De la Françafrique à la Mafiafrique: François-Xavier Verschave. Entretien avec Enrico Porsia.

PROFITS FOR THE WEST, RAPE, MASSACRES AND SLAVERY FOR THE REST:

HOW THE WESTERN HIGH-TECH MANIA IS FUELLING BOTH THE WAR AND THE ILLEGAL EXPLOITATION OF NATURAL AND MINERAL RESOURCES OF THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

>An investigation by Antoine Roger Lokongo, a London-based Congolese journalist
28.07.2004

MULTINATIONAL MINING COMPANIES ARE STEALING CONGO'S PATRIMONY

Behind the aggression by a Rwandan-Ugandan-Burundian coalition - supported by well-known superpowers and facilitated by Congolese rebel puppets - which the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been subjected to since 1998, there is an important stake for transnational mining companies and corporations, as a report by a UN panel of experts on the plundering and exploitation of Congo's mineral and natural resources indicated. Mining resources in other countries of the world have already been heavily exploited, not to say exhausted, and those, which are being exploited, are associated with tremendous costs.
The collapse of the Soviet Union has put an end to bipolarity and this has favoured the rise to power of the multinational corporations, whose expansion and global strategies today can no longer be stymied, even by national governments themselves who must ensure their investments. From now on multinational mining companies are nurturing the ambition of creating a new world order, as they operate free of any competition, by proceeding to the creation of new state entities - by dismantling the strictures of a former state or annihilating it altogether and setting up in its stead a new state entity operating as a simple subsidiary or a trivial post, which will be their own replicas and will operate as one of their own organs.

Africa finds itself at the centre of these new planetary stakes. With almost one third of the world raw materials, abandoned by the former metropolitan powers, which have been disengaging gradually, both from the point of view of cooperation and of military assistance, African countries have become easy prey of multinational corporations. Today no African leader can dare put up some noticeable resistance against these new masters of the world, I mean the powerful multinational corporations, which through successive mega-mergers are increasing their size as well as their powers to do harm against trivialised populations. In fact, to better control their capital investments, these multinational corporations are imposing upon African populations political leaders of their own choosing, who very often are badly known to the people, and thus are destabilising the continent, and giving through the hypocritically so-called pacification, the opportunity to the UN armies to push on the throats of the people de facto secessions, which they do not want. UN armies can thus manage to create their own states within the states.

The size of the Democratic Republic of Congo (which is as big as the whole of western Europe), its geological strategic position in the heart of the African continent, the sharing of its borders with nine (9) other countries, along with its mineral resources, had destined it as first target and the site of choice for the pursuit of this world strategy in Africa.

Accordingly, the great financiers of this world, hunters of mineral resources, have their eyes targeted on Congo, once described by the Belgian occupants as 'a geological scandal', where discovered mineral deposits are still virgin or ill exploited and likely to open markets to big capital gain investments.
That is why mining transnational corporations are fighting over the most juicy bits and pieces in one or the other part of Congo, and this in keeping with the political tendencies or 'rebellions', which are associated with them and even created by them. The attempt to appropriate to themselves the Congo through war should allow these multinational corporations, if victory chooses the camp of Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, which are fighting on their behalf, to take over the Congolese mineral resources and use them for their interests.

Congo has coltan (80% of the world's reserves), which is sought after for the manufacture of mobile phones, laptops, CD-players, camcorders, satellite, in fact everything high-tech. It also has copper and cobalt reserves, which would be the most important in the world for several years. It was the first producer of these red metals, pumping 500,000 tons a year into the market from 1978 onward. But in 1985, this production dropped to 30,000 tons as a result the deterioration of the mining infrastructures of the major mine of Kamoto in Kolwezi, a section of which collapsed in 1990 while its production represented 33% of Gecamines, Congo's giant mining parastatal and a major supplier of foreign exchange for Congio's public treasury; as well as the fall in copper prices and the mismanagement of the state portfolio by successive governments of the Mobutu regime.

In 1996, Kabila, a long-time opponent of Mobutu led a rebellion backed by Rwanda and Uganda to overthrow Mobutu, taking advantage of the geo-political changes in the region. The replacement of Mobutu was approved by the United States of America, determined to confine their old Cold War ally into the dustbin of history. Transnational mining companies were always hustling between the rebels and governmental authorities in order to seize their shares, by making sure that they were on the side of the winner and by forcing destiny, if need be. In March 1997, as soon as Kisangani fell to Kabila's Alliance Democratique pour la Liberation du Congo-Zaire (ADFL), the leaders of American Mineral Fields Inc., a metals giant multinational company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (symbol -AMZ) as a junior mining company set up their office in Goma to enter in contact with the authorities of ADFL. AMZ was formed in 1995 to develop Brazilian diamond interests and was operating from Arkansas in the US, and subsequently shifted its focus to the vast mineral opportunities in the former Zaire. The contact was made thanks to a retired Belgian Colonel, Willy Mallant, military advisor of ADFL and former military advisor to Mobutu as well. AMZ succeded in taking over the bid for the exploration of copper and cobalt in Tenke - Fungurume, Katanga, a mining concession belonging to Gecamines, at the expense of its competitor, South African mining company Anglo American Corporation Zincor and Belgium's Union Minière who was granted licences by the outgoing Mobutu regime to extract and process copper and cobalt in Kasomba and Kolwezi.

