How We Fuel Africa's Bloodiest War

[mothandrust]

How We Fuel Africa's Bloodiest War

What is rarely mentioned is the great global heist of Congo's resources

By Johann Hari

October 30, 2008 "The Independent" -- The deadliest war since Adolf Hitler marched across Europe is starting again – and you are almost certainly carrying a blood-soaked chunk of the slaughter in your pocket. When we glance at the holocaust in Congo, with 5.4 million dead, the clichés of Africa reporting tumble out: this is a "tribal conflict" in "the Heart of Darkness". It isn't. The United Nations investigation found it was a war led by "armies of business" to seize the metals that make our 21st-century society zing and bling. The war in Congo is a war about you.

Every day I think about the people I met in the war zones of eastern Congo when I reported from there. The wards were filled with women who had been gang-raped by the militias and shot in the vagina. The battalions of child soldiers – drugged, dazed 13-year-olds who had been made to kill members of their own families so they couldn't try to escape and go home. But oddly, as I watch the war starting again on CNN, I find myself thinking about a woman I met who had, by Congolese standards, not suffered in extremis.

I was driving back to Goma from a diamond mine one day when my car got a puncture. As I waited for it to be fixed, I stood by the roadside and watched the great trails of women who stagger along every road in eastern Congo, carrying all their belongings on their backs in mighty crippling heaps. I stopped a 27 -year-old woman called Marie-Jean Bisimwa, who had four little children toddling along beside her. She told me she was lucky. Yes, her village had been burned out. Yes, she had lost her husband somewhere in the chaos. Yes, her sister had been raped and gone insane. But she and her kids were alive.

I gave her a lift, and it was only after a few hours of chat along on cratered roads that I noticed there was something strange about Marie-Jean's children. They were slumped forward, their gazes fixed in front of them. They didn't look around, or speak, or smile. "I haven't ever been able to feed them," she said. "Because of the war."

Their brains hadn't developed; they never would now. "Will they get better?" she asked. I left her in a village on the outskirts of Goma, and her kids stumbled after her, expressionless.

There are two stories about how this war began – the official story, and the true story. The official story is that after the Rwandan genocide, the Hutu mass murderers fled across the border into Congo. The Rwandan government chased after them. But it's a lie. How do we know? The Rwandan government didn't go to where the Hutu genocidaires were, at least not at first. They went to where Congo's natural resources were – and began to pillage them. They even told their troops to work with any Hutus they came across. Congo is the richest country in the world for gold, diamonds, coltan, cassiterite, and more. Everybody wanted a slice – so six other countries invaded.

These resources were not being stolen to for use in Africa. They were seized so they could be sold on to us. The more we bought, the more the invaders stole – and slaughtered. The rise of mobile phones caused a surge in deaths, because the coltan they contain is found primarily in Congo. The UN named the international corporations it believed were involved: Anglo-America, Standard Chartered Bank, De Beers and more than 100 others. (They all deny the charges.) But instead of stopping these corporations, our governments demanded that the UN stop criticising them.

There were times when the fighting flagged. In 2003, a peace deal was finally brokered by the UN and the international armies withdrew. Many continued to work via proxy militias – but the carnage waned somewhat. Until now. As with the first war, there is a cover-story, and the truth. A Congolese militia leader called Laurent Nkunda – backed by Rwanda – claims he needs to protect the local Tutsi population from the same Hutu genocidaires who have been hiding out in the jungles of eastern Congo since 1994. That's why he is seizing Congolese military bases and is poised to march on Goma.

It is a lie. François Grignon, Africa Director of the International Crisis Group, tells me the truth: "Nkunda is being funded by Rwandan businessmen so they can retain control of the mines in North Kivu. This is the absolute core of the conflict. What we are seeing now is beneficiaries of the illegal war economy fighting to maintain their right to exploit."

At the moment, Rwandan business interests make a fortune from the mines they illegally seized during the war. The global coltan price has collapsed, so now they focus hungrily on cassiterite, which is used to make tin cans and other consumer disposables. As the war began to wane, they faced losing their control to the elected Congolese government – so they have given it another bloody kick-start.

Yet the debate about Congo in the West – when it exists at all – focuses on our inability to provide a decent bandage, without mentioning that we are causing the wound. It's true the 17,000 UN forces in the country are abysmally failing to protect the civilian population, and urgently need to be super-charged. But it is even more important to stop fuelling the war in the first place by buying blood-soaked natural resources. Nkunda only has enough guns and grenades to take on the Congolese army and the UN because we buy his loot. We need to prosecute the corporations buying them for abetting crimes against humanity, and introduce a global coltan-tax to pay for a substantial peacekeeping force. To get there, we need to build an international system that values the lives of black people more than it values profit.

