The Democratic Republic of Congo

Systematic Plundering of the Country's Mineral Resources

by Joseph M. Kyalangilwa, President of the Civil Society of South Kivu

Nobody wanted to believe the various accusations and statements made by the South Kivu province's co-ordinating office of the Civil Society [South Kivu being the easternmost province of the Democratic Republic of Congo and most affected by the war atrocities and plundering, ed.]. The office has regularly documented all acts of aggression, the massacres committed against the civilian population and the systematic plundering of the mineral resources and other forms of wealth of the Congolese since 2 August 1998.
Now an official report, commissioned by the UN Security Council and carried out by an international panel of experts, has fully confirmed these accusations.
The European and the American media have not reported on it. Neither have Western NGO networks, which were provided in time with all the information by the Civil Society of the Democratic Republic of Congo through all available channels and under great risk and danger to the Society's leaders.

Beginning with the arrival of the troops of Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi in Kivu at the beginning of August 1998 we have had to stand by and watch while our banks, our businesses, our public and private buildings as well as our educational, health and industrial infrastructures were systematically looted and plundered. All these goods have been taken away to the three neighboring countries in the east (Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda). The airports of Entebbe (Uganda) and Kigali (Rwanda) were much frequented by Antonov-28 airplanes and other types of larger cargo aircraft, flown exclusively by Russian and South African pilots. Between August and December 1998 these airplanes, as well as Rwandan military helicopters, flew continuously from dawn to dusk between the airports of Entebbe and Kigali and the airfields of Kivu.

In one example, an average of 70 flights daily were counted for each of the Shabunda and Walikale airfields. Besides the Congolese airfields of Bukavu and Goma, there are an additional 38 airfields in Kivu, however, which have runway lengths between 600 to 2000 meters. It has meanwhile been proven that five years' worth of stockpiled products from private and semi-private mining enterprises were removed in the direction of the countries that attacked our country and still occupy our territory—a quantity estimated at 6000 tons of zinc products and 2000 tons of coltan products. In addition, agricultural and forest products (quinine, tea, coffee, precious wood, etc.), livestock from the farms, furniture, dismantled factories, vehicles and road construction machines have likewise also been plundered and transport eastward.

As if this were not enough, every person who attempted to resist or disturb the plundering was massacred, deported into the neighboring countries or brutally tortured in public in order to frighten the defenseless population.

The Mai Mai movement organizes self defense

This has been reinforced by the so-called ‘Mai Mai' movement, a true people's self-defense army which has been and is still being demonized by Western media in the service of the superpowers and commanders of the aggression against us. The Mai Mai are in reality not ‘negative forces', as the aggressors would make the public believe. Mai Mai are Congolese women and men who no longer tolerate the presence of the aggressors' foreign military forces on the Democratic Republic of Congo's territory. The fact should not overlooked that it was the Mai Mai who fought against the acts of violence committed by Mobutu Sese Seko's troops, the dictator who the superpowers kept in power for 32 years.

Plundering of mineral resources and destruction of the environment

When all the existing stockpiles of the mining and agricultural industry had been drained, the aggressor troops brought prisoners from their countries into the occupied provinces to extract our deposits of gold, diamonds, tin, and coltan, which they continue to do to the present day: The crude manner in which this has been done means that the deposits are already exhausted, and that future geological explorations will find it very difficult to make headway. In addition, agricultural and forest products are being obtained in a completely uncontrolled manner, without abiding by even a minimum of the regulations. The national parks and other nature reserves have thus been depleted of all the rare species that could only be found in the Congo. Congolese men and women are being forced to witness the disappearance of the rarest species of their once so rich flora and fauna as a result of the destruction of the infrastructure of their parks, which are of course the hope of a future tourist industry.

The much sought-after coltan

It is expectated that the UN Panel of Experts will submit their second report evaluating the quantity and value of Congo's natural resources and other forms of wealth plundered by the aggressors' armies since 2 August 1998 to the UN Security Council. Meanwhile, it is already certain that 150 tons of coltan are leaving Kivu every month. We will also know very soon how much is being exploited of the other resources the superpowers desire so much. [Coltan is a significant raw material which is indispensable to the armaments, space and communications industries. Coltan only exists in mineable quantities in the East of the Congo, editor's comment]. This is in fact the real reason for the presence of troops from Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi in the eastern Congo rather than the argument of Congo's aggressors that the border between Rwanda and the Congo is unsafe. This argument is being spread by the Rwandan capital Kigali worldwide just to direct attention away from their own atrocities. It was already denounced as a pretext by the Civil Society of South Kivu, the eye-witness of all these proceedings, in their peace plan, published on November 9, 1998.

Already 3 million innocent victims

According to the Civil Society of the Democratic Republic of Congo (as this has been confirmed by other independent, international sources), the unmerciful, senseless and futile war which is tearing our country apart has already cost the lives of 3 million innocent Congolese, while 2 million live removed from their homeland as refugees, and almost 2 million people more permanently depend on humanitarian aid. In addition, 500000 Congolese live as refugees outside our country.

Those who are reaping the benefits from this wretched situation are well known. Not only do they finance the aggression against our country, but they also profit from the plundering taking place in the Democratic Republic of Congo. According to the United Nations expert report, not only are the bosses of the interposing and instrumentalized troops from Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda making a lot of money, but various countries belong to the main sponsors and passive accessories to these wheelings and dealings. They are the United States, Great Britain, Belgium, Germany, Russia, Canada, and the Netherlands. The spoils are exported to India, Pakistan, Kenya, Tanzania, Malaysia and even Switzerland.

What does all this reveal?

The war tearing apart the Democratic Republic of Congo is not an inner-Congolese conflict. It is a war of aggression, a war aimed at systematically plundering the Congo's natural resources, which, since the country became independent and acquired international sovereignty on 30th June 1960, have been exploited on a large scale by the great powers. In fact, these great powers have never left the Congo in peace. They have always destabilized the democratic institutions set up by the Congolese people, by enforcing secessions (1960-1963 in the provinces of Catanga and South-Kasai), by imposing dictatorship (1965-1997 under Mobutu), and by launching a war of aggression (1998 to the present day). Let there be no doubt: We, the Congolese people, have never accepted the secessions or the balkanization of our country; ours is not a culture of evil destruction, of massacres, of ethnic hatred. Quite the contrary, we are proud of ourselves as a people and feel united in the rich variety of cultures and languages (460 different mother tongues or dialects exist, there are four national languages and one official language, French).

Peace, democracy and development

All Congolese who are worthy of the name want nothing more than lasting peace, democracy, work and the harmonious and rapid development of our country. This is a development which we may rightfully hope for as a result of our great variety of natural resources and our human capabilities. On one condition, however: the great powers must stop their interfering and genuinely help us achieve the goals we have set while at the same time respecting our independence, our international sovereignty, and the integrity of our territory, despite our sub-continental dimensions. Our country, the Democratic Republic of Congo, has enough human capabilities at its disposal to be able to build up a democratic administration; this, of course, contrasts strongly with the ideas about the Congo being allegedly ungovernable, ideas which Western experts are eager to spread about us.