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Plunder in the Congo 25th October 2002 United Nations - The chief author of a UN report on the plundering of Congo's riches said on Friday that big mining firms, despite denials, played a crucial role in the looting of the African nation's gems and minerals. "The role of these companies is really important," said Egyptian Mahmoud Kassem, chairman of a panel of UN experts whose report on the pillaging of the Democratic Republic of Congo's natural resources was issued on Monday. "Corporations have a direct and indirect role. Without them, this kind of commerce would not be possible," he told a news conference, emphasizing everything in the report had been corroborated before publication. The panel's report said the systematic pillaging continued unabated by the military in Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe, aided by Congolese government officials and criminal networks. The panel called on the United Nations to impose financial restrictions on 29 companies and 54 individuals involved in the pillaging. It also named 85 multinational mining firms as well as banks in South Africa, Europe, Canada and the United States, accusing them of ignoring OECD guidelines on ethics and dealings with human rights abusers. Among the resources in the central African nation are gold, diamonds, medicinal barks, cobalt, copper and industrial metals niobium and cassiterite. The country also produces coltan, a mixture of columbite and tantalite, used in light bulb filaments and nuclear reactor parts. But mining giants around the world quickly rejected allegations of "mineral rape'' in the war-torn nation formerly known as Zaire, whose inhabitants are desperately poor though it is home to some of the world's richest mineral resources. Global mining giant Anglo American PLC told Reuters it had had no operations in the Congo since the 1960s. Diamond king De Beers added there was nothing in the report to substantiate the allegations, and Canadian miner First Quantum Minerals asked for a full retraction. But non-profit groups and analysts dismissed the companies' claims, saying they were part of a long chain that contributed to the Congo's exploitation. Kassem said the expert panel, rather than punish the firms, hoped to convince them to operate in war zones like Congo in an open fashion and in compliance with the OECD guidelines. "Without the international enterprises and corporations and African corporations changing their policy, the exploitation is going to continue," he said. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he hoped there was a way of putting an embargo on the Congo's mineral exports. "I hope that we can find some way of dealing with it in the Congo, either through a direct ban or governments taking responsibility for companies that are registered in their countries to ensure that they did not behave irresponsibly," he said. On Thursday, Congo Foreign Minister Leonard She Okitundu urged the United Nations to help end the looting and said his government in Kinshasa would investigate its own officials named by the panel as beneficiaries of the pillaging. But in a speech to the UN Security Council, he defended ally Zimbabwe, accused in the panel's report as a key player in the plunder along with Uganda and Rwanda. He said the panel was wrong to equate Zimbabwe with Uganda and Rwanda, which invaded his country. Zimbabwe's troops had "paid the price of blood in order that the Democratic Republic of the Congo shall live," he said. But Okitundu thanked the panel for "breaking through the myths" in describing how economics was fueling the fighting in Congo's four-year civil war, Africa's biggest conflict. The war erupted in 1998 when rebels backed by Uganda and Rwanda tried to topple Congo's Kinshasa government. Troops from Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia then fought for the Kinshasa government. Reuters |