But according Pierre Baracyetse, a French mining civil engineer, AMZ was at that time implicated and interested in the contract for the construction of the orbital platform around the world that is destined to replace the Russian Station, MIR after its demise. It is a question of a $60 billion market, which will end in 2004 with the launching of the last module. Enterprises and industries from 60 countries are participating in it. Special alloys, which enter into the composition of numerous parts of this special engine require enormous quantities of rare and precious metals, such as cobalt, coltan (colombo-tantalite or niobium), tungsten or gold. All these metals are found in the Congolese underground.

The agreement between the AFDL and AMZ was described by Jean-Raymond Boulle, AMZ's key shareholder as 'a new era lurking out in the former Zaire'. 'There is a risk, but for us it is logical,' Boulle said. The agreement consisted of a transfer of Gecamines, the giant of Congolese economy to AMZ under a form of privatisation.

It dealt with three sites, including:

1. A first project worth US$200 million in Kolwezi for the extraction of copper and cobalt;
2. A second project worth $30 million for a plant for the extraction of cobalt from copper residues in Kipushi; and
3. A third project for a zinc processing plant, requiring more than US$550 million in investment in Kipushi.

The mine of Kipushi is unique in that it contains a strong concentration of the mineral on a small surface area, and that this mineral is located, in addition, into an underground layer more than 1,000 metres deep. Germanium and almost all the other minerals associated with copper are extracted there, beside copper itself and zinc.

Kabila is also said by his detractors to have signed another agreement with his Ugandan, Rwandan and Burundian backers, consisting of a revision of the border drawings in favour of Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi as a price to be paid by Congo for the aid given to him during the war of liberation and for the problem of security in the border with the four countries.

As soon as he settled in Kinshasa, Kabila re-distributed concessions of the different mining sites to different mining companies to allow him to honour his short term obligations and also to pay the daily costs of his politico-administrative apparatus. He courageously renounced to the privatisation of Gecamines which AMZ had negotiated in April 1997 with the new ADFL Congolese authorities.

He also revised all the contracts signed with the American-Canadian consortium AMZ. Instead he signed an agreement with AMZ and Anglo American Corporation of South Africa under which the two companies would form a joint venture to put the Kipushi and Kolwezi tailings copper and cobalt deposits into production in partnership with Gecamines. In 1999, a new management team was appointed and Belgium's Union Minière, the world's largest refiner of cobalt and zinc, acquired 11% interest in the joint venture with the option to increase this investment to 20%.

But Kabila was unaware of the stakes in the hands of his new masters and their objectives: to invade the country, balkanise and partition it into antagonistic micro-states and plunder its riches. And so by revising all these contracts, by refusing to pay all the IMF loans Mobutu has contracted, by refusing to be dictated over by Bechtel and US Aid, Kabila thus signed not only his own fate but that of his country as well. The rest is history. On August 2, 1998, The Rwandese wing of the ADFL rebelled against Kabila, and as a result, Congo was, once again, solicited from either of the two classic poles: in the east, the rebels who are masterminded by Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi, with superpowers and multinational mining companies as major funds providers in addition to the plundering of Congo's natural and mineral resources which is also sustaining the aggression; and in the west, the government side officially assisted by three countries, including Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia. Note that every time the aggressors announced the capture of a major Congolese locality, the Western media hurried to state precisely its economic importance.

The aggressors and their backers expected to swiftly eliminate Kabila, underestimating his start. But finally they got him. President Kabila was assassinated on 17th January this year - the same day Lumumba was massacred and this is not mere coincidence. Kabila's death was orchestrated by a foreign hand and executed by 'an African hand', including his own entourage. Several of Kabila's former close aides, including Colonel Eddy Kapend and General Yav, have become the known fall guys.

"Americans were so irritated by Kabila's nationalism", in the words of Colette Braeckman, journalist with the Belgian daily, Le Soir, and expert on Congo and the Great Lakes Region issues.

Joseph Kabila who succeeded to his father faces pretty much the same challenges. His priority of priorities, he says, is to make sure that Rwandan, Ugandan and Burundians troops withdraw from Congo. Then an inter-Congolese dialogue followed by general elections will take place. But Joseph Kabila has pursued a peaceful resolution of the conflict as stipulated by the Lusaka accord despite its numerous biases against Congo's national sovereignty and territorial integrity, thus presenting the international community and multilateral agencies, including the IMF, the World Bank, the UN and the OAU with a challenge to take action swiftly given the stakes involved the war and the aggression which the Congolese people - 2.300.000 of whom have been massacred by the invading troops - are victims.

Soon after he came to power Joseph Kabila announced the 'liberalisation' of the economy - to the satisfaction of the IMF, the World Bank and multinational mining companies - and the removal of certain exchange control, creating a new incentive for foreign investment, particularly from Europe and America.

Two multinational mining giants are particularly upbeat about what they call 'a new atmosphere of heightened optimism surrounding the political development in the Democratic Republic of Congo'.

Firstly AMZ which recently announced that it has just scooped a new contract with the new government of the Democratic Republic of Congo worth $300 million for Kolwezi cooper-cobalt tailings project in the southern rich in minerals Katanga province, and which it calls 'potentially the largest direct investment in the war-torn central African country.

It soon will enter into a framework agreement with Gecamines to evaluate the Kipushi zinc/copper mine, and says it has won a tender to develop the Kolwezi copper/copper tailings deposits in partnership with Zincor of South Africa.

