The current globalisation means that the rich countries benefit from the natural resources of the poor countries. To maintain the profits the Western countries, particularly the U.S., start up and sustain wars in the Third World. An example of this is the war in Congo (ex-Zaire). Although the Congo war cost nearly the lives of 3 million people, the West European and American leaders do not put in any efforts to end this war. The reason is that the Western economy has too much interest in its continuation.
Congo is once named "a geographic scandal" because of its incredible riches of natural resources, like gold, cassiterite, coltan, diamond, manganese, uranium, copper, cobalt, wood, etc; some of them are scarce minerals that are heavily desired by the Western industry. When the war broke out in august 1998 it was presented in the Western world as an interior revolt against president Kabila. The reality was that Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi had invaded the country and subsequently their armies were occupying a great part of the land. In contradistinction to actions led by Western leaders in case of illicit invasions in the world as f.e. the invasion of Koeweit by Irak now they kept silent and there was not a single condemnation of the aggressors of Congo. The Ugandan and Rwandan leaders were backed by the American war policy: The U.S. had trained Ugandan and Rwandan military, provided military supplies, and at the moment of the invasion the Americans were giving logistic support to the armies of Uganda and Rwanda. So, in reality, it was a war of the west against Congo with the objective to remove Kabila, who was reluctant to give mineral concessions to western multinationals. At this moment there is no war at the frontlines, but in the East of Congo the war is still continuing, it is the war for natural resources.
Last year a UN Panel of Experts published two reports about the illegal exploitation of Congolese natural resources and other forms of wealth. The first report was published in April '01, the second in November '01. They describe the involvement of the Ugandan and Rwandan armies and some high military officers in the illegal exploitation of gold, diamond, coltan and wood in eastern Congo. These officers are in close connection with the leaders of their countries: president Museveni of Uganda and president Kagame of Rwanda. The UN Panel also published some statistics showing that the gold and diamond export of these countries has considerably increased since 1998, although they have almost no gold and diamond production themselves. Coltan is a similar story. It consists of two metals: columbium (is the same as niobium) and tantalum. Tantalum is a conductor used in many modern, technical instruments for western consumers like the mobile phone, the play station, the computer, and it is also used in the aerospace industries. More than 60% of the coltan stockpile all over the world is to be found in the soil of eastern Congo. The exploitation and trade of coltan takes generally place as follows: Congolese people, often children, are digging near riverbeds looking in the grey mass of sand for the precious metals. Armed Rwandan soldiers or Congolese rebels are watching them. The diggers sometimes get three to five dollar pro kilo coltan spending half a week to find such a quantity, if not the military stole their coltan. On the world market the price of one-kilo coltan had increased at the end of 2000 to $ 850 (!). A good price for the military! The traders, often-high Rwandan officers, sell this coltan to European companies who have their trading posts in the region. These companies stay in connection with some freighters, mostly western, who transfer the coltan to European or American tantalum processing plants, like Stack in Hamburg and the American company Cabot. After being processed, the Tantalum powder is transferred to the chips manufacturers like Intel, NEC, Hitachi etc. These concerns produce the Tantalum capacitors that are used by Siemens, Compaq, HP, Ericsson etc, to produce the high tech instruments on behalf of the Western consumer.
The IPIS report: "European companies and the coltan trade: supporting the war economy in the DRC", published in January 2002, gives more detailed information and contains studies about some companies trading with rebel leaders or with officers of the Rwandan Patriotic Army. f.e. The Belgian company Cogecom, importer of coltan in Europe, the German company Masingiro, importer of around 50 tonnes of coltan a month, part of which comes from the Congo, and that arrives at the airport of Ostende in Belgium, and the Swiss concern Finmining that has commercial links with the Rwandan Patriotic Army.
The illegal trade generates income for the Congolese rebels as well as for the military officers of Uganda and Rwanda and for their politico-military state apparatus. As an example, we give a statement of Congolese rebel leader Onusumba, who once said: "We raise more or less 200 000 dollars a month from diamonds. Coltan gives us much more: a million dollars a month!"
The war is continuing and the local people do not have any advantage of the riches of their land, but are victims of the repression of military groups, who are fighting each other to control the mineral resources and gold mines. Western companies involved in the illegal trade never meet with any sanctions, and till now there is no embargo against the import of plundered wealth.
Concerning the EU aid to the countries involved in the Congo war, we know that 40 to 50% of the total bilateral and multilateral development aid to these countries comes from the EU. The weight of the European Union and its member states in terms of development assistance is more important than that of other donors in the world like USA, Japan etc. But the EU has not used its weight to press the warring countries to stop their war and their aggression against the Congo and the Congolese people. The EU has done the opposite: between 1995 and 2000 the aid flows to the aggressors of Congo, Uganda and Rwanda, have increased compared with the preceding five years. Some figures: in '98, Uganda received the sum of $ 88,7 million EU aid, in '99 Rwanda nearly $ 45 million of EU aid. Not only the aggressiveness against their neighbouring country Congo is obviously forgotten by the EU, but also the principles of the Cotonou Agreement, like democratisation, human rights etc, do not seem to have any importance for giving EU aid, opposite to what Europe is claiming, to be the defender of human rights and peace in the world. To remember: Museveni's party, the Resistance Movement, is the only permitted political party, Kagame and his Tutsi clan give not a single possibility for opponents of his regime to speak freely. In both countries many innocent people are imprisoned without trials. etc.
It is incredible that the EU has supported these regimes during the war, while the Congo was totally deprived from official structural aid, under the guise of the undemocratic Kabila regime!
It is important to mention in the framework of our presentation that the Ugandan and Rwandan regimes also had and have still income from the plundering of Congolese resources.
Thanks to this income and the generous help of the European countries, and the politico-military assistance of the USA, Uganda and Rwanda can continue their occupation of Congo and their terror against the Congolese people.
And the Western concerns have free access to Eastern Congo to carry on trade in diamond and coltan and to exploit mineral mines, thanks to the good relations between the West and the occupying regimes.
Nelly Koetsier