IRIN Focus on the UN’s resource exploitation inquiry

The United Nations Security Council on Monday urged all member governments to respond to the inquiries made by an expert panel mandated with investigating the illegal exploitation of natural resources and other forms of wealth in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). “Members of the Council expressed disappointment with the responses so far of several governments to the inquiries made by the panel and called upon all governments to cooperate fully with the panel in carrying out their investigations,” Council President Ambassador Kishore Mahbubani of Singapore said in a statement. The Security Council also urged the panel, chaired by Safiatou Ba-N’Daw of Côte d’Ivoire, to provide a “substantive and comprehensive” final report based on information provided by governments and rebel groups, as well as independent and public sources. The panel’s mandate Behind the establishment of the panel was the assumption that the parties to the conflict were “motivated by desire to control and profit from the natural resources of the DRC, and that they finance their armies and military operations by exploiting those resources,” according to the interim report of the expert panel, published on Tuesday. For full report, go to S/2001/49 at: http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/letters/2001/sglet01.htm That interpretation of the mandate - in particular that the parties to the conflict were motivated by a desire to control and profit from the DRC’s natural resources - has aroused considerable anger among the “uninvited external parties”, Uganda and Rwanda, according to diplomatic sources. According to Uganda and Rwanda, such an assumption - not expressed in the Security Council’s mandate - effectively prejudged the issue, and could well lead to the panel “finding the facts to fit their thesis,” the sources added. For full details of the panel’s mandate, see the Security Council’s presidential statement (S/PRST/2000/20) at: http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/statements/2000/prst2000.htm Meanwhile, the panel has decided to proceed in its work by attempting to identify: the resources exploited and laws that have been violated; the parties, companies and individuals involved in the exploitation; the sum of revenues appropriated; the cost of maintaining armies in the DRC, and the extent to which military operations there are being met through the illegal exploitation of resources. Military deployment and commercial gain The DRC government, among others, has alleged that the “aggressors” [primarily Uganda and Rwanda] and the Congolese rebel groups they are backing are plundering gold, diamonds, colombo-tantalite (coltan) and timber in the east of the country, as well as exploiting the Congolese people. The formal nature of the institutionalised military commerce on the allied side was helped not just by the skeletal state structure in the DRC - under which export permits, bank accounts, tax records and other documents can be issued free from inspection - but also by the fact that the allies [Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia, backing the DRC government] were assisting a recognised government, according to Chris Dietrich of the Institute for Security Studies in South Africa. This contrasted with the situation of Uganda and Rwanda, who were supporting rebel movements and therefore had no legitimate claims to DRC resources, he said. In a report entitled ‘The commercialisation of military deployment in Africa’, he said the Zimbabwean government itself had stated that Osleg, a private company, was set up specifically to purchase diamonds and gold in the DRC in order to make the Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF) deployment self-sustaining and ease the economic burden of involvement in the conflict. Dietrich said the Angolan army (the Forcas Armadas de Angola, or FAA) had also shown a substantial degree of “commercial opportunism” among officers deployed in DRC to assist deceased President Laurent-Desire Kabila, including “organised looting” as well as marketing and exploration concessions in the oil industry through Angola’s national petrol company Sonangol. Meanwhile, the London-based pressure group Global Witness told IRIN that it was concerned that renewed political instability in the DRC in the wake of last week’s assassination of Kabila could allow the Angolan rebel movement UNITA to strengthen its illegal diamond trading networks. For Global Witness website, go to: http://www.oneworld.org/globalwitness/ Alex Yearsley, an analyst for the environmental and human rights NGO Global Witness, which is lobbying for a ban on the international trade in “conflict diamonds”, said that UNITA gems mined in neighbouring Angola were being traded in the DRC, and that the instability there following Kabila’s assassination could allow UNITA a further foothold. A “diamond embargo should definitely be considered on the Congo”, he said. According to the UN’s Monitoring Mechanism on Angola Sanctions, UNITA’s historical networks in the DRC remain. Despite international sanctions, “it seems that UNITA members are still able to traffic diamonds in Kinshasa.” For details of the Mechanism’s report go to: http://www.un.org/Depts/dpa/docs/monitoringmechanism.htm “Formidable problems” One of the most serious problems the UN panel on resource exploitation faced was the lack of “detailed and reliable information” as to the nature, extent, location, yield and value of the natural resources of the DRC, the interim report stated. Mines and other sources of natural wealth were remote, heavily guarded and often located in insecure areas, their activities “cloaked by an atmosphere of lawlessness, violence and fear,” it said. The complexity of the situation, the vast territories and