Secondly, the Tenke Mining Corporation based in Vancouver, British Columbia is due to start work at the Tenke Fungurume, the company's world class copper/cobalt project in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Tenke Fungurume concessions are located in Katanga province in the southernmost part of the country. The concessions host large, high-grade copper/cobalt deposits that are world renowned and considered as one of the largest and richest underdeveloped copper/cobalt deposits. Tenke Mining Corporation has initiated meetings with Gecamines to discuss plans for the proposed development of Tenke Fungurume.

"KABILA WAS NOT THE MAN TO DO BUSINESS WITH"

On the 2 August 1998, Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi launched a war of aggression against the Democratic Republic of Congo with the blessing of Washington, London and South Africa, on the pretext that Laurent DésiréKabila whom they supported to chase long-term kleptocratic dictator Mobutu Sese Seko from power, was not doing enough to curb rebel activities from the Congolese territory into Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi and worse he was not allowing them a free reign in the Congo to track down and massacre all Hutus present in the Congo. A UN Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of Congo, has proved that the reasons advanced by the aggressors as an alibi. This invasion provides a smoke screen for and is closely linked to another invasion of Congo' mining properties at the heart of which are American and Canadian mining companies and the Openheimer family-run South Africa-based Anglo American Corporation. These mining companies represent forward beachheads for the London-centred Club of the Isles, an Anglo-American global raw materials cartel.

The opening shot of what is commonly known in business circle as the 'Second Great Scramble' for Congo's strategic mineral grab, took place in 1996 when under Mobutu regime, Banro Corp. of Toronto bought 36% of Société Minière et Industrièlle du Kivu (Sominki). Sominki was formed in 1976 as an amalgamation of nine companies that had been operating in Kivu, the second richest in minerals Congolese province after Katanga, since 1900s. It operates 47 mining concessions, encompassing an area of 10,271 square kilometres. Banro raised some of its money for the purchase by floating shares in Singapore. Banro was previously a small financial institution, with little apparent aptitude for mining. It was reconfigured as a company for the special purpose of this purchase, or acting as a front for someone.

Another large chunk of Sominki was bought by the then Belgian-based mining company Mines d'Or du Zaire (MDDZ). Now 60% of MDDZ's shares were owned by Cluff Mining CO. of London whose 65% of shares are controlled by Anglo-American Corp., the world's largest mining company and a key component of the Club of the Isles. On September 1996, Banro and MDDZ announced their merger, with Banro selling its shares to MDDZ. The new Banro-MDDZ company consolidated a 72% stake in Sominki, while Mobutu's government held 28%. The Banro-MDDZ entity subsequently announced that it planned to acquire that 28% from the government, the last nail in the coffin for Sominki.

In 1997, Kabila took advantage of the geopolitical change in the region, whereby Rwanda vowed to root out the Interahamwe (= those who kill together), perpetrators of the 1994 genocide, harboured by Mobutu in the east of the former Zaire, to ensure its stability. Uganda and Angola were equally concerned, given the fact that Mobutu also harboured Angolan UNITA rebels who had important bases in the south western part of the former Zaire; Ugandan Lord's Liberation Army rebel movement was also operating from the north eastern part of the former Zaire and posed a constant threat to President Museveni's regime.

Congo's neighbours decided to do away with Mobutu and readied their military and logistic support to Mobutu's arch-foe: Laurent Désiré Kabila.

But in reality Banro was anxious to get its mining operations started as quickly as possible. However, the Sominki mining zone that Banro acquired started in the town of Bukavu, the centre for the major camp of Rwandan refugees who had fled to the former Zaire, with nearly a million people. To get mining started, the entire zone would require clearing. Suddenly in mid-October 1996, firing started on the Bukavu refugee camp, supposedly against 'Hutu rebels' who were hiding there. The military attack on the camp forced hundreds of thousands of refugees to flee Kivu province, back to Rwanda.

But who did the firing? While a clear answer was not forthcoming, it may have involved portions of the newly acquired Sominki apparatus itself. For, in acquiring Sominki, Banro did not just acquire a company; it acquired the effcetive governmental structure of the entire Kivu province.

A Banro Corporate press release said at the time: 'Sominki owns an extensive infrastructure which includes repair shops, machine shops, electrical shops and large fleet of Land Rover vehicles. In addition, it operates six hydroelectric sites, a number of airstrips, and 1,000 kilometres of Roads. Sominki is virtually self-sufficient.' This self-sufficiency covered security matters. As a mining company, Sominki had its own explosive supplies and access to weapons, that is it had the capability to carry out such an attack, or was in a commanding position to influence Rwandans and Ugandans to fire on the refugee camps.

In 1996 Barrick Gold joined hand with Hollinger Corp, and purchased the 'Mines d'Or de Kilomoto' a huge gold concession in Congo's northeast Oriental province, which covers 83,000 square kilometres. Already in May 1995, the Canada-based Barrick Gold Corp. created an international advisory board around the personal leadership of former American President George Bush, then designated as 'honorary senior adviser'.

Also during 1996, the tiny Vancouver-based raw material company, Consolidated Eurocan, headed by international wheeler-dealer Adolf Lundin, began work on exploiting the Tenke-Fungurume copper-cobalt mines in Congo's southern Katanga province, near the border with Zambia, which has the richest cobalt reserves in the world. Cobalt is a strategic metal, crucial in forming alloys with steel, and other metals, giving them great strength and heat resistance. Some 40% of cobalt's use is in aircraft gas turbine engines, and 10% is in magnetic alloys. Consolidated Eurocan in joint-venture with Anglo-American, set to purchase the mining property in phases, for a quarter of a billion American dollars, which is joke for a property that could yield many tens of billions of dollars in revenues.

