The Dominion - Zahra Moloo

Canada's Contribution to Congo's Wars

dawn — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:05:04 +0000

Canadian mining companies among those under review

The Congolese government surprised many when it announced early last year that it would be conducting a review of 63 mining contracts that were signed during the Second Congo War.

The review aimed to revisit the conditions under which mining concessions and contracts were granted during the bloodiest years of the conflict, which is also known as Africa’s World War, during which as many as 5.4 million people have been killed since 1998.

It is expected that the review will call for the re-negotiation of about 25 mining contracts and the possible cancellation of about 22 others. The release of the review was originally scheduled for October, but has been delayed since fighting broke out in the east of the country, displacing about half a million people.

The Second Congo War was fueled in large part by a scramble for resources. The war involved eight African states, multiple rebel groups and several very powerful multinational companies, among them Canadian companies. The war officially came to an end in 2003; conflict remains prevalent throughout the country; and according to the International Rescue Committee, 45,000 people die each month from war-related causes.

Congolese newspaper Le Phare published leaked results of the review in November 2007, which revealed that several mining contracts would be re-negotiated or canceled.

Following reports in the media about the contracts, mining companies with interests in the Congo on the London, Toronto and New York stock exchanges saw a sudden drop in their stock prices, an indication of the importance of Congo’s resources to foreign investors.

Among the companies whose contracts are being reviewed are Canadian-Australian company Anvil Mining, Anglogold Ashanti (described as “Africa’s biggest gold miner”), BHP Billiton, and Freeport McMoRan, a company that has invested in the Tenke Fungurume mine, in which Vancouver based company Lundin Mining has a 24.75 per cent stake.

The kind of abuses that these companies are alleged to have engaged in during and after the war years makes the re-negotiation or cancellation of their contracts seem long overdue.

Anvil Mining employees were taken to Congolese courts
in June 2007 over allegations that they had provided logistical assistance and ground transportation to the Congolese Armed Forces during an assault on a fishing town called Kilwa in October 2004 in which 70 to 100 civilians were killed.

According to a report by MiningWatch Canada and Entraide Missionnaire, the company’s vehicles were used, among other things, to remove corpses in the aftermath of the assault.

Despite multiple eyewitness testimonies, the company employees were acquitted. The trial was criticized by the UN and several human rights NGOs, including the UK-based human rights NGO Global Witness, who said that Congolese authorities had blocked investigations into the massacre for an entire year; witnesses and victims were intimidated; and a military prosecutor who refused to drop the charges against the employees was transferred to another jurisdiction.

Even more damning evidence of human rights abuses by a company whose contract is being reviewed was exposed by Human Rights Watch in 2005 through a report entitled The Curse of Gold.

The report revealed that in 2002, AngloGold Ashanti – a company partnered with Canada’s Barrick Gold – was negotiating with two rebel groups, the UPC (Hema Union des Patriotes Congolais) and the FNI (Front des Nationalists Integrationnistes) to have access to gold-abundant areas that were out of control of the central government in Kinshasa.

At the time, these rebel groups were carrying out massacres of civilians in the hundreds; The UPC killed about 800 civilians from late 2002 to early 2003, while the FNI forces killed some 500 civilians in May 2003 in a “48-day war.” In return for granting concessions to the company, the FNI were provided with logistical, transportation and housing assistance.

Journalists Keith Harmon Snow and David Barouski go so far as to claim that Human Rights Watch did not reveal the most damning evidence against AngloGold. They allege that the company sent its top lawyers into the country to protect rebel militia leaders.

Further damning evidence implicating mining companies in human rights abuses was made public by the UN in a report issued in 2002 detailing which companies were involved.

The current re-negotiation of contracts is partly a response to the public outcry over these abuses and has been closely watched by civil society organizations that have expressed concern at the secrecy surrounding the process. But what does the review actually mean for the mining companies under scrutiny? Will such a process lead to a decrease in the actual number of Congolese citizens that die in the thousands every month?

The Congolese government's controversial decision to scrutinize mining contracts can be seen as a defiant act against the foreign domination of resources in the Congo. In fact, the Congolese government stated that it wants to increase its share in the Tenke Fungurume mine, which contains the world’s largest unexploited deposits of copper and cobalt.

Lundin Mining, which has a 24.75 per cent stake in the project, claimed in an article published in the Globe and Mail that such a demand would make the mine economically unfeasible. Human rights and land claim issues remain unresolved in the Tenke project. Artisanal miners in the area of the mine are resisting relocating the source of their livelihood to give way for the mining concession.

Beyond its symbolic importance, the renegotiation process may simply transfer resources from foreign mining companies to the Congolese government elite, with little or no benefit actually transferring to the millions of Congolese survivors that have been widowed, raped, brutalized and displaced by years of war over the resources under the land on which they live.

Carina Tertsakian, spokeswoman for Global Witness, notes that many officials in the Congolese transitional government that was set up in 2006 are the same people that established contracts with these mining companies in the first place, making a fair outcome of the review process questionable.