multiple actors involved, the difficulties of travel and communications, and insecurity in the DRC all posed “formidable problems” for the investigation, the panel reported. The experts received varying levels of cooperation from those it sought to question, “ranging from apparent openness to near hostility”. Even where governments appeared to be cooperative, the panel’s requests to meet officials on an individual basis were sometimes not accommodated, and information promised had not been forthcoming. The rebel response In the case of the two rival wings of the Congolese rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie [RCD-Goma and RCD-Mouvement de liberation (RCD-ML)], the panel expressed concern “that the cooperation promised during its initial visits might not be forthcoming in view of the leadership changes in both wings since that time.” RCD-Goma president Adolphe Onusumba said the movement had been “falsely accused” of illegally exploiting resources, and that “any extraction of natural resources was purely artisanal, as the financial means to conduct industrial exploitation was simply not available.” RCD agreed to provide the panel with information but “reserved the right to abstain from providing any information that could compromise strategic matters, given the current state of the war,” the panel reported. The RCD-ML’s beleaguered leader Ernest Wamba dia Wamba told the experts that resources throughout the DRC, including government-held areas, “were being used for purposes other than development”. He said “there had always been illegal activity in the DRC, including exploitation of natural resources by nationals and foreigners.” The collapse of the state made it “difficult to distinguish between official and unofficial networks of exploitation,” the interim report quoted Wamba as saying. As for the Ugandan-backed rebel Mouvement de liberation du Congo (MLC), its leader Jean-Pierre Bemba, had left his headquarters in Gbadolite, Equateur Province, the very day the panel visited in October, “although he was informed of, and had authorised, its visit,” the report added. DRC neighbours deny resource misuse President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda told the panel his country was not involved in exploitation in the DRC, and had issued specific instructions forbidding its soldiers from becoming involved. The Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) operations in the DRC were being financed not through resource exploitation but through the diversion of expenditure intended for the construction of new barracks and higher military salaries, according to the Ministry of Finance. Rwandan President Paul Kagame denied the involvement of the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) in the systematic exploitation of Congolese resources, but said individual soldiers had been punished for such activity. Rwanda also said it had been following an IMF programme for the past four years, so that the economy was closely monitored from outside, the panel said. RPA general James Kabarebe told the expert group that, “contrary to popular belief”, repeated military clashes between Rwandan and Ugandan troops [both backing anti-Kabila rebels] in the northeastern DRC city of Kisangani in 1999 and 2000 were not about control of mineral wealth in the area, but “were the eruptions of long-running tensions between the two forces as to who were the superior soldiers.” Zimbabwe, for its part, maintained that the panel should not investigate it and its allies in the DRC [Angola and Namibia] because they could not be plundering DRC resources while working in cooperation with the DRC government. What happens next? The deployment of troops from the defence forces of Angola, Uganda, Rwanda and Zimbabwe in the DRC “marks an increasing utilisation of national militaries as tools for private financial gain by the political elite in these countries,” according to Chris Dietrich of the Institute for Security Studies. Corporate-military business ventures in neighbouring countries have been created for the financial benefit of military officers and other cronies of state leaders, “rendering the military apparatus a commercial asset,” he added. This radical new trend of “military commercialism” was particularly evident in the DRC, he said. The deployment by foreign governments of military forces in their weakened neighbour gave rise to a situation “where commercial concerns dictate the actions of the state military apparatus, making financial gain a military function of the entire chain of command,” Dietrich added. For full report, go to: http://www.iss.co.za/Pubs/ASR/9.1/Commerciallisation.html Early this year, the UN resource exploitation panel plans to conduct preliminary visits to Angola and Namibia, and then return for follow-up visits to the DRC, Burundi, Cameroon, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda and Tanzania. It also intends to study more closely DRC state law on the exploitation of natural resources, including agricultural products, plant and animal life. The experts will continue to examine the links between the exploitation of natural resources and other forms of wealth, and the continuation of the war in the DRC, according to their interim report. In doing so, it will follow up leads suggested to it and push for the provision of information already promised to it by the officials of various governments and other sources. The resource panel’s final report is due in mid-March but its members have asked for an extra three months to complete their inquiries, obtain as much information as possible and conduct a thorough analysis. Having assembled “a sufficiently detailed, precise and coherent picture” of the links between resource exploitation and the DRC war, the panel is mandated to make recommendations for UN Security Council actions.