At the same time, American Mineral Fields (AMF), now trading under the initials AMZ (American Mineral Zincor, since it is in joint-venture with Zincor of South Africa), had acquired from Gecamines, Congo's state mining company, the Kipushi copper-zinc mine, one of the world's premier copper-zinc mines, located in Katanga province (copper and zinc are often mined together). The Belgians developped Kipushi and began mining in 1925. At its peak in 1988, the Kipushi mine produced 143,000 tons of zinc, and 43,000 tons of copper. Its total known and probable reserves stand at 22.6 million tons, grading 2.1% copper and 13.8% zinc. AMZ is the brainchild of its owner, Jean-Raymond Boulle, a former execuitve for De Beers's Diamonds. In turn, AMZ signed an agreement with Anglo-American, which would allow Anglo to invest up to $100 million in any AMZ venture in Katanga province, representing up to a 50% equity stake in the venture, including the Kipushi mine.
After seven months of a swift war, Kabila's 47,000 men helped by Rwandans and Ugandans made it to Kinshasa on 17 May 1997 and chased Mobutu from power. Right after the fall of Kisamgani. Congo's third largest city which symbolises Lumumba's struggle for independence, Kabila auto-proclaimed himself the new President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, thus short-circuiting the ambitions of those who helped him win power. Kigali and Kampala wanted to put in Kinshasa someone malleable they could totally remote control and so draw massive political, military and economic dividends in the process. This ambition did not materialise.

As soon as Kabila settled in Kinshasa, and started to articulate clearly the aspirations of his people and summoning them to take their own destiny into their own hands, politically and economically, this was perceived by his sponsors as a covert declaration of independence. Kabila's nationalist stance immediately clashed with their interests, as he eventually reviewed all the contracts he had signed with American and South African mineral companies under Mobutu (and when he was a rebel?) and re-nationalised all the mines. De Beers subsequently pulled out of Congo in 1999. Earlier on he had enlisted the support of Zimbabwe to enlarge his circle of friends, should he fall out with the first ones. During the third summit of Comesa (common market community of central and southern African countries) held in Kinshasa on 29 June 1998, Kabila clearly tabled out what role Congo would play within the common market and in Africa as a whole.

He explained that 'more than 40 years of African independence have offered to the world a sad spectacle of a continent looted and humiliated with the complicity of its own sons and daughters'. He expressed the wish 'to see Africa entering the 21st century totally independent of foreign interference' and declared that the battle for Congo's independence and sovereignty is fought in the interest of Africa as a whole.

'Our country,' he said, 'has a vocation of exporting peace, development and security to the rest of Africa. A weak Congo means a vulnerable Africa from its centre, an Africa without a heart.' The stakes were then raised! Even President Thabo Mbeki was prompted to say: 'The more time goes, the more we will loose control of Kabila.' The rest is history. Shortly after President Kabila's assassination, Colette Braeckman of Le Soir, a Belgian daily, wrote: 'The people of Congo have no illusion as to who killed Kabila. They know that his death was conspired by Western agents put off by Kabila's nationalist stance and anxious of loosing their interests but executed by an African and Congolese hand.'

There is now discussion of opening up the major Congolese government-owned diamond mining company, Société Minière de Bakwanga (MIBA), to foreign investors. President Joseph Kabila has ended a unilateral monopoly of exploitation granted to IDI, an Israeli mining company granted by his father, the late President Laurent Désiré Kabila. MIBA accounts for 40% of the Democratic Republic of Congo's official diamond exports. The remaining 60% are developed by artisanal miners, that is, prospectors, who then sell the gems exclusively to Israeli diamond buyers and to international gem dealer Maurice Tempelsman, a former president of US Africa Society, a group that is influential in the shaping of US government Africa policy.

PROFITS FOR THE WEST, SLAVERY FOR THE REST

Tempelsman is no stranger in Congo, according to Janine Farrell Roberts, an American Human Rights activist and author of 'Blood Stained Diamonds'. In April 2002, she made a presentation at a roundtable discussion organised by Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (D-Georgia), at the Rayburn House Office Building to discuss American foreign policy toward Africa, in which she said: 'Maurice Templesman, a private American citizen and businessman, served the De Beers diamond cartel by promoting foreign policy decisions that favoured its access to and control of African diamond fields. This led to the US covertly supporting undemocratic and corrupt regimes in Africa to the great detriment of the African people.'

Roberts further revealed that when Lumumba, Congo's first elected leader spoke of using Congo's resources to benefit the Congo, De Beers feared it would lose access to the one third of world's diamond supply in the Congo - as would also Tempelsman. Shortly after this, the CIA facilitated Lumumba's assassination. Evidence on this came before the Church Intelligence Commission. Immediately after Lumumba's death, the Acting Prime Minister of Congo, Adoula announced support for a very major Tempelsman diamond deal, telegramming this to President Kennedy. The historian Richard Mahoney claimed that the Adoula regime was receiving funds from Tempelsman. A State Department memo headed 'Congo Diamond Deal' stated 'The State Department has concluded that it is in the political interest of the US to implement this proposal.' (2 August 1961).