Here in Canada, resistance to mining companies like Barrick Gold has taken the form of organized grassroots actions as well as advocacy by environmental and human rights organizations. During the Congo review process, The Halifax Initiative has been pressuring the Canadian government to stop supporting the Tenke Project, which has been deemed illegal by the review process.

Meanwhile, a coalition of Congolese and human rights NGOs has called upon the Congolese government to conduct negotiations in an open and fair process. “The ultimate aim of this exercise should be to ensure that the Congolese people can benefit from their country’s wealth – a right which they have been denied for decades,” said the NGOs.

“The government should guarantee that the additional profits which result from this review are channeled into the country’s long-term development.”

Mining and War

Machetes, Ethnic Conflict and Reductionism

dru — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 07:44:03 +0000

Racist assumptions mar western media coverage of Kenya

Arriving back in Montreal after a brief journey to my home country of Kenya during the December elections there, I went online to get the latest updates. In the days immediately following the election on December 27 the incumbent President Kibaki stole the vote and had himself sworn in before a motley group of dejected government officials. Opposition supporters rose up to protest the rigged result. Ironically, the only source of news in Kenya before I left was the BBC. The government had banned the local media from reporting any conflict, leaving the country in a domestic media blackout.

Reading media reports from Montreal, I found myself more confused and afraid than when I was still in Kenya. According to many of these reports, my country was suddenly in the midst of a "civil war," or even a "genocide," not unlike the stories the media told about Rwanda in 1994. It was as if the situation could be reduced to a few violent images, like those of machete-wielding youth dancing next to burning houses.

Among the mainstream media's favourite words when referring to the current political crisis in Kenya are "ethnic," "chaos" and "tribal." In its report on January 27, the Los Angeles Times carried the title "'Tribal war' spreads in Kenya." The same article provided almost no historical context or explanation for how this "tribal war" was linked to the December elections, save for two paragraphs that clumsily summed up the country's history since its independence in 1963.

The word "tribal" itself is denied specific meaning. Kenya is composed of more than 40 ethnic groups, none of which media reports have attempted to describe with any accuracy. Instead, we get scant descriptions of men from the Kalenjin or Luo ethnic groups "at war" with their Kikuyu neighbours.

Again and again, the corporate media has reduced complex political events to simple binary conflicts. In Rwanda, it is the "Hutu" versus the "Tutsi." In Sudan-- the "Arabs" versus the "Africans" or the "Muslims" versus the "Christians." In the vast territory of the Congo, a country the size of Western Europe, the "Hema" fight against the "Lendu."

All these groups do exist on the African continent, but not as rigidly fixed identities dating from time immemorial. Identities are complex and often fluid in nature, sometimes hardening in the crucible of political movements or colonial struggles. Simplifying every violent episode down to an “ethnic conflict” has a familiar effect: making every conflict on the African continent seem irrational, chaotic, and without historical precedent.

The BBC’s reporting is no less culpable for oversimplifications. On one of the broadcaster's news pages, provocative quotes entice readers: “We will start the war. We will divide Kenya.” These are the words selected by the BBC to reflect the views of one Kalenjin "leader," Jackson Kibbur. Readers relying on the BBC to find out about the Kalenjin are likely to assume that he represents the views of all Kalenjin. Elsewhere in the article, snippets that seem to have been cut and pasted from an action film are quoted in isolation. “We will of course kill them,” an interviewee is reported to have said of the Kikuyu.

This variety of sensationalism and oversimplification is not atypical of corporate media reporting from Africa. Their representations perpetuate the racist assumptions that have historically influenced western perceptions of "Africans" as barbaric, primitive and inherently destructive. Such representations also have the advantage of justifying external intervention in the region which in most cases serves to disguise many different kinds of exploitation.

Western journalists reporting on the current situation in Kenya frequently approach their work with an air of adventure and sensationalism mixed with disappointment at the direction in which Kenya is moving. Doug Miller, the host of "Amandla!" -- a radio program on Montreal's CKUT dedicated to political events in Africa -- says this approach does not help readers understand what is going on.

Miller praises the Globe and Mail's Africa correspondent Stephanie Nolen for her "wonderful stuff on AIDS in Southern Africa," but criticized her approach to the political crisis in Kenya. It is, he says, a "cheap thrill kind of journalism."

"The emphasis was on her going into the 'valley of death' and facing these bloodthirsty warriors. It's an awful attraction for a journalist to go out there. But is it giving us any insight into the situation? I don't think so."

In her article, entitled "Into the Valley of Death," Nolen writes, "the Kenya I travelled through this week was not a country I recognized ... the Kenya that was prospering and ambitious and dignified and peaceful." Nolen is echoing a frequent refrain in the media since the conflict: that Kenya was the last remaining "democracy" -- the only hope on a continent ravaged by senseless violence. In the words of one writer and according to the sentiment of many, the situation is a "tragic setback for democracy in Africa."

