The Dominion - Congo

Why is Canada Blocking Congo Debt Forgiveness?

dru — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 09:21:21 +0000

Mining companies and Canada's “civilizing mission”

WINNIPEG—In the lead-up to the G20 summit in Toronto, as several major demonstrations and tens of thousands of police and military personnel filled the downtown, a quieter summit took place 200 kilometres to the north, in Huntsville, Ontario. In closed meetings Canadian officials worked to convince the world's major military and industrial powers to criticize the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

They succeeded. The final G8 communique called on the DRC to “enhance governance and accountability in the extractive sector,” and “extend urgently the rule of law.” Just a few days later, on June 29, Canada attempted to block a decision by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) to cancel the overwhelming majority of the DRC's roughly $8 billion debt.

In spite of Canada's objections, the World Bank and IMF approved DRC's debt cancellation two days later. But Canadian diplomats delayed the process long enough that the announcement missed celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the country's independence from Belgium which had ruled Congo with legendary violence while extracting its mineral wealth. The DRC's debt, widely considered to be "odious"—consisting of loans to illegitimate rulers—had accumulated through their history as a colony of Belgium, then through the years of the Mobutu dictatorship and on to the present. The loans rarely benefited ordinary people in what is one of the most impoverished countries in the world. Even after one of the IMF's own reports during the Mobutu era showed the loans were being misused and would likely never be repaid, the lending programs were not only kept in place but boosted to higher levels.

Why would Canada want to interfere with relieving a poor country from illegitimate debt?

The Congo has long been the site of bountiful natural resources, which governments and corporations the world over have scrambled to access. The Vancouver-based mining company First Quantum has not been immune to this allure. In 2006, the company's president Clive Newall said of the DRC: "It's the holy grail of the copper industry. Companies are saying: to hell with the political risk, we just have to be here."[1]

The risk did not pay off as well as he would have liked. Over the past year, the government of the DRC canceled three of First Quantum's mining concessions, worth about $1-billion, as part of a review of contracts signed during the tumultuous period of conflict at the end of the 1990s. Canada retaliated on the company's behalf through the G8 and international lending institutions.

Maurice Carney, Executive Director of the Friends of the Congo, a Washington DC-based advocacy group, is asking why Canada was not worried about illegality in the Congo before the recent cancellations; illegality on the part of the companies themselves. He points to a 2002 UN Security Council report called the “Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” that showed connections between foreign mining companies, including First Quantum, and the ongoing conflict in the DRC, the deadliest conflict the world has seen since the second World War.

“The United Nations clearly stated that these companies that were involved are fueling the conflict, illegally exploiting Congo's wealth, and have violated OECD Guidelines,” says Carney. “Yet neither Canada, nor the G8 have issued any major declarations against these corporations.”

The report pointed to payouts by First Quantum to top Congolese officials.[2] The company's Kolwezi project, the first to be canceled by the DRC, was secured through deals with then-rebel leader Laurent Kabila before he took power in 1997, at a time when mining companies were helping finance his insurgency against the national government. The deal was made with a smaller firm called American Mineral Fields, which First Quantum was planning to buy, and did, securing the contract for themselves. From 1997 to 2001, while accumulating these contracts, their share prices shot “from zero to around $140 USD.”[3]

First Quantum's board has always been politically well-connected. Around this period, former Prime Minister Joe Clark was serving as an adviser and later he became a board member. In 2008, Carney told Democracy Now! that nearly all Canadian Prime Ministers since Trudeau have been involved in a mining company working in the Congo.

The international community's main concern remains re-shaping the DRC government much in the way foreign powers in Congo's colonial period saw themselves to be carrying out a “civilizing mission.” The World Bank and the UK have announced $92-million for their PROMINES project in the DRC “to increase transparency and accountability in the mining sector.”

Although the government of the DRC claims that during the period of mining renegotiation the people in charge of the First Quantum project in Kolwezi were “the only ones who refused to negotiate," and that "[t]hey refused with a lot of arrogance," the cancellation was, in fact, dubious. The holdings were transferred to a company registered in the British Virgin Islands owned by businessman Dan Gertler, among the wealthiest Israelis, who owns other companies financing Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Carney says in regard to Gertler that “just about every deal he's made in the Congo has benefited him, a select few people in the government, and undermined the people.”

The Canadian Ministry of Finance did not respond to a request for an interview from The Dominion. A Ministry representative previously told Reuters they would “continue to work with our international partners to ensure Canadian investment in the DRC is protected.”

Carney asks us to consider another way the G8 leaders' summit could have played out. “We're not aware of any statements the G8 has issued regarding the millions of Congolese dead or the hundreds of thousands of women raped... Imagine if the call from the G8 was for an end to the conflict and bringing peace and stability to the Congo, as opposed to securing mining deals for First Quantum.”