Immediately after Mobutu came to power, Tempelsman became an even bigger player in Congo - recruiting his own staff from those CIA staffers that Mobutu most favoured that put him to power. Mobutu also at this time gave Tempelsman, as a 'Christmas Gift', rich mineral reserves.

According to Tempelsman's staff interviewed, they had a wonderful time running the Congo - to secure funding for Mobutu. He succeeded in persuading the White House to secretly buy a vast number of diamonds for the US startegic reserve - at a time when Adminstration officials were protesting that the reserve was over full. The reason for this deal given in secret US government memos was to support Mobutu and his partner Adoula. This Tempelsman plan made much profit for him and De Beers.

A State Department Cable of 23 December 1964 warned about the need of secrecy over this Mobutu diamond and South African uranium deal because 'it could outrage the moderate Africans we are trying to calm down.' It suggest South Africa Foreign Minister Muller would understand the need for secrecy since the US was 'doing a job' in the Congo that South Africa could not do. This covert support for Mobutu gave the US a gross excess in the strategic diamond stockpile that was still being sold off in 1997.

In 1967 the State Department reported: 'Tempelsman is playing an increasingly central role as Democratic Republic of Congo's technical advisor and mediator.' But these deals and other deals done throughout the following decades with a corrupt Mobutu government left the Congolese people in absolute poverty.

THE ITURI BONANZA

Several western corporations now eye an eventual bonanza in the Ituri province, where Rwanda and Uganda fomented ethnic clashes has caused the death of more than 50,000 people. Many of these corporations are conveniently linked to the international arms trade and mercenary outfits. Barrick Gold

Barrick Gold is a long-time stakeholder in Ituri's Kilo Moto gold mines. A Canadian-based multinational, Barrick's principals include former prime minister Brian Mulroney, former US president George HW Bush, former Tennessee senator Howard Baker, and Vernon Jordan, Bill Clinton's lawyer and confidant. Barrick has multiple joint ventures with the South African mining giant Anglo-American. Barrick's founder is Adnan Khashoggi, a Saudi billionaire arms trafficker, famous for his illegal weapons sales to Iran in the Reagan era.

In 1997 Canadian-based Heritage Oil & Gas began petroleum explorations with the support of the Museveni government on the Uganda side of the border, and Belgium's De Standard reports they have now also secured DRC concessions through Joseph Kabila. Uganda's New Vision newspaper reports sizeable petroleum and natural gas reserves discovered in the Semiliki Basin, beneath Lake Albert which straddles the DRC-Uganda border.

Heritage Oil & Gas was founded by Tony Buckingham, an executive linked to a confusing network of front companies and offshore island holdings. De Standard reported June 19, 2003, on Heritage Oil's maneuvers in DRC and Uganda, and its links to companies like Branch Energy and Diamond Works, both exposed for operations in war-torn Angola and Sierra Leone. Buckingham is a veteran of the UK's elite SAS military corps, and played a founding role in the private military companies Executive Outcomes of South Africa and Sandline International. De Standard suggested that Buckingham seeks the pacification of Ituri to exploit minerals in the region.

Buckingham's ties to US government officials are detailed in Wayne Madsen's book Genocide And Covert Operations in Africa, 1993-1999 (Edwin Mellen Press, 1999). The mercenary soldier Simon Mann arrested this March with a posse of followers in Zimbabwe (allegedly en route to institute a coup in Equatorial Guinea) is a co-founder with Buckingham of Executive Outcomes.

"The situation in Ituri remains unstable," wrote Survivor's Rights International on June 6, "with recurring acts of genocide and crimes against humanity being perpetrated by miscellaneous forces on their opposition ethnic groups, many of which have been armed, supported and manipulated by the Ugandan People's Defense Forces. The indigenous Mbuti pygmies continue to suffer the brunt of abuses, including acts of rape and cannibalism from all sides."

On July 9, Nairobi's East African Standard reported that hundreds of refugees fleeing fresh fighting in Ituri had crossed into Uganda.

JOSEPH KABILA, SIGNS OF GOOD GOVERNANCE?

The IMF and World Bank favoured Kabila's transitional government with loans worth $ 1.2 billion in June 2002, while Sweden, Belgium, France and South Africa loaned some $522 million. In January, 2004, the Belgian government authorized the dispatch of 190 military advisers to Congo to train a new Congolese military brigade in Orientale.

South Africa and DRC recently signed a bilateral agreement on defense and security. DRC also signed a $ 8.4 million deal with South Africa to rehabilitate the state mining company GECAMINES.

Chairman of GECAMINES from 1999-2001, Belgium's George Forrest controls the most diverse private mining portfolio in the DRC. One of his partners in DRC is the OM Group of Cleveland, Ohio.

Forrest's roots in DRC predate 1945, and his companies outlasted the long Mobutu dictatorship and subsequent wars. Forrest also owns Belgium's New Lachaussée company, a leading manufacturer of cartridge casings, grenades, light weapons and cannon launchers. His George Forest Group also has munitions plants in Kenya and Tanzania.

Forrest's mining interests include copper, cobalt and germanium concessions in Katanga, DRC's southern province, long the site of separatist movements.

Katanga's plight also revolves around factions seeking to maintain or wrest control of resources. Katanga is rich in diamonds, cobalt, copper, palladium and germanium. Uranium from Katanga was used in the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Cobalt is a strategic alloy used in the aerospace and defense industries, and was stockpiled by the US Defense Logistics Agency during the Cold War. Maintaining Katanga's "cobalt connection" was paramount to the Mobutu dictatorship. Keeping the region safe for Mobutu's cobalt empire was long the purview of Lawrence Devlin, a CIA operative in Shaba later employed by diamond magnate Maurice Tempelsman.

