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THE
UN SECURITY COUNCIL HAS YET AGAIN FAILED THE PEOPLE OF CONGO
So
what is particularly new with this new report of the UN Panel on
the exploitation of natural resources of the Democratic Republic
of the Congo? Not much except the "carefully calculated"
addition of Zimbabwe and the inclusion of its business relationships
with the Government of Congo. And those who instigated this "third"
report knew very well what they were getting at: to hit Robert Mugabe
on the head with it. Not only can't they forgive him for launching
the very much needed land reform in his country but also for his
involvement in the war of aggression in Congo "in order to
defend the sovereignty of Congo then at stake and to support a legitimate
and internationally recognised government of President Laurent Désiré
Kabila", as Safiatou Ba-N'Daw, the chairperson of the Panel
put it.
Zimbabwean President Mugabe, an ally of the Congo who, along
with Angola and Namibia successfully defended Kinshasa against
the Ugandan and Rwandan invasion, accused the global community
of duplicity, saying it had condoned genocide and looting of resources
from war-torn Congo by the armies of Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.
He said:"Over the last year (the late Defense Minister Mahachi)
witnessed the duplicity of the international world which has sought
to demonise Zimbabwe and her soldiers for upholding internationally
recognized principles in the defense of the Democratic Republic
of Congo."
Mugabe accused the international community of condoning acts
of aggression, genocide and looting of Congolese resources by
Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, and said further:
"We have the UN report to say and support this. Again, Uganda,
Burundi, Rwanda remain the favourites -- even after this report
-- of the Americans and the British."
In fact at the same time Uganda was convincing the World Bank
and IMF that it needed some $700 million in debt relief under
the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) debt relief initiative,
an award achieved in September 2000, the first such award made
on the African continent
Instead of condemning the invasion and occupation of Congo by
Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi with the complicity of Congolese rebels
they had created and the attendant exploitation of the Congo's
resources they have been indulged into since 1998, instead of
imposing sanctions as recommended by its own panel appointed by
the UN secretary general in April 2001 and ordering the invasion
and occupation powers out, and if required, employing military
power to make that order stick, as has been done elsewhere, most
notably in Kuwait, the Security Council under the aegis of Britain
and America asked the panel "to take another look" into
the case. In the words of British Ambassador to the UN, Sir Jeremy
Greenstock, then serving as council president, "a follow-up
work" and a "deeper investigation" was needed.
We did not see any reports as to why. But Bangladesh's UN Ambassador,
Anwarul Chowdhury, also a council member, disagreed, saying, "We
have to examine the recommendations and the council has to come
together and seriously look at these recommendations for some
implementation." So Britain's Greenstock wanted to study
the problem more for the sake of protecting Britain and America's
darlings, Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi from accountability, while
Bangladesh's ambassador wanted to get down to implementing the
Panel's recommendations. Bangladesh versus Great Britain? You
know who loses that one. The United States through its representative
told the Security Council that the expert panel's report was a
reminder that the foreign exploitation of resources of the DR
Congo was a consequence rather than an objective of the invasion
and occupation, a claim that the French representative Jean-David
Levitte rejected. Do you smell a Franco-Anglo-Saxon rivalry of
which the people of Congo have always been victims?
So Britain and America made sure Safiatou Ba-N'Daw of Côte
d'Ivoire was given a bout as the chairperson of the Panel, after
Museveni attacked her, charging that she had been part of the
deposed former government in Côte d'Ivoire, referring to
her as "that girl" and "that lady from Ivory Coast
who favoured neocolonial forces seeking to distract re-emerging
African nationalism and liberation". The panel was now chaired
by Mahmound Kassem of Egypt. But the same UN panel, with a different
chairperson in charge, has just issued another report which validated
much of that was in the first report. It simply added allegations
against Zimbabwe (an ally of Congo who, along with Angola and
Namibia, which successfully defended Kinshasa against the Ugandan
and Rwandan invasion) and the government of Congo itself, essentially
charging that they were wrong to cut economic deals among sovereign
states, and charged the victim, DRCongo, with creating the environment
in which any of this could happen in the first place. Did Britain
not have allies during World War II? Of the 84 multinational companies
named, 48 are anglo-américan but based in South Africa
where they are exploiting a cheap labour, 12 are British, 20 are
belgians, nine are américan per se. Frankly, this leaves
us with the taste of a rape case; attack and rip the victim, the
woman, to shreds, and obfuscate, obfuscate, obfuscate, clouding
up the works so much that the rapist walks away scot-free. It
shows clearly how the UN Security Council is not there for the
Congolese people, it could care less how the Congolese people
or deal with the crimes committed against them (more than 5 million
have been massacred since 1998), and the council has no intention
of dealing with those crimes itself. But the panel's original
finding that the systematic exploitation of natural resources
and other forms of wealth of the DRC stands, and indeed in this
latest rendition the panel says it continues unabated, involving
a large number of state and non-state actors in the region and
outside, multinationals, mafia networks, some directly involved
in the conflict. This time, they yet again failed the Congolese
people.
Interestingly, the Paris-based Le Monde newspaper reported the
UN panel's conclusions a month before the UN panel's report was
made public. Le Monde said the report named the USA, Germany,
Belgium and Kazakhstan as leading buyers of the illegally exploited
resources. Le Monde said the report advised that the UPDF considered
its period of occupation in Congo as compensation for its part
in the war. Let the Security Council implement the recommendations
of its own Panel by immediately instituting sanctions and an embargo
to halt the import or export of diamonds, gold, timber, coltan,
niobium, pyrochlore and cassiterite to or from Burundi, Rwanda
and Uganda. The council should freeze the assets of Congo's rebel
movements and those exploiting the country's natural resources.
The council should order an immediate arms embargo on rebel groups
operating in Congo. The council should recommend that all countries
and international institutions such as the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund stop any budget support to those countries.
The Security Council consider establishing an international mechanism
that would investigate and prosecute individuals involved in the
economic criminal activities, companies and government officials
whose economic and financial activities directly or indirectly
harm powerless people and weak economies.
By
the way, now that President Joseph Kabila has sacked all his ministers
and other personalities named in the Report and abolished their
ministries, let the President of Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi do
the same. It also means that all the so-called Congolese rebels
named in the reports are disqualified from sharing power.
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