and eastern regions. And in June, the U.N. Children's Fund reported that 1.5 million children were at imminent risk of starvation in the western half of the continent. Nevertheless, some African countries preparing to cash in on mineral wealth in East Africa include Tanzania, Uganda, Mozambique and Ethiopia, based on recent discoveries of oil and gas.

"I don't believe that African nations are even close to understanding the enormous wealth that is their natural resource endowment," David Doepel, chair of the Africa Research Group at Australia's Murdoch University.

In 2010, Guinea alone represented over eight percent of total world bauxite production, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo have a combined share of 6.7 percent of the total world copper production, and Ghana and Mali together account for 5.8 percent of the total world gold production, while Ethiopia also accounts for one-sixth of the world's tantalum production.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) holds two major distinctions. First, it is the richest country in the world in terms of mineral wealth, at an estimated $24 trillion, and it is the country in which the highest number of people – estimates go as high as ten million -  have died due to war since World War II. The wars in that country have claimed nearly the same number of lives as having a 9/11 every single day for 360 days, the genocide that struck Rwanda in 1994, the ethnic cleansing that overwhelmed Bosnia in the mid-1990s, the genocide that took place in Darfur, the number of people killed in the great tsunami that struck Asia in 2004, and the number of people who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- all combined and then doubled. The Congo’s staggering economic potential. The DRC contains 5% of the world’s copper and 50% of its cobalt.

Cobalt holds a critical role in the future green energy economy for its use in solar panels and in the blades and magnets for wind turbines and for its use in the rechargeable batteries used in electric vehicles and consumer electronics. Cobalt is also used in the high-speed, high-strength wear-resistant alloys that are used in aerospace and military technologies. Cobalt also has many industrial uses such as a catalyst in desulfurizing crude oil and in hydrogen generation oxidation. It is used in natural gas-to-liquid technology, orthopedics and life sciences. Even though cobalt is one of the thirty most abundant elements in the earth's crust, it has an extremely low concentration, just 0.002 percent so it is rare to find it in economical standalone deposits. Identified world cobalt resources are about 15 million tons. The vast majority of these resources are in nickel-bearing laterite deposits, with most of the rest occurring in nickel-copper sulfide deposits hosted in mafic and ultramafic rocks in Australia, Canada, and Russia, and in the sedimentary copper deposits of Congo (Kinshasa) and Zambia. 48% of the world's 2007 mined cobalt was a byproduct of nickel mining from sulfide and laterite deposits. An additional 37% was produced as a byproduct of copper operations, mainly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Zambia. The copper deposits in the Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo are the world’s top producers of cobalt and the political situation in the Congo influences the price of cobalt significantly.

Life expectancy in the Democratic Republic of Congo is less than 48 years, one of five children will die before age five and almost 60% of the country’s 71 million people live on less than $1.25 per day. The DRC ranks as one of the least equitable countries in the 2011 Gender Inequality Index (GII), which shows rankings of gender equality based on a composite index of reproductive health, years of schooling, parliamentary representation, and participation in the labour market. Transparency International’s 2011 corruption perception index ranked the DRC 168th. The UN believes over 50% of the region’s 200 mines are controlled by armed forces which employ illegal taxation, extortion, forced labor, and violence to ensure the flow of mineral wealth. According to one CNN report eastern Congo’s armed groups generate some $180 million through the illicit trade of tin, coltan, tungsten, and gold which are easily traded across the porous eastern frontier and funneled into the international market.

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?"

Congo's pain

What is happening in eastern DR Congo is not a civil war, but continuation of a 16-year aggression by the country’s two neighbours. 

The African region which includes Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo has been in virtually a state of war since 1995; that is at war with each other. This has engaged the national armies, foreign armies, militias, ‘civil defence’ groups, looters, pillagers, child abductors and abusers, rapists, arsonists and murderers. One can add to this list of villains and plunderers the United Nations so-called Peacekeepers. 5 million Congolese have died. Many of these deaths were due to starvation or disease that resulted from the war, as well as from summary executions and capture by one or more of a group of irregular marauding bands. Millions more had become internally displaced or had sought asylum in neighbouring countries.These wars, centred mainly in eastern Congo (North and South Kivu and Maniema) have involved nine African nations and directly affected the lives of 50 million Congolese.

Initially these wars and the pillaging associated with them derived from the efforts to profit from the valuable mineral resources of the Eastern Congo, coltan and diamonds. Now the current targets of their looting – the oil and gas industries. In 2009 Heritage Oil discovered oil in Uganda. The oil and gas industries in East and Central Africa have been the world’s most important area of exploration in the last nine years. Africa is the main continent in the world with frequent and substantial new findings of oil and gas. A joint report by the African Development Bank, African Union and the African Development Fund observed that oil reserves in Africa grew by over 25 per cent, while gas has grown by over 100 per cent since the late 1980s. There have been major finds in Kenya and has become the latest African country to join the great African oil boom. In May 2012 Kenya announced its second profitable oil discovery in two months; and large oil deposit in the remote northern Turkana region.