Falling within the Kinshasa government's sphere of control, Katanga has seen its share of repression and warfare. The Kabila family is from Katanga, and Kinshasa maintained control the region in the recent years of war with the aid of troops from the allied Zimbabwe Defense Forces (ZDF). The ZDF has officially pulled out of DRC, but unconfirmed reports suggest some ZDF troops remain.

"An elite network of Congolese and Zimbabwean political, military and commercial interests has maintained a grip on the main mineral resources of government-controlled areas," concluded the UN Panel of Experts in 2002.

The UN reported this network had transferred ownership of at least $5 billion in assets from the state mining sector to private companies from 1999-2002 with no benefit to the DRC. "The network's representatives in the Kinshasa Government and the Zimbabwe Defense Forces (ZDF) have fueled instability, by supporting armed groups opposing Rwanda and Burundi," the UN report found.

A few notable businessmen said to be calling the shots in Katanga are American Maurice Tempelsman, Zimbabwean Billy Rautenbach, South African Marc Rich, British John Bredenkamp, Swede Adolph Lundin and Jean Raymond Boulle.

Tenke Mining, owned by Swedish mining magnate Lundin is one of some 15 multinational mining companies partnered with GECAMINES in Katanga. Lundin is called a longtime associate of George HW Bush; African Confidential reported in 1997 that the ex-president telephoned Mobutu on Lundin's behalf after the dictator had threatened to terminate a mining contract.

Pardoned by outgoing President Clinton for tax-evasion charges, Marc Rich operates the Swiss-based Glencore company.
Operating there are Rautenbach, a former GECAMINES director, and Bredenkamp. The Bredenkamp family's Brecon Mines Ltd. is partnered with GECAMINES. Africa Confidential and independent newspapers in Zimbabwe have reported on Bredenkamp's role in shipping weapons to Zimbabwe for probable use in the Congo.

Tempelsman is affiliated with the Oppenheimer/DeBeers diamond conglomerate of South Africa. The executive privileges he enjoyed during the Clinton years were reportedly secured through a romantic interlude with Madeleine Albright. Tempelsman accompanied Clinton on his 1998 Africa tour, sailed with the Clintons off Martha's Vineyard, and met with Clinton on Air Force One. He is said to employ CIA veterans who protected the Mobutu dictatorship as his private staff for his Congo operations. Tempelsman is a trustee of the Harvard AIDS Institute and Africa-America Institute, and former chair of the Corporate Council on Africa.

The Corporate Council on Africa represents 85% of all US private-sector investment in Africa. Members include Asea Brown Baveri (whose former director is Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld), Halliburton (Cheney), the Washington Post Company, Raytheon, Military Professional Resources Inc., and oil majors such as ExxonMobil, Chevron-Texaco, Conoco-Philips, Sunoco and Shell.

According to Wayne Madsen, the Virginia mercenary firm Military Professional Resources Inc. (MPRI) supported Kagame's US-backed invasions of Rwanda (from Uganda in 1994), Zaire (1996) and then Congo (1998).

The Africa-America Institute (AAI), another industry interest group, recently presented the AAI African National Achievement Award for 2002-3 to President Museveni of Uganda for "history-making advances that justify optimism for the future of the African continent."

AAI trustee Gayle Smith in 1998 was appointed special assistant to President Clinton and senior director for African Affairs at the National Security Council, a position where she negotiated a cease-fire between Uganda and Rwanda, after the ex-allies battled for the spoils in DRC.

USA SUPPORTING TERROR

On March 9, 2004, Le Monde published a report by French anti-terrorist judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere, who found that Paul Kagame, then commanding the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a Tutsi-led guerilla group operating with the support of Museveni's Uganda, gave orders for missiles to be fired at the airplane carrying the Rwandan and Burundian presidents, both ethnic Hutu, on April 6, 1994. The assassinations provoked the Hutu-led genocide in Rwanda--which left up to 800,000 dead, overwhelmingly Tutsis. In the wake of the genocide, the RPF took power, and hundreds of thousands of Hutu fled Rwanda for Congo (then Zaire).

Critics now say Kagame is cynically using the 1994 genocide to deflect scrutiny of his own war crimes. Human rights organizations have documented RPF atrocities, with perhaps hundreds of thousands of killings from 1990 to 1996. In 1994, UN Special Rapporteur Robert Gersony documented "an unmistakable pattern of RPF killings" of Hutu refugees returning to Rwanda: the report was quickly buried. Amnesty International and other rights groups documented killings of hundreds of thousands of Rwandan refugees (mostly Hutu) in DRC by the UPDF/RPF-led insurgency.

Wayne Madsen reports that Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root set up a military base in southwestern Rwanda in 1995 in preparation for the US-backed invasion of Congo/Zaire to topple the abandoned Mobutu dictatorship.

Amnesty International in 2002 reported US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and Special Forces' involvement in the 1996 invasion of Congo/Zaire. The report said that DIA assisted Rwandan and Ugandan forces through a program code-named "Falcon Gorilla." In 1997, the DIA held a Pentagon symposium on privatization of African security operations with Executive Outcomes, Sandline International and mineral interests.