With files from David Barouski.

Macho Philipovich lives in Winnipeg.

Notes

1.Bloomberg, “BHP, Anglo Shun Congo Risks to Expand as Copper Soars,” 7 February 2006, quoted in Global Witness, “Digging in corruption: Fraud, abuse and exploitation in Katanga's copper and cobalt mines,” July 2006.

2.UN Security Council 16 October 2002 “Report of the Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” p 9: “In its attempts to buy rights to the Kolwezi Tailings, First Quantum Minerals (FQM) of Canada offered a down payment to the State of $100 million, cash payments and shares held in trust for Government officials. According to documents in the possession of the Panel, the payments list included the National Security Minister, Mwenze Kongolo; the Director of the National Intelligence Agency, Didier Kazadi Nyembwe; the Director General of Gecamines, Yumba Monga; and the former Minister of the Presidency, Pierre-Victor Mpoyo.”

3.Alain Deneault et al., Noir Canada: Pillage, corruption et criminalite en Afrique, Montreal, 2008. p 69.

Congo debt

Return to Tarmageddon

dawn — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 05:04:51 +0000

An Italian company's plan to develop tar sands in the Congo has activists worried

IGLESIAS, ITALY—You’ve likely heard about the tar sands in northern Alberta. You’re probably familiar with the devastation—environmental and social—this megaproject has brought to the land. Maybe you even have a relative who lives or works there.

There's less chance you've heard of the tar sands in the Republic of Congo (sometimes called Congo-Brazzaville). Even people living in the African nation, home to the second largest stand of tropical forest in the world, have been left in the dark.

“There is almost no information available about the project. We don’t even know the exact location, and communities are angry that they haven’t been consulted,” Brice Mackosso of the Justice and Peace Commission, told The Dominion.

Congolese activists gathered at a recent civil-society meeting in Italy around the G8 do know that Eni, an Italian oil company, has signed agreements with the scandal-ridden government of President Denis Sassou-Nguesso for tar sands development, as well as for a palm oil plantation with the intention to make biofuels.

Eni has begun exploration and intends to start drilling by 2011.

According to these activists, the license that Eni obtained covers an area of 1,790 km² a fraction of the 140,000 km² total size of the Alberta tar sands.

Preliminary tests show that oil deposits in this area could store up to seven billion barrels of oil.

Eni has signed its lease agreements not with the Oil Ministry, but with the Mining Ministry, revealing that they may intend to strip-mine the area.

Experience in Alberta shows that this kind of extractive activity requires deforesting vast stretches of land and pollutes the air and sky with toxic runoff generated in the upgrading from bitumen-laden sands into something that can be used as fuel.

The Congolese activists who spoke about these issues in Italy were alarmed to learn that Indigenous communities are being poisoned by the tar sands in Canada. “It is hard to imagine this kind of thing happening in Canada, and what would happen in the Congo,” said Mackosso.

In the Congo, the exploitation of the tar sands threatens one of the remaining great tropical ecosystems on earth, not to mention the global threat posed by greenhouse gas emissions released in the production of heavy synthetic crude.

But the immediate risk of opening up tar sands in the Republic of Congo is one that Indigenous and local communities face. Will they be poisoned and displaced to make way for the oil companies?

Even asking about the project has meant trouble for some. “People have been thrown in jail for opposing oil and gas, even for just questioning it,” said Christian Mounzeo from Rencontre pour la paix et les droits de l’homme (RPDH).

Both activists talked about how in Congo resentment still hangs in the air due to past deeds of oil companies. These companies include Congo's national Société Nationale des Pétroles du Congo and French giant Total, accused of failing to compensate local people for lands and habitats that were obliterated during previous oil exploration and extraction, as well as contaminating food and water sources.

Eni has completed an environmental impact assessment, but according to Congolese activists, a review of the company's study showed that some of the predicted impacts were underestimated.

At the local level, there are demands for an independent impact assessment and meaningful consultations with Indigenous and other local communities. Congolese groups have also called for an end to development of the tar sands and the palm-for-oil scheme until all the risks are disclosed.

“People [in Congo] are afraid to speak out. We need to get the information about the devastating impacts to communities,” said Mounzeo.

Ben Powless is a Mohawk activist with the Indigenous Environmental Network and an independent journalist and photographer. He visited Italy during the 2009 G8.

Flaring in Congo

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

Blood Cells

dawn — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 10:08:12 +0000

Coltan in phones exacerbates crisis in the Congo

OTTAWA, ONTARIO–After the film "Blood Diamond," starring Leonardo DiCaprio, was released in 2006, the diamond mines fuelling wars in other countries became familiar to more people in the West.