Unfortunately the good fortune has only brought war and destruction in its wake. The Uganda finds in the Albert Graven were located in the seabed of Lake Albert. The border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (‘DRC’) runs down the middle of the lake. Uganda wants all the oil and has been funding the various insurgencies to control all the oil and gas of the lake. Perhaps the most contentious and conflicted result of the oil and gas finds in the region has been the Vanoil of Canada’s success in finding oil beneath Lake Kivu. Vanoil holds exclusive exploration rights to the 1,631 sq. km oil and gas concession in the north-western part of Rwanda better known as the East Kivu Graben. The Kivu Graben area is part of the great East African Rift System and is approximately 90 kilometres wide and 200 kilometres long. The Graben straddles both Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and is the Southern extension of the Albertine Graben in Uganda where major oil discoveries have been made by Tullow Oil and Heritage Oil.

In March 2007, when the governments of the DRC and Rwanda met with the assembled lake experts and developers at Gisenyi on the northern shore of Lake Kivu, an initiative commenced to define the rules and regulations of safe and environmentally sound exploitation of Lake Kivu's gas reserves. Rwanda seeks to alter this by taking control of the other side of the lake. It has recently taken over Goma through its M23 surrogates and plans to exploit the oil reserves with Vanoil and to seek a competent gas partner for the buried methane. The M23 rebels have announced that they were going to take over the entire DRC. The root of much of the difficulties lies with the fact that the current DRC President, Joseph Kabila is weak, vacillating and bereft of the support of a united nation. That weakness has alienated many in the national army. The countries which supported the DRC in its last war against the Ugandan and Rwandan invaders may well intervene again. The citizens of the DRC have suffered grievously. Their future looks no better.

From here

Congo Gold

The profits and riches to be gained from exploitation of Eastern Congo's natural resources continue to be the cause of  the suffering of the Congolese people. The wars in the Eastern Congo have been responsible for the deaths of millions of Congolese who paid the price of living in a very rich with failing or non-existent civil institutions. These wars have involved nine African nations and directly affected the lives of 50 million Congolese. Between August 1998 and April 2004 some 3.8 million people died violent deaths in the DRC. Since 2004 this number has almost doubled. Many of these deaths were due to starvation or disease that resulted from the war, as well as from summary executions and capture by one or more of a group of irregular marauding bands. Millions more had become internally displaced or had sought asylum in neighbouring countries. Rape has been  endemic.

Eastern Congo was left mainly in the hands of Uganda and Rwanda. This created a situation where the occupying forces could engage in the massive looting of eastern DRC's riches. Theft of livestock, coffee beans and other resources began to be reported with frequency. By the time the August 1998 war broke out, Rwandans and Ugandans (top officers and their associates) had a strong sense of the potential of the natural resources, especially coltan, and their locations in eastern DRC.

The Ugandan forces were eager to move in and occupy areas where gold and diamond mines were located. In September 1998 this looting was put in the hands of General General Salim Saleh (born Caleb Afande Akandwanaho, 14 January 1960), Museveni's brother, a proven money-launderer, drug dealer, resource thief and plunderer. Salim Saleh formed a company which would supply the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo with merchandise, and would return with natural resources. The project never materialised in this form, but took the form of pure looting and pillage under the protection of the President of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni. Despite their claims of a security concern, some top army officials clearly had a hidden agenda: economic and financial objectives. A few months before the 1998 war broke out, General Salim Saleh and the elder son of President Museveni reportedly visited the eastern DRC. One month after the beginning of the conflict, General James Kazini was already involved in commercial activities. He already knew the most profitable sectors and immediately organised the local commanders to serve their economic and financial objectives.

This was mirrored in the activities of the Rwandans. At the heart of the financial setting was the Banque de commerce, du développement et d'industrie (BCDI) located in Kigali. This was the initial vehicle through which all revenues were passed at the initial stages of Rwandan and Ugandan engagement in the DRC. Then, when the war broke out the Rwandans retained the BCDI as their conduit and the Ugandans set up their own. The extraction of minerals rose to a fever pitch as hostilities began with no attention to safe or rational methods of extraction. The Rwandans have been backing 'rebel' military warlords like Laurent Nkunda or Bosco Ntanganda. These provide the fig leaf for Rwanda's continuing rape of the Congo.

Eastern Congo became controlled by warlords and militia groups whose exploitation took the form of pillage, rape and murder. Most of these groups have alliances with either the Rwandan or Ugandan governments which handle the physical trade in the wealth which is exported.They operate with impunity. The people most responsible for the continuing atrocities are protected. These include Yoweri Museveni, Salim Saleh, Paul Kagame, James Kazini, Moses Ali, James Kabarebe, Taban Amin, Jean-Pierre Bemba, Laurent Nkunda, Bosco Ntanganda, Meles Zenawi and a long list of people whose culpability is without question; many of whom have been named for atrocities again and again. Bemba was finally brought to the ICC to stand trial. This was more to do with his political opposition to Kabila Junior and the Central African Republic than his depredations in the Eastern Congo.

