Greed drives ‘self-financing’ war Vultures descend on DRC

It has become trendy to blame globalization and the “corporate agenda” for the world’s ills, but when it comes to human misery, even the vilest industry captain would be left in the dust by some of the political and military leaders strutting about today. This grim truth was exposed in a United Nations report that examined the illegal exploitation of natural resources and other forms of wealth during a three-year period of armed conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Although some rogue businessmen were involved in the illicit activities, the main players and beneficiaries were top army commanders and politicians from neighbouring countries.

The report adds yet another chapter to an already-massive saga of political malfeasance. In the past century, fascist and communist leaders and their military minions wreaked havoc as they battled to expand their spheres of influence. Hitler, Lenin, Stalin and Mao are dead and gone now — along with their bloodsoaked, bankrupt ideologies — and the world is a better place for it. But misery lives on, fuelled in this century not by ideology but by raw greed and the lust for power. Nowhere is this more true than in the DRC, one of the world’s most exploited and poorly governed nations.

In the 19th century, King Leopold II of Belgium created the Congo Free State and built a vast personal fortune by exploiting its natural resources. The duplicity and violence used to extract this wealth shocked European citizens, and by 1908, the Belgian Parliament was persuaded to take the colony out of Leopold’s control.

After independence in 1960 came Mobutu Sese Seko, whose ceaseless pillaging brought Zaire to almost complete chaos. Natural resources were plundered, but the wily dictator also diverted funds from foreign-aid programs, extracted kickbacks from businesses, seized foreign-owned assets, and dipped into the public till at will. In some years, his “presidential allowance” consumed half of the nation’s capital budget. Small wonder that he predicted: “Aprs moi, le dluge.”

The deluge began even before Mobutu was toppled by rebel leader, Laurent-Desire Kabila (now deceased), in 1996. Kabila was helped by Angolan, Rwandan and Ugandan forces, but this alliance was short-lived. By 1998, Ugandan and Rwandan troops were fighting the Congolese army in several parts of the renamed country. Kabila fought back with the help of the Angolan, Namibian and Zimbabwean armies. Resource-rich areas attracted the most attention from the warring parties.

What happened next was mass-scale looting in the occupied zones of the DRC by Burundian, Rwandan and Ugandan armies, as well as by some Congolese rebel groups opposed to Kabila. These areas were drained of existing stockpiles of minerals, agricultural and forest products, and livestock. The looters visited farms, storage facilities, factories and banks, and demanded that the managers open the doors and coffers. In some cases, entire factories were dismantled and carted away. Civilians were robbed of their meagre savings, and those who resisted were killed.

The looting became more focused and organized over time. For example, Rwandan forces seized stockpiles of coltan (columbium-tantalum), which took months to be flown into Kigali. Ugandan politicians and generals hauled away vast amounts of coffee beans. The UN report says these lootings were “not only the acts of isolated individual soldiers but were encouraged, and sometimes organized and co-ordinated, by the highest army commanders of both Rwanda and Uganda.”

Once all the easy booty was gone, the occupying forces turned their attention to a second phase of exploitation: organized resource extraction, usually involving timber, metals and diamonds. The report cites a Ugandan-Thai forestry company that had been denied a concession by authorities in Kinshasa. After making a deal with local rebels, the firm illegally harvested timber in an unsustainable manner in eastern DRC. Vast quantities were shipped first to Uganda, and then to Kenya for shipment to Asia, Europe and North America. The company even tried to have its products certified by the Forest Stewardship Council! When the first attempt failed, it conned the council into believing that a “model” forest in Uganda was where the timber had been produced.

In the mining sector, extraction was carried out by individual soldiers for their own benefit, by locals organized by Rwandan and Ugandan commanders, and by foreign nationals for the army or commanders’ benefit. Rwanda used prisoners to dig coltan in exchange for a sentence reduction. Local farmers were also exploited, and the use of child labour was rampant.

The report goes on and on and on, citing case after case where government and military leaders, and their families, profited from the pillage and plunder of DRC. The list of names includes the younger brother of Ugandan President Museveni, “who pulls the strings of illegal activities in areas controlled by Uganda and allies,” and his wife, who is described as being “at the root of the Kisangani [diamond] wars.” The Rwandan list also includes prominent political and military figures, as well as a woman alleged to have been involved in arms-trafficking for Burundian Hutus and trafficking in gold, ivory and cigarettes. In the DRC, she was a major player in gold, coltan and cassiterite dealings in territories controlled by Rwandans.

The report also cites “suspicious” increases in diamond and gold production for both Uganda and Rwanda, which are coincident with their occupation of DRC. Like Burundi, these nations were exporting minerals and other commodities they do not produce. Because of the combined value of these commodities, the report concludes that the conflict in the DRC “has become mainly about access, control and trade of five key mineral resources: coltan, diamonds, copper, cobalt and gold.”

The conflict is ongoing, even though a cease-fire was negotiated, calling for the occupying forces to return home. But as the report stated, “top military commanders from various countries, for different reasons, needed, and continue to need, this conflict for its lucrative nature and for temporarily solving some internal problems in those countries, as well as allowing access to wealth. They have realized that the war has the capacity to sustain itself, and therefore have created or protected criminal networks that are likely to take over fully if all foreign armies decided to leave the DRC.”

As might be expected, the report generated howls of outrage from Ugandan and Rwandan officials, some of whom felt they had been “singled out” for criticism while other countries involved in the conflict — namely Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe — were relatively ignored. They have a point. The activities of these nations were given short shrift, ostensibly because data were not available. However, the report did note that Zimbabwean companies and some decision-makers benefited from an “incentives for assistance” scheme whereby the DRC traded resources for military aid.

Laurent Kabila’s short-lived government did not emerge unscathed either. The investigating panel found “evidence of a widespread practice by which the late president Kabila would, by proxy, have companies give a certain percentage of their profits.” The bags of cash would be picked up weekly, or even daily.

Will things ever change? Yes, if the international community condemns such activities and steps up efforts to restore peace. Yes, if President Joseph Kabila roots out corruption and improves governance. And yes, if resources are developed in a manner that benefits the many, rather than the few. The world’s mining companies are ready to help, but not until rules are in place to prevent the kind of economic anarchy that has prevailed for too long in the DRC.