The film highlighted a disturbing phenomenon in some resource-rich conflict areas, particularly in Africa: international corporations operating in areas where regional fighting – and natural resources – are plentiful. Rival armies fight to control these resources and use the revenues to buy arms, and continue fighting.

Very few people, however, know that their cell phones may be doing the same thing. Almost all electronic equipment contains an element called tantalum that plays an important part in capacitors in electronic devices. Tantalum capacitors are used in laptop computers, pagers, mobile phones and game consoles.

Tantalum comes from two minerals, columbite or tantalite, which collectively are known as coltan. Eighty per cent of the world's coltan comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A 2001 Report of the Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo blamed coltan for helping fuel vicious civil wars since 1996.

Two former Canadian prime ministers have links to mining in the Congo. Brian Mulroney sits on the board of Barrick Gold. According to a 2005 Human Rights Watch report, Barrick operated a gold mine in the Congo's Haut Uélé District until 1998. In the mid 1990s, Joe Clark was both leader of the Progressive Conservative Party and a special advisor on Africa for the mining company First Quantum Mineral, according to a 2007 report by The Dominion. First Quantum's website indicates the company is still doing business in the Congo.

While former prime ministers have been active in the Congo, Canadian governments have been almost completely silent on the Congo and the impacts of Canadian mining companies operating in the country.

This, despite several United Nations reports drawing attention to illegal corporate exploitation of the Congo's minerals.

"Eighty per cent of the population in the Congo live on 30 cents a day or less, with billions of dollars going out the back door and into the pockets of mining companies," says Maurice Carney, who works with the Washington-based Friends of the Congo.

It was against this backdrop that Apple released its eagerly awaited 3G iPhone in July, selling more than one million units its first weekend out.

Does the new iPhone use Congolese coltan? Several calls to Apple's corporate office failed to get an answer to that question.

So what can people do who don't want to be indirectly fueling a war but aren't ready to stop using their phones? Carney suggests three things:

1) Call their cell phone manufacturer and ask if their phones contain Congolese coltan.

2) Do what they can to make sure their personal savings or pension money is not invested in companies doing business in the Congo.

3) Support the Congolese people by raising awareness of the war.

Carney also says that recycling cell phones can help by reducing overall demand for coltan. Cell phone recycling services are available in some Canadian cities. Switching phones less often also helps lessen demand.

For manufacturers, Carney believes it's not about getting Congolese coltan out of their products. Rather, "they can use their enormous power to pressure their governments to take action on the Congo." Carney says his organization would like companies to urge governments and their suppliers to ensure that any coltan coming from the Congo is acquired legally and benefits the Congolese people.

A version of the article appeared previously in rabble.ca

Robin Browne is an Ottawa-based communications professional who writes, blogs and podcasts about communications and marketing in the social economy at Conscious Images.

Blood Cell Phones

"Looters’ War" in the Congo

dawn — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 10:03:11 +0000

UN report exposes role of Canadian mining companies

MONTREAL, QUEBEC–The UN has failed the Congo tragically ever since the mineral-rich republic gained independence from Belgium in 1960. The alleged complicity of UN peacekeepers in the overthrow and assassination of elected Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba in 1961 gave way to a disastrous series of wars that continue to claim millions of lives.

But the UN got one thing right in 2000: the Security Council mandated a panel of experts to investigate Western involvement in the extraction of the vast natural resources of Africa's bleeding giant.

It was an unprecedented initiative. The US, Britain and France, the three major Western veto powers in the Security Council – and three major beneficiaries of the pillage of the Congo under the prolonged dictatorship of General Mobutu from the early 1960s well into the 1990s – must not have viewed it with favour.

After the genocides in Rwanda, Burundi and Eastern Congo, and the 1996 overthrow of Mobutu by a joint Rwanda-Uganda invasion camouflaged behind Laurent-Désiré Kabila, the latter had turned against his Western-backed tutors in 1998: war was raging in the Congo, with Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia actively supporting Kabila.

Africa stood up to the new Western plan of exploiting the Congo's wealth by using Rwanda and Uganda as surrogates. The West's Plan B aimed at breaking up the huge country along provincial and ethnic lines, beginning with the two Kivu provinces in the east – just as mineral-rich Katanga, abetted by the Belgians, had seceded soon after independence.

"The war against the Congo is a looting war," the Deputy Minister of Mines, Mbaka Kawaya, told me in March 2001 in Kinshasa, where I was covering for La Presse the impact of the assassination of Kabila, shot to death two months earlier in his office.

Spreading out on his desk maps of the East and North occupied by Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, Kawaya explained: "Copper and cobalt are hard work and of low value. But diamond, gold and coltan are easy to dig and truck or airlift across the border, even as far as Bangui and Brazzaville."

Days later, the Bush administration named Walter H. Kansteiner III to the post of US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs. He had done business in Apartheid South Africa, worked for Bush Sr and advised Bush Jr in the 2000 presidential campaign. Most of all, he advocated the dismemberment of the Congo.