Missing Colonialism and Class

Celebrated Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong'o has observed that the current crisis does indeed concern two tribes: not tribes based on ethnic identity, but on the divide between "the haves and the have-nots." It is not accidental that much of the violence has taken place in Kibera, the second largest slum in Africa and also in Mathare, another collection of slums.

Writing for African news publication Pambazuka, Nunu Kidane and Walter Turner remark that the people living in Kibera and Mathare have "nothing to fear and nothing to lose." Running battles between armed police and residents of Kibera were fought in the post-election period, while the middle-classes and elites remained largely unaffected by such conflicts. The media has neglected to report sufficiently on the heavy-handed tactics of repression used by the Kenyan police and the notorious paramilitary General Service Unit in areas like Kibera and Mathare.

Nonetheless, Kibera has attracted international attention; it is becoming increasingly popular as a venue for "slum tourism." Reuters correspondent Andrew Cawthorne recently wrote of Kibera: "Any journalist wanting a quick Africa poverty story can find it there in half an hour."

How, then, to make sense of the situation in Kenya while avoiding the pitfalls of sensationalistic reporting and racist assumptions?

If the media claim this is an ethnic conflict, how did it begin? When did it begin? It is important to first differentiate between the different acts of "violence" that are taking place in Kenya. Security forces are responsible for a large number of the killings. Acting on government orders immediately after the election results were announced, they have largely been operating on a shoot-to-kill policy.

Disturbing scenes of police brutality have been aired on local television. In one case, a young man in western Kisumu -- a region with a large number of opposition supports -- is shown taunting the police by sticking his tongue out and jumping up and down. A police officer runs toward him, shoots him from a few feet away and kicks him in the ribs. Little or none of this makes it into corporate media reports.

As “ethnic violence,” it certainly did not emerge out of nowhere, and not all members of the Kikuyu, Kalenjin and Luo communities are bent on destroying each other. But what other impression would people get when they read headlines like “Rival Kenyan tribes face off with machetes and clubs” next to photographs of black Africans holding weapons, silhouetted by the sun?

Certainly it is not ordinary Kenyans who benefit from the climate of terror stoked by politicians who manipulate ethnic differences to serve their own political agendas. They have mobilized gangs of young men, who are marginalized and cut off from any participation in the country’s economy, to target ethnic groups, thus prompting revenge attacks.

I received an alarming text message from a friend who had to leave home for fear of being targeted by members of the Kikuyu community. "Am ok," it read, "There were revenge attacks from Kikuyus as the place is predominantly Kikuyu. Looking for another house." The same friend was rushing to the Rift Valley three weeks ago to help evacuate members of the Kikuyu community who were being targeted by Kalenjin supporters of the opposition in the elections.

These kinds of stories -- of ordinary Kenyans who are trying to help each other and who are troubled and alarmed by what is happening as the result of a power struggle between two men -- are not covered by the many foreign correspondents visiting Kenya.

A notable exception to the lack of critical and accurate coverage in the corporate media was an article by author Caroline Elkins, who wrote about Kenya's national resistance movement in her book Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya. Writing in the Washington Post, Elkins explains: "If you're looking for the origins of Kenya's ethnic tensions, look to its colonial past... we are often told that age-old tribal hatreds drive today's conflicts in Africa. In fact, both ethnic conflict and its attendant grievances are colonial phenomena."

In Kenya, says Elkins, the British spent much of their time trying to keep the Kikuyu and Luo divided for fear that if they united, the colonial order in the country would collapse. A Kikuyu-Luo alliance in the 1950s forced the British to release Jomo Kenyatta, who would later become the country's first president, from a colonial detention camp and hastened the removal of the British colonial structure. But the alliance was short-lived, and the imperial "divide-and-rule" policy was applied time and again in Britain's colonies. The policy was strong enough to create the "ethnic units" that are now playing into the hands of elites.

These same elites, carefully cultivated by the British to protect their geopolitical interests in the region, took control of the legal systems left behind that, according to Elkins, "facilitated tyranny, oppression and poverty rather than open, accountable government."

We also have to consider the many other factors that make possible the kind of violence currently taking place. Kenya is a very poor country whose more serious troubles concern low wages, unemployment, structural poverty, lack of social security, poorly funded health and education systems and lack of access to land and resources.

Doug Miller of "Amandla!" says, "It is no wonder that the structural poverty imposed on Africa throughout history has created an underclass of young people who have no hope and no future. Many people are getting an education but there is nowhere to go with it."

"The economies have been undermined by world capitalism. Even if you do what they say and you grow tobacco or something, you get crap prices and you can't live off what you do as a farmer. What this is about is people with no access to resources in a country where they can't do anything and a rich person can come by with any amount of money and mobilize them into what I call 'the army of the unemployed.'"

It is these armies of disenfranchised youth that have been mobilized to set Kenyan against Kenyan. Understanding the origins for their exclusion will bring us closer to transcending the stereotypes that dominate Western media reportage, and perhaps a little closer to envisioning a resolution.

Machete-wielding men

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