Canada and the World
Current Events with a Canadian Perspective
Last update
27 April 2011
Gold and Diamonds
Fuel Conflict in Congo
The Congolese conflict, which has been called Africa’s
world war, is sustained by export earnings from
the natural resources that are plundered by rebels
There are resources many people have never heard of that are driving wars.
Wolframite (an ore that contains tungsten being dug up by labourers at left), coltan (used in cell phones), cassiterite (raw tin that lines metal food and beverage cans), and other minerals are found in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
More recognizable gold and diamonds also stoke the fires of conflict.
Reporting for BBC News (April 9, 2009), Thomas Fessy and Mark Doyle write: “Many
of the mines…in eastern DR Congo -
Scott Pelley with the CBS News program 60 Minutes (November 29, 2009) outlined how the DRC’s latest trouble started: “[In 1998], Uganda and Rwanda invaded Congo. Seven more countries joined in and started stealing Congo’s resources. The invasion ended, but ever since, rebel militias and government forces have fought over local power, ethnic hatred, and control of the minerals.”
This is confirmed by Stephanie Nolen, (Globe and Mail, October 29, 2008), “Congo’s
long-
Gold Drives Warfare
In 2005, Human Rights Watch issued a report on the battle for control of gold in Congo’s Ituri province in the country’s northeast corner. Prior to hostilities, gold mining provided a livelihood to the people of the region. This all came to an end when the Ugandan and Rwandan soldiers arrived.
Central Intelligence Agency
According to the Human Rights Watch report, “Soldiers and armed group leaders, seeing control of the gold mines as a way to money, guns, and power, have fought each other ruthlessly, often targetting civilians in the process…
“Rather than bringing prosperity to the people of northeastern Congo, gold has been a curse to those who have the misfortune to live there.”
War of Atrocities and Corruption
This war has been costly in human terms; estimates of the dead range from three million to five million. In addition, Nolen says a particular horror of this conflict is that “thousands of women have been victim of the war’s signature tactic, public gang rape;” the purpose of this is to terrorize the civilian population into obedience. Many of these war crimes have been linked to FDLR forces.
Typical of failed and failing states, the DRC’s government is powerless to do anything to stop the trade in minerals. Rebels control large swaths of the country and, where there is a government presence, its officials take bribes from mineral traders.
The 60 Minutes program found a rebel soldier who said his unit bought weapons and ammunition with the money that comes from illegal mining. And, who sold them the arms? Some of the government’s own soldiers.
Minerals Feed Industries
Eventually, these precious resources find their way out of Africa. With some refining and processing they turn up in digital players, video game consoles, laptop computers, and as jewelry.
It’s difficult for the companies that make these products or the consumers who buy them to know whether or not their actions contribute to war.
Is the capacitor in any given cell phone made with coltan mined illegally by rebels in Congo? As 80 percent of the world’s coltan is found in that troubled country it’s likely the purchase of a cell phone does play a part in a war on the other side of the world.
Global Witness is an organization that is trying to find solutions to the problem. It’s not having a lot of success. In a January 2010 report entitled “Lessons UNlearned,” the group dishes out heavy criticism to the United Nations, national governments around the world, and business.
The first sentence of the reports reads: “The will and the capacity of the United
Nations (UN) and Member States to deal with natural resource-
Global Witness makes the case that the scale and cause of the violence in the Congo and elsewhere has been known for a long time. The group says that UN calls to stop trading with affected areas are simply ignored by member states; even by the Security Council members that draw up the resolutions.
Meanwhile, the UN may be about to end its peacekeeping mission in the DRC. The world
body has more than 20,000 military personnel in the country involved in its biggest
peacekeeping effort in the world.
An Associated Press report (April 6, 2010) says that Congo’s President Joseph Kabila
has called for the “peacekeeping force to leave before September 2011 so the country
can ‘fly with its own wings,’ but the UN secretary-
The concern of Ban Ki-
Image credits
Thehunter1184
United Nations
Sources
“From Rebel-
“How Gold Pays for Congo’s Deadly War.” Scott Pelley, CBS News 60 Minutes, November 29, 2009.
“How Rebels Profit from Blood and Soil.” Stephanie Nolen, Globe and Mail, October 29, 2008.
“The Curse of Gold.” Human Rights Watch, June 1, 2005.
“Lessons Unlearned.” Global Witness, January 2010.
“Congo’s President Urges Peacekeepers to Leave.” Associated Press, April 6, 2010.
© Canada and the World, April 2011
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LEOPOLD’S CONGO
What’s happening in the Congo today is not new for that unfortunate country.
Leopold II was king of Belgium from 1865 to 1909. In 1885, he seized the area that is today known as the Democratic Republic of Congo. He called it Congo Free State and deemed it to be his own personal possession, not a colony of Belgium.
Leopold wanted the area’s natural resources. He never set foot in the place but, says a BBC documentary, he turned it “into a massive labour camp, made a fortune for himself from the harvest of its wild rubber, and contributed in a large way to the death of perhaps 10 million innocent people.”
The 2003 film White King, Red Rubber, Black Death documents the hideous cruelty with which the king ran his private domain.
The documentary’s writer and director, Peter Bate, says Leopold set the pattern: “What is now called the Democratic Republic of Congo has clearly never recovered. ‘Legalized robbery enforced by violence,’ as Leopold’s reign was described at the time, has remained, more or less, the template by which Congo’s rulers have governed ever since.”
According to Earthworks, “Gold demand for jewelry represents the equivalent of 90 percent of gold mine production.”