Theoretically, the United Nations has teams of peacekeepers in the DRC, MONUC (United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo renamed the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO). In fact many peacekeepers of the MONUC were engaged in rape, murder and pillage for their own account. Their presence in the DRC adds to the fears of the population.

The illegal exploitation of natural resources went beyond mineral and agricultural resources. It occurred in respect of financial transactions, taxes and the use of cheap labour. Local banks and insurance companies operating in Goma, Bukavu, Kisangani, Bunia and Gbadolite dealt directly with Kigali or Kampala. In areas controlled by Bemba, peasants carrying palm oil on bicycles had to pay taxes on the bicycles. In the mining sector, direct extraction was carried out in three ways, namely (a) by individual soldiers for their own benefit; (b) by locals organised by Rwandan and Ugandan commanders; and (c) by foreign nationals for the army or commanders' benefit.

Source

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

is war justice?

Since April, more than 40,000 people have fled their homes, trudging through mud and rains to a point of safety - either in Congo or across the border into Rwanda or Uganda, or indeed, anywhere. Tutsi refugees arriving in Rwanda have reported widespread physical and verbal assault, often carried out by soldiers.

ICC-indicted Bosco "The Terminator" Ntaganda was one of the most powerful generals in eastern Congo - but now is a man on the run, leaving an area the size of Greece destabilising in his wake. An ethnic Tutsi warlord believed to be of Rwandan origin, Ntaganda began his career fighting against the 1994 genocide alongside Rwandan president Paul Kagame. In 2002, he became second-in-command of Thomas Lubanga's clan-based militia in Ituri district, north-east Congo. It was here that he earned his Hollywood sobriquet "The Terminator", which is referred to by the ICC. In 2002 and 2003, he allegedly commanded men to murder at least 800 civilians in and around Mongbwalu, a strategic mining town which holds some 2.5 million ounces of gold. After that war ebbed, Ntaganda joined the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) under the leadership of another zealot, Laurent Nkunda, with whom he fought against the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide. In 2008, he is believed to have led CNDP troops in a frenzied 24-hour massacre of 150 people at Kiwanja village in North Kivu. More recently, he is understood by UN experts to be taking some $15,000 a week in taxes from smuggling operations between DRC and Rwanda. Yet, despite his brutal history, for some Congolese Tutsis, Ntaganda symbolises the prospect of peace in their homelands, where there is still widespread persecution by Hutus.

Michael Deibert, author of Democratic Republic of Congo: Between Hope and Despair, describes Ntaganda as the "king-maker" in mineral-rich North Kivu, since his 2009 betrayal of Nkunda, which led to a secret peace deal and the integration of the CNDP into the state army. "Ntaganda is the lynchpin of what they have called peace in eastern Congo - peace linked with impunity because that's been the nature of the peace," he said. President Kabila has chosen, until this year, not to act on the 2006 warrant for Ntaganda's arrest. It seems that "The Terminator" had little choice but to defect. A number of former CNDP officers and soldiers followed him, and, within weeks, around 600 men had joined him in Masisi, the traditional CNDP heartland. According to Human Rights Watch, he has since recruited at least 149 boy-soldierss and young men aged between 12 and 20 years old - the very crime for which he was originally indicted. Colonel Makenga - an ethnic Tutsi who, after fighting alongside Ntaganda in Rwanda,fell out with "The Terminator" over Nkunda's overthrow - as leader of the M23 movement. As the CNDP army defectors left their positions in April, militia moved in. Across the region, armed groups have been exploiting the security vacuum to feather their nests, attacking civilians and peacekeepers alike

Colonel Makenga - an ethnic Tutsi who, after fighting alongside Ntaganda in Rwanda,fell out with "The Terminator" over Nkunda's overthrow - as leader of the M23 movement, a reference to March 23, the date of the peace deal signed three years ago. With "The Terminator" in hiding , it is Makenga's M23 rebels - believed to number between 500-600 - who are fighting government troops close to the borders of Congo, Rwanda, and Uganda.

In a region such as this, where ethnic and political lines dissect official borders, few conflicts are strictly domestic. On May 14, the Congolese defence minister was sent to Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi to investigate claims that foreign influence was fuelling the clashes - reasoning that M23 arms must come from somewhere. Defending the rights of Rwandan Tutsis, stabilising the refugee situation, and maintaining control of an illicit trade in metals and minerals are among the reasons why it could be in Rwanda's interest to support the rebels. Rwanda does not want Ntganda tried at the Hague, and some believe President Kagame will use Makenga and M23 as his proxy power, allowing him to find his own solution to Ntaganda's sub-poena - just as Nkunda now lives in Rwanda, despite his international arrest warrant.

In presenting Ntaganda as the sole cause of the conflict transforms complex clashes into a handy dichotomy: the rules of international justice versus the image of impunity for African warlords. If justice cannot be achieved without massive and indiscriminate blood loss, is some degree of impunity for one man - or at least consideration of it - too great a price to pay? If the international community persists in a blinkered pursuit of justice manifested in the arrest of Bosco "The Terminator" Ntaganda  it does so at the risk of taking its eye off the broader crisis unfolding in eastern Congo.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/05/20125181465891153.html

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.