Within weeks, the first UN report was tabled at the Security Council: it was a huge bomb blast that was either underreported or misreported in the mainstream media. It pointed the finger at rich countries and international financial institutions as "facilitators or passive accomplices" of "the systematic and systemic looting" of the Congo.

Beyond minerals, and coltan – a natural mix of two high-conducting, heat-resistant metals much in demand in the electronics industry (cell-phones, computers, video games) and in astronautics – the 53-page report denounced the plunder of the Congo's forests by Western "ecological" groups and holdings.

It underlined the pervasive links between the war and the looting: theft of agricultural products (coffee, cattle), of money from banks, of factories dismantled and moved piece by piece, and coercive use of children by various militias and imposition of "taxes" of all sorts on the civilian population.

The UN experts called for stiff sanctions against the authors of these economic crimes: an immediate embargo on the stolen resources and on arms delivery to rebel groups; an extension of the embargo to states that supported the rebels; a freeze on the assets of rebel groups, firms and individuals implicated in the looting; and an International Court to try those responsible and assess compensation for their victims.

Nothing concrete was achieved. As late as this year, University of Ottawa law professor Craig Forcese, who worked with government, industry and NGOs to define the social responsibility of Canadian mining companies in developing countries, shook his head in desperation, feeling all these efforts had been in vain.

****

Yet, the UN report on the Congo is a unique document. It is the first time such a study has been conducted under UN Security Council auspices, and it remains in the public domain as an official basis for action. Indeed, it has spurred Congolese civil society and opposition parties to push for the mining contract revision now under way in Kinshasa.

The UN panel of experts produced two more reports. In November 2001, a 38-page annex to the April report concluded that "the looting of the Congo continues unabated."

It proposed an "International Action Plan" that included a moratorium on the purchase of minerals and raw materials originating in the Congo and more support for the Congolese peace process and for institution-building in the wealthy yet impoverished country of 60 million, a country larger than Western Europe.

The final report was published in October 2002. It named 85 companies, including five Canadian ones, whose extraction of the natural resources of the Congo was in violation of the ethical principles of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, the club of wealthy, capitalist countries).

The Canadian firms charged were First Quantum Minerals, Tenke Mining, International Panorama Resources, Harambee Mining, and Melkior Resources. According to the report, which also named scores of individuals involved in the "elite networks" busy ransacking the Congo, three-quarters of the firms were registered in North America and Western Europe.

The 30-page document read like a John Le Carré novel. It laid bare the links between carnage, terror, war, looting, theft and corruption, and between powerful states and companies and regional and local military and political actors as well as various crime syndicates.

While Western governments, including Canada, ignored these findings, and the mainstream media trivialized them, the reports got quickly bogged down in controversy, with Uganda and Rwanda, proxies for the West, denouncing what they called the report's "harmful effects on peace efforts" in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The UN experts, including Jim Freedman of Canada, responded by accusing Rwanda and Uganda of "disguising" their occupation of the Congo by dressing their soldiers in militia outfits and staging fake "withdrawals" from Congolese territory.

The Canadian UN ambassador defended them, saying, "The alleged violations were not specified," and, "The OECD ethical principles are voluntary, not compulsory."

At a June 2003 meeting in Ottawa, Jim Freedman said, "Rebellions have become commercial enterprises. Wars have doubled in the '90s. Societies have become militarized. Conflicts are becoming commercialized. Wars open the way to profits.

"Multinational corporations don't respond to moral appeals," he said, noting that the OECD simply calls on them to respect human rights, fight corruption, and show a civic spirit and transparency.

The other UN experts reject that interpretation. "The OECD principles give governments a tool to pressure their companies, and if they don't act, they become accomplices" in the crimes their companies commit, said the panel when it published its October 2002 report.

****

"How is it that Canadian tourists can be sued here for abuse of children overseas, but Canadian firms have impunity when it comes to looting of resources, human rights violations and devastation of the environment?" asked Ed Broadbent, former President of Rights and Democracy, and former leader of the New Democratic Party.

Pushes for reform of mining laws gathered momentum when, in June 2005, the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade called on the government to compel extractive companies operating overseas to abide by stricter judicial, social and environmental norms. "It's a real breakthrough," said Joan Kuyek of MiningWatch.

The then-Liberal government quickly adopted one of the committee's recommendations by setting up a "National Contact Point" (NCP) to investigate violations of the OECD principles by mining companies.

The office turned out to be largely ceremonial, but the government also initiated a series of cross-Canada roundtables on the issue, involving civil servants, representatives of the extractive industries, experts and human rights and other civil society organizations.