Madsen also maintains that Carla del Ponte, special prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda (ICTR) was removed due to her unwanted scrutiny of RPF atrocities. In 1997 and 1998, when UN investigators turned their eyes on the RPF, the US, through then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, pressured the ICTR to halt the investigation, Madsen claims. Kagame blasted efforts to investigate RPF atrocities as "evidence of the politicization of the tribunal's functions."

The Pentagon maintains International Military Education and Training (IMET), Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET), Africa Crises Response Initiative (ACRI), and African Contingency Operations Training Assistance (ACOTA) programs with both Rwanda and Uganda. The Washington Post's Lynne Duke's reported August 16, 1997, that the RPF benefited from counterinsurgency and combat training from US Special Forces. The Falcon Gorilla operation in support of the Rwanda-Uganda intervention in DRC reportedly came under the purview of JCET.

Gen. Charles Wald, head of US operations in Africa (under the Pentagon's European Command), has substantiated direct US support for the Museveni government's fight against the Sudan-backed Uganda rebel group Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), defined as a terrorist organization by the US. The LRA are a brutal and fanatical group, but critics in the Ugandan opposition charge Museveni exploits their terror for propaganda purposes--and that some atrocities attributed to the LRA were carried out by UPDF troops.

US Ambassador to Uganda Jimmy Kolker told Voice of America April 2 2004 that US aid has consisted mainly of trucks and radios, along with training. He said its total value was some two million dollars. He dismissed reports of greater US military assistance as "grotesquely exaggerated."

But it is clear that the US has tilted to Uganda and Rwanda in Africa's ongoing First World War. Rwanda's Paul Kagame spoke at least twice at the Carr Center for Human Rights at Harvard University, and has met with George HW Bush at the James Baker Institute for Public Policy in Houston, and at the Council on Foreign Relations. Kagame was a guest, with Joseph Kabila, at a Washington prayer breakfast soon after George W Bush assumed office. Ugandan's Museveni was a guest speaker at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington DC on June 11, 2004.

Rwanda and Uganda continue to be rewarded with World Bank and IMF loans, despite accusations that funds are diverted to purchase military equipment and prosecute war in their own and neighboring countries. One recent Rwanda grant was a $20 million aid package of June 15, 2004. The UK government has given up to 60 million pounds a year in "development aid" to Rwanda and Uganda.

And US military involvement in the region is about to deepen. Preceding his trip to Africa in July 2003, President Bush announced a $100 million aid package for east African countries to fight terrorism, pointing to greater US strategic interest in the region. "We will work with Kenya and Ethiopia and Djibouti and Uganda and Tanzania to improve capabilities... We will give them the tools and the resources to win the War on Terror."
LET THEM APPLY THEIR OWN RULES
An Oxford-based British NGO, RAID (Rights & Accountability in Development) in March 2004 published a report titled: "Unanswered questions: companies, conflict and the Democratic Republic of Congo", in which it said that OECD Governments have Failed to Investigate Corporate Role in Congo War.

In October 2002, an Expert Panel set up by the U.N. Security Council accused 85
companies of violating the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises - a voluntary company code that has an obligatory government monitoring mechanism. To date there has been almost no progress in investigating these companies. The furore created by the Panel's reports makes the need to draw a clear line between acceptable and unacceptable corporate behaviour a top priority - not just in the tragic case of the DRC but in all conflict zones," said RAID director, Patricia Feeney.

But in October 2003 the Panel's final report failed to make this distinction clearly. It listed many company cases in a 'resolved' category without publicly explaining its reasoning for doing so. Only eleven cases were forwarded on to governments for investigation under the Guidelines, but so far almost no action has been taken. Many unanswered questions remain about the allegations against companies. It's been five months since the UN Panel of Experts completed its work. Over the past four years no fewer than five resolutions or statements have been passed by the UN Security Council urging governments to conduct their own investigations into the part played by companies in illegal resource exploitation, which helped fuel the conflict.

"So far, most governments have been long on excuses but short on action" said
Patricia Feeney.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is emerging from a devastating five-year war that is estimated to have cost the lives of more than five million people. Multinational corporations have been accused of helping to perpetuate the war and of profiteering from it.

In February 2002, the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, promised to clamp
down on companies that fuel resource wars in Africa and called for stricter adherence to the OECD Guidelines as a means of ensuring that companies behave responsibly in conflict zones. But now the British government has ruled out any investigation on the role some British multinationals and Banks played in the looting of Congo's wealth.

The report by Rights and Accountability in Development (RAID) examines the role of companies in the DRC conflict, their reactions to being listed by the UN Panel and the publicly unanswered questions that remain about their conduct. For the first time it frames the questions in relation to the OECD Guidelines. Governments adhering to the Guidelines have a responsibility to ensure that they are applied. It is in nobody's interest - neither that of responsible companies, nor that of the people of the DRC - to leave these questions unresolved. This report should act as a catalyst for action by
governments.

"RAID is not making allegations of its own nor does it claim that the UN's allegations amount to proof of misconduct."

But the Panel's reports raise legitimate, ethical questions, which, in the interest of all parties concerned, must be resolved publicly and unambiguously. The DRC case is a crucial test case.

TYPES OF ALLEGED MISCONDUCT

1. Companies who benefited from the direct assistance of the combatants, such as those trading in minerals, which were, mined using forced labour or those whose assets were protected by soldiers or militia.

2. Companies supplying arms to the rebels or participating in military actions.

3. Companies engaged in the smuggling of diamonds to supply international markets. Money laundering, and illegal currency transactions.