This exercise produced a 70-page consensus report in March 2007 which called on Canada to show world leadership by compelling its extractive companies to respect stricter human rights, developmental and environmental norms overseas.

It noted that mining amounts to four per cent of Canadian GDP ($50.7 billion) and energy accounts for 5.9 per cent ($75.2 billion), supporting 638,000 jobs, and it asked that the "National Contact Point" (NCP) be replaced by a full-fledged Ombudsman equipped with biting judicial and investigatory powers.

The new Conservative government received the report, and seems to have locked it away. Meanwhile, Anvil Mining was involved in a massacre of Congolese civilians in Kilwa. And, as former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said, "Two tsunamis a year" (resulting in 500,000 victims) continue to hit Eastern Congo, as a result of the "looters' war."

Catapulted by the "peace process" and held aloft by 20,000 Blue Helmets of the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Joseph Kabila, son of Laurent-Désiré, is trying to keep the DRC safe for foreign investors. He is no Chavez or Morales, but Congolese civil society is pressing him hard to regain control of the country's resources for its own development.

The UN reports have played a pivotal role in this ongoing process. The experts’ panel tabled two more reports on the issue, well into 2003. Some were censored; most are unavailable today even on the UN website.

Jooneed Khan writes on foreign affairs for La Presse.

Links:

Blood Cell Phones 2

$178 million dollar mining company subsidy in DRC

dawn — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 14:12:52 +0000

The BBC is reporting that the World Bank has announced a $178 million dollar loan to the D.R. Congo to repair 1,700km of electric cables "to increase power for the mining sector."

Nevermind that only 6% of people in the DRC have access to electricity, the mining industry needs another massive subsidy.

Mining the Congo

hillarybain — Sat, 26 May 2007 16:04:34 +0000

Canadian mining companies in the DRC

This article is second in a two part series. Read the first article here.

Despite eight years of war in the Congo (from 1996 to 2003), with a death toll estimated at between four and ten million, and the continued risk of conflict today, Canada’s interest in the country since 1995 has been almost completely restricted to Congo’s mineral wealth.

Canada plays a major role in mining in Africa, says Denis Tougas, who is a staff member of l'Entraide Missionnaire, an international solidarity organization based in Quebec. Tougas has worked and lived, on and off, for 15 years in the Great Lakes region of Africa. As a resource-based economy, he says, Canada has a developed mining sector, one that accounts for over 30 per cent of all investment in prospecting on the African continent, a portion rivaled only by South Africa.

Before the war and the installation of Laurent Kabila as president, Tougas was working in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and remembers being asked why Kabila was meeting with Canadians. At that time, many of Congo's mining companies were government-owned. According to Tougas, "Kabila was using the plane of [mining company] American Mineral Fields to fly around the county... he was showing that he could make deals with the international community... even though he was not yet president. One of the people Kabila was meeting with was Joe Clark, former Canadian Prime Minister. In the mid 1990s, Clark was both leader of the Progressive Conservative Party and a special advisor on Africa for the mining company First Quantum Mineral. Records show that Canadian mining companies American Mineral Fields and Tenke received large contracts soon after these meetings.

UN report

When the Congo war broke out in 1996, a number of small Canadian mining companies were active in the DRC. In 2002, eight Canadian companies were implicated in the UN report entitled “Report on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth in the Congo”. In it, the UN panel said that American Mineral Fields, Banro, First Quantum, Hrambee Mining, International Panorama Resources, Kinross Gold, Melkior Resources and Tenke had violated OECD guidelines in mining activities during the Congo war. The report recommended investigations by the Canadian government into their actions.

“The Panel insists that they [the Panel] have concrete evidence of violations,” Mining Watch reported. “The companies vehemently deny the charges.”

The report generated a large backlash within the UN, says Tougas. "A number of UN representatives were angry that the panel [responsible for the report] did not ask for information from the companies involved." In response to the complaints, the panel received explanations from 119 of the 157 companies involved, and in 2003 it released its final report on the exploitation of the Congo, claiming that the allegations for seven out of the eight Canadian companies had been ‘resolved'.’ Many companies alleged they were cleared of wrongdoing but Tougas points out that the report’s use of the word ‘resolved’ “should not be seen as invalidating the Panel’s earlier findings with regard to the activities of those actors.”

In response to the UN report, l'Entraide Missionnaire filed a complaint to the Canadian National Contact Point for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to confirm the allegations against First Quantum. Quantum had been accused in the report of bribing officials in Katanga province to get land. However, says Tougas, the strategy of the mining companies had worked, since the complaint was refused because it was deemed to have been ‘resolved’ by the UN Panel.

Part of the problem for solidarity organizations that want Canadian mining companies to change is that, strictly speaking, Canadian companies never broke Congolese law, says Tougas. “These companies were allowed to be [in the Congo] according to the new mining code... signed during the war.” For example, Banro was operating on occupied territory but had signed a contract with the DRC government in Kinshasa allowing their presence in the region.

Still Mining

Eight to ten small Canadian mining companies are in the DRC today. The Montreal Mirror reports that accusations against Anvil Mining Ltd., which mines copper and silver in the DRC, may result in a lawsuit. The Australian-Canadian company is accused “of helping soldiers end an uprising in a village near an Anvil mine... in an assault that killed more than 80 rebels and villagers. Foreign Affairs Canada refuses to comment on whether Canada has been contacted by the AFP or the Australian government for the Anvil investigation,” the Mirror reported.

Le Monde Diplomatique reported that Canadian mining companies Barrick and Banro had been "funding military operations [in the DRC] in exchange for lucrative contracts." A report in Z Magazine in 2006 said Barrick still “operates in the town of Watsa, northwest of the town of Bunia, located in the most violent corner of the Congo. The Ugandan People’s Defense Force (UPDF) controlled the mines intermittently during the war. Officials in Bunia claim that Barrick executives flew into the region, with UPDF and RPF [Rwanda Patriotic Front] escorts, to survey and inspect their mining interests.”

Over the years advisors and directors for Barrick have included George H.W. Bush, Brian Mulroney, Edward Neys (US ambassador to Canada), Howard Baker (US Senator) and J. Trevor Eyton (Canadian Senator), among others.

Government Inaction

Aside from direct links to politicians, Canada has other reasons for not monitoring or trying to stop Canadian exploitation of resources in the DRC. In a recent article in the Georgia Straight, Mining Watch pointed out that governments have allowed mining-friendly tax laws and a “long and lousy tradition of poorly regulated penny-stock companies.”

According to Tougas, “Most of the known resources [in the DRC] are now being found by junior (under $4 million) Canadian companies who were able to take risks... and take advantage of the war.” Today, Tougas says these same companies have a major interest in the South-West province of Katanga.

Though the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade released a report last year, the government has refused to implement its recommendations regarding better monitoring of Canada’s mining firms abroad. Today, the committee says questions about Canadian companies in the Congo are “now under the jurisdiction of the Standing Committee on International Trade.”

Though the mandate and the powers of the Standing Committee on International Trade can be requested via e-mail, repeated requests for these documents were not met.

Tougas says that although the Canadian government occasionally talks about aid to the DRC, more often than not, what the Congolese receive are more Canadian mines, not aid dollars. 75 per cent of mining resources in the DRC are owned by foreign companies. Congo is rated 142nd worldwide on the human development index and 158th for GDP per capita. “The profit is only going to the companies, not the Congoese people,” he said.

However, the Congolese government may be taking matters into its own hands. A report released last year by the DRC looks at mining deals made by the president between 1996-1998. It recommends that deals between the president and 6 Canadian companies and a host of others be ‘revised’ in order to benefit the Congo. The recommendations may not be adopted, however. “It has certainly divided parliament,” he says.

Congo Part II

Canada in the Congo War

hillarybain — Mon, 14 May 2007 14:43:14 +0000

Role of mining, resource extraction has been neglected

Even for those who follow world events, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is little known in Canada.

The DRC holds two major distinctions. First, it is the richest country in Africa in terms of mineral wealth: gold, diamonds, cobalt and chromium all exist in abundance. Second, it is the country in which the highest number of people – roughly, 4 to10 million – have died due to war since World War II.

Africa’s First World War

The second major civil war in the Congo is often referred to as Africa’s first world war. It raged between 1996 and 2003. Several countries, including Zimbabwe, Angola, Chad and Namibia fought with the Congolese government and their rebel allies against the rebels in the east and soldiers from Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi. Alliances, militias, rebels and sites of conflict were constantly shifting throughout the war. At the height of the conflict, 60 per cent of the Congo was under foreign control. In addition to the millions dead, millions more were forced to flee their homes; mass rapes and destruction were commonplace. Large parts of the DRC are still under rebel control and, according to the Belgian-based Crisis Group, about 1000 people are dying every day due to war-related disease, hunger and violence.

The official reason for the war is that it was caused by inter-African tensions. After Congolese president Laurent Kabila came to power, he became distrustful of the power held by his former allies, Rwanda and Uganda. According to a number of sources, Rwandan forces became worried that possible Hutu militias hiding in the Eastern Congo could wage further attacks on Tutsis. An uprising in the Eastern Congo prompted an invasion by Rwanda. Ugandan and Burundi forces entered the country soon thereafter. The DRC government responded by sending forces to retaliate, and the war began.

Western Backing

Writers Asad Ismi, Keith Harmon Snow and David Barouski, who have been writing about the Congo for years, believe this is not the full story. They assert that the Congo conflict had more to do with Western desires for Congo’s resources than squabbling between African states.