4. Companies buying minerals from former foreign or rebel-controlled areas without conducting due diligence tests as to where the minerals came from or who was profiting from the trade.

5. Companies indirectly involved in the trade in resources from former foreign army and rebel-controlled areas of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

6. Companies offering inducements or exercising anti-competitive influence at a time of great instability to secure lucrative concessions or contracts

7. Companies profiting from lucrative joint ventures, mainly in government controlled areas, set up to exploit Congo's natural resources with little or no benefit going to the Congolese people.

8. Banks failing to exercise due diligence when providing facilities for companies engaged in misconduct.

Groups File Complaint with State Department Against Three American Companies Named in UN Report for their Complicity in Fueling Civil War in Democratic Republic of the Congo

Friend of the Earth-United States (FoE) and the UK-based group Rights and Accountability in Development (RAID) filed a formal complaint with the U.S. State Department today against three American companies. In October 2002, a United Nations (UN) Panel of Experts accused the companies of helping to fuel the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The Panel named Cabot Corporation, Eagle Wings Resources International and OM Group, Inc. as having violated the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) "Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises," a set of international standards for responsible corporate behavior.

FoE and RAID filed an official complaint today because the State Department, which has oversight for determining whether U.S. companies have breached the OECD Guidelines, has declined to undertake an independent investigation into whether these companies might have contributed to the war in the DRC.

"If the State Department refuses to conduct an independent investigation, a troubling message will be sent to U.S. companies. They'll know that they can get away with helping to finance violent conflict and human rights abuses without any repercussions," said Colleen Freeman, policy analyst with Friends of the Earth.

"We ought to know whether American companies contributed to one of Africa's deadliest wars so it doesn't happen again."

The Panel's three-year investigation found that sophisticated "elite networks" of high-level political, military and businesspersons, in collaboration with various rebel groups, intentionally fueled the conflict in order to retain control over the country's vast natural resources. The Panel implicated many Western companies for directly or indirectly helping to fuel the war.

In its final, October 2003 report, the Panel said that no further investigation was required into the activities of Cabot, Eagle Wings and OM Group. But the Panel did make clear that "resolution should not be
seen as invalidating the Panel's earlier findings with regard to the activities of these actors."

"Now that a formal complaint has been submitted, the U.S. government, as a signatory to the OECD Guidelines, is obligated to examine whether breaches have occurred," said Patricia Feeney, director of RAID.

"Clearly there are many unanswered questions that the State Department must examine. The conduct of the U.S. companies has to be measured against internationally agreed standards in a transparent process - not behind closed doors."

Boston-based Cabot Corporation allegedly purchased coltan from the DRC during the war. While Cabot has denied these allegations, a report by the Belgian Senate states that Eagle Wings Resources International had a long-term contract to supply Cabot with coltan. Current Deputy Director of the Department of Treasury, Samuel Bodman, was CEO and Chairman of Cabot from 1997-2001.

Trinitech Holdings is the holding company for Ohio-based companies, Eagle Wings Resources LLC and Trinitech International, Inc. Eagle Wings Resources International (EWRI) is a joint venture between Dutch company, Chemie Pharmacie Holland BV (CPH) and Trinitech Holdings. The Panel asserts that EWRI received privileged access to coltan sites and captive labour because of its close ties to the Rwandan military. The Panel has accused the Rwandan regime of mass-scale looting, systemic exploitation, and the organization of an elite network centrally located in the Rwandan Defense Department, set up specifically to exploit the DRC's natural resources.

Ohio-based OM Group's joint venture with a Belgian national, George Forrest, Groupement pour le Traitement des Scories du Terril de Lumbumbashi, Ltd. (GTL) is accused by the Panel of deliberately ignoring technical agreements that provide for the construction of two electrical refineries and a converter for germanium processing in the DRC from the "Big Hill" project. Instead, semi-processed ore from the mine was shipped to OM Group's processing facility in Finland, thereby robbing the state mining company, Gécamines, of millions of dollars in revenue. At issue is whether the complex corporate structure was intended to deny Gécamines the benefits of the future sales of minerals with significant commercial potential at a time when the country was at war and there was no functioning government or mining ministry to protect the interests of Gécamines and by extension, the Congolese people.

Separate to the Panel's allegations concerning the Big Hill project, a recently released World Bank environmental report raised concerns about the exploitation of radioactive minerals from concessions owned by Gécamines, such as the Shinkolobwe uranium mine. There is evidence that Société pour le Traitement des Scories du Terril de Lubumbashi (STL) - a company created by GTL in 1997 - processed radioactive minerals to obtain cobalt at the company's plant in Lubumbashi, which is situated close to a hospital. The Belgian Senate concluded that airborne and waterborne pollution could not be discounted. At issue is whether the measures in place at OM Group's plant in Lubumbashi were sufficient to prevent radioactive contamination of the Congolese workforce and whether the local population was exposed to unacceptably high risk of pollution from the operations of the plant.

"It has been nine months since the United Nations published the Panel's final report and so far the only serious attempt to respond to the Panel's allegations has been made by Belgian judges investigating money laundering and illicit arms transactions linked to the trade in coltan and diamonds by Belgian companies and banks. In South Africa, the courts have also started to uncover assets held in the names of senior Congolese political figures as a result of breach of contract lawsuits brought by businessmen against the DRC Government," said Feeney.