A 2004 report by Global Witness points to what drives these desires. According to the report, large amounts of coltan (used in mobile phones), copper, cobalt, gold, diamonds, oil, gas and timber were mined and transported out by companies operating mines in Congolese territory while it was under the foreign control of Burundi, Uganda and Rwanda, and even Congo’s allied states.

Ismi believes that the millions dead in the Congo are mainly the product of Western desires for the Congo’s mineral wealth. “Congo has been ripped apart by imperialism and foreign powers for over a hundred years," he says. "It is well known that [the Congo war] was a brainchild of the US.”

In his article “Congo: The Western Heart of Darkness,” published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Ismi points to numerous reports, including those from Human Rights Watch and the Washington Post, which show that “US soldiers were sighted in the company of Rwandan troops in the Congo on July 23 and 24, 1998.” He also notes the US’s refusal “to call for the immediate withdrawal of its close allies, the Rwandan and Ugandan forces, which it…trained, armed and financed.”

“There is enough evidence to conclude that the U.S. backed and justified the invasion of the Congo by its proxies Rwanda and Uganda and then proceeded to join in and encourage the plunder of the country,” especially when taken in context with former US-backed Congo regimes, he says.

Western Mining

In their article “Behind the Numbers: Untold Suffering in the Congo,” Keith Harmon Snow and David Barouski cite numerous examples of companies which directly or indirectly benefited from the DRC war, including Anglo-American, Cabot Co., Metalor and Sony. “Mining in the Congo by western companies proceeds at an unprecedented rate," Snow and Barouski write, "and it is reported that some $6 million in raw cobalt alone… exits DRC daily.” They also argue that the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo, the largest UN mission ever, is concentrating on rebel groups in the eastern Congo, “effectively clearing it for large-scale multi-national mining.”

Ismi agrees. “The richest areas in the East...were being mined…with a weak government in Kinshasa. International Panorama Resources [a Vancouver-based mining company] was mining in the most violent area [of the DRC] and being protected by Uganda.”

Canada’s UN commitment to one of the most deadly wars in history was two aircraft and fifty troops in 2003. In September 2006, Liberal Senator Peter Stollery slammed Canada's "disgraceful" military presence in Africa. When it comes to the major recipients of Canadian aid through CIDA, the DRC doesn't even make the top ten.

Ten Canadian companies were implicated in the UN report entitled "Report on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and other Forms of Wealth in the Congo,” published in 2002. One of the most comprehensive and damning reports on Western activities in the Congo, the UN report implicated 157 companies and recommended travel bans, legal action and investigation by states where these companies were located.

Though all 10 companies were accused of violating the guidelines of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and some were accused of bribing officials in order to have access to land, the Canadian government has failed to investigate the companies’ role in the Congo war, said Mining Watch Canada.

The recommendations from a 2005 report by the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, which call for stricter monitoring of mining companies in hotspots like Congo, Guatemala, Romania, El Salvador, India, the Philippines, Peru and Mexico, have not been adopted.

European Union forces stationed in the Congo

UN accused of participating in Congo massacre

Sat, 24 Jun 2006 19:12:47 +0000

The UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo is investigating reports that UN soldiers colluded in the massacre of civilians and the destruction of a village during a joint operation with the Congolese army, Reuters reports.

The assault was intended to dislodge Walendu ethnic militias from the Front de Resistance Patriotique en Ituri (FRPI) before Congo's first democratic elections on July 30.

According to an article in the Observer, UN soldiers opened fire using mortars and heavy machineguns when women and children were present and gave no warning of their attack. Later, as UN troops watched, the Congolese army torched the village.

Survivors say that up to 30 civilians were killed during and after the initial UN mortar barrage, reports Alternet

The attack occurred on April 21st and the UN was informed of the attack by a journalist on April 30. The investigation was not announced until after the Observer article appeared two months later.

Canadians are among the 17,000 UN troops in Congo.

Despite 4 Million Deaths, the Congo's War Remains Largely Ignored

Mon, 14 Mar 2005 08:58:06 +0000

According to a recent Reuters poll of over 100 humanitarian professionals, media personalities, academics and activists, the civil war in the Congo is the most important crisis "forgotten" by the mainstream media.

With over four million casualties since 1998 - more than 10 times as many as killed in the Asian tsunami - John O'Shea of Ireland's GOAL relief agency has branded the Congo conflict the worst humanitarian disaster since the Holocaust.

Although the conflict officially ended in 2003, violence has continued in most parts of the country. According to one BBC report, mass rape has been a tactic employed "as a weapon of war; a means of humiliating and controlling civilian populations."

The Reuters Alternet poll also mentions conflicts in Uganda and the Darfur region of Sudan as the second and third most "forgotten" new stories respectively.

Reuters: Poll: Congo war is world's top 'forgotten' crisis

BBC: No justice for DR Congo's raped

The Dominion: Congo's President Promises Elections

Congo's President Promises Elections

Tue, 26 Oct 2004 01:57:17 +0000

Congo President Joseph Kabila visited the town of Kisangani in the rebel-controlled eastern part of the country last week in what appears to be a run-up to an election campaign. President Kabila recently reaffirmed his commitment to hold free elections in 2005 - the first in Congo since 1960.

He is campaigning on a "peace and security" platform: Congo will no longer tolerate foreign invaders, a promise that hits close to home in Kisangani which was pillaged by Ugandan and Rwandan troops in the 1998-2003 war. Kabila also promised to make peace with the rebels in the country's east and to begin paying civil servants, who have been living off of bribery for years.

President Kabila, who was installed as head of state following the assasination of his father, Laurent Kabila, in the failed coup of 2000, is the favourite to win the elections if they are held. His main opponent is the former rebel leader and Congolese Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba, who is under investigation by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. Azarias Ruberwas - another ex-rebel and vice-president - is even less popular, and his party is expected to lose most of its seats in the election, fueling fears that his faction may take up arms again.

In anticipation of elevated tension in the Congo, the UN has increased the number of peacekeepers in the country from 11,000 to nearly 17,000 and is promising to pressure President Kabila to follow through on his promises.

Geoff Hamilton

» The Economist: President Kabila Goes East

» UN: Congo Elections Possible in 2005 Only With Political Progress

» Turkish Press: Congo's Kabila to Make First Ever Trip to Troubled East of Country

International News

Sun, 18 May 2003 03:23:33 +0000

Tommy Franks Charged With War Crimes
A Belgian lawyer and 19 Iraqis are charging US General Tommy Franks with war crimes under a Belgian law that allows citizens to charge foreigners for violations of international law. "We have a very specific case, with specific evidence," said Jan Fermon, the lawyer filing the suit.

» AP: Iraqis to file war crimes case against Gen. Tommy Franks
» BBC: US anger at war crimes threat
» Daily Telegraph: America threatens to move Nato after Franks is charged

Iraq Civilian Death Toll Jumps to 3700
According to numbers compiled from press reports by the Iraq Body Count Project, the number of recorded civilian deaths in the war on Iraq has exceeded 3700. Recent reports of more than 1400 deaths from 19 different Baghdad Hospitals were responsible for the sharp increase. Other recent causes of civilian casualties have been unexploded munitions from cluster bombs, which are often mistaken for food aid packages, and the US shooting of 15 people at a recent protest in Fallujah.

The project monitors the web sites of news agencies and major newspapers, and counts only reports that appear in more than one source. When reports differ, a maximum and minimum number of reported deaths is recorded. The most recent maximum total was 4805.

» The Iraq Body Count website includes a description of methodology and a listing of all reports compiled, and their sources.

Argentinians Protest Brukman Factory Evictions
Thousands of Argentinians have been staging continuous protests following the eviction of workers who had occupied the Brukman clothing factory in Buenos Aires. The men's clothing factory had been shut down two years ago by the owners during the height of Argentina's economic collapse, but was reopened by workers who were desperate for income.

The factory, along with over 200 others in Argentina, was run collectively by the workers until police locked the factory overnight and set up a blockade.

Over 10,000 attended a May Day protest at the factory, which ended with tear gas from the police and molotov cocktails from activists. On May 7th, several of the evicted workers staged a "sew-in" in the street outside the Brukman factory, making blankets and clothing for victims of a flood disaster in southern Argentina.

» Christian Science Monitor: Frustrated Argentines take business into own hands
» Naomi Klein: Argentina's Luddite Rulers
» Indymedia Argentina has many photographs, and coverage in Spanish.
» Americas.org: Brukman Struggle Continues
» Americas.org: May Day March, Brukman Pact

US Task Force Abandons Search for Illegal Weapons
The 75th Exploitation Task Force, the group responsible for finding Weapons of Mass Destruction in post-war Iraq is preparing to discontinue their operations without having found any illegal weapons, according to sources quoted by the Washington Post. The sources partially blamed looting and burning for the lack of available evidence.

According to officials, the search will continue, but biologists, physicists, and other experts will be moved off-site until there is something for them to look at. "I don't think we'll find anything," one Army Captain commented, noting that any weapons would have disappeared in the post-war chaos by now.

» Washington Post: Frustrated, U.S. Arms Team to Leave Iraq

Stop Ignoring the Congo, Says UN Human Rights Commissioner
United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights Sergio Vieira de Mello said that the international community has been ignoring atrocities in the Congolese civil war. De Mello said that additional peacekeeping troops were necessary to prevent further tragedies.

» Reuters: UN rights chief says world ignoring Congo violence