Somewhere out there – lost in the great global heist of Congo's resources – are Marie-Jean and her children, limping along the road once more, carrying everything they own on their backs. They will probably never use a coltan-filled mobile phone, a cassiterite-smelted can of beans, or a gold necklace – but they may yet die for one.

link - http://www.informationclearinghouse.info...e21124.htm

[mmiichael]

I missed some of the points in reading this article - maybe due to an imperfect translation.

But I'm very interested in findiing out what exactly is going on in the Congo.

My broad appraisal is that the industrialized world considers most of Africa a basket case politically - and a lost cause.

Short term goals are to cut resource deals with whatever tribal leaders, warlords, military cutthroats, have managed to seize control.

Deals are cut, the money is pocketed by those in position to negotiate, and the unfortunate populace in these countries are left to suffer as the infrastructure of distribution of food and governanace disappears. This is a description of what has happened in once prosperous Zimbabwe, and is a sad prototype for the other places.

The Chinese have been quick to pick up on the vast untapped opportunities, and are making loans to nominal African nation leaders, building in stringent default clauses which they know will be exercised sometime in the future.

As self-serving and discompassionate the European colonial powers may have been, they at least saw that maintaining a functional political system and society was in the interest of everyone.

In the name of freedom and independence they left. But their replacements from the ranks were even greedier than the former masters.

Millions of Africans die painfully, no one really cares much. The laughable United Nations sends in it's clowns to give some illusion of concern.

The tragedy of our times.


MF

[mothandrust]

There is a great fallacy, a lie perpetuated through history and around the globe: that Africa is poor.

Africa is presented as poor, because it doesn’t have any of this strange folding stuff called money. It has plenty of everything else, it is what capitalists and prospectors call resource rich.

Indeed, it is the most perfect place to grow our tea, coffee, cocoa… fruit & veg and flowers… and harvest our rubber, hardwood… oil… jewels, minerals… It’s enough to destabilise governments for!

We then offer them some of this folding stuff and they fall back into line. And lie and cheat and steal all the way from the top down, so this paltry representation of real value never gets anywhere near those who work the land or were driven off it. Yet because the dispossessed were duped with the concepts of land ownership and hierarchical authority (and violence), they feel disempowered and they too have fallen under the spell of this strange stuff called money.

Africa has never been poor. It has a history and wealth of diversity unequalled. And further, if we are to believe our anthropologists and geneticists, the very birthplace of humanity. Surprising then, is it not, that while in Western Europe and North America we’ve decimated the forests, worn out the soil, polluted the rivers and water tables and exhausted the mines, Africa remains, to the large part, thriving and fruitful. A godsend to Western governments with stomachs to fill, corporations with consumers to satisfy and banks with interest to manufacture.

Africa’s Western educated, financed, supported, armed leaders remain happy to perpetuate this myth, too ignorant or seduced to wish any change in perception: preferring the enormous power and the largely unsupervised bankroll. Corruption further suits Western interests: favouring personal/tribal associates, backhanders, etc. creating resentment, division, tension and potential conflict.

Manufacturing and maintaining divisions is a tactic that dates back two and a half millennia. More recent however is the lucrative and thriving arms industry, the UK’s only remaining indigenous industry, which reaps the benefit of internal repression and maintaining fictitious borders - while banks, merchants and Western governments profit from the extraordinary value such power hungry individuals place on violence, and how little value they place on basic foodstuffs.

Again, we find this strange folding stuff valuing the most useless and dangerous commodities with enormous worth, although they have no practical purpose, while basic nourishment, God’s gifts and harvesting, are valued as virtually worthless (one should however note, upon reaching Western supermarkets their value will have multiplied many, many times).

So we find the impossible situation, where the richest place on earth is labelled poorest, continues to haemorrhage genuine wealth, while being kept enslaved and divided through arbitrary concepts and artificial boundaries, turning tribe against tribe, and hoodwinking the people with the lie of money.

link - http://mothandrust.tk/?p=63

[rsol]

This is a problem that we in the west have ignored for centuries.

General we are aware of our impact. I think thats why we give so much money to charity. comic relief, children in need etc all give to making a habitable life for displaced people all over war-torn part of Africa.

When i was a child i always wondered why so many people in Ethiopia had decided to live in a desert. They said on the TV that there was a really bad drought there. This was the reason given as to why they were starving to death...

So move? Ethiopia is HUGE! There's mountains and arable land, lakes and parts very close to the coast. Why not there instead stuck in a crop-less desert. No one could tell me why they were there, just that they were and the reason they were starving was a drought.

As stated there are crops growing all over Africa. There just isn't any Africans allowed to eat this stuff. That belongs to us. food mountains and folks starving to death just a few hundred miles away. If they went onto the land to steal the food they'd be shot.

Banking is the process for all this to be possible. if these scumbags didn't have an investor, they wouldn't be able to operate. we have one "ethical" bank in the UK. Just one. That just shows you really. Bank with us we DONT give money to despots!! really?? Theres me thinking that sort of thing would be illegal........

[jack]

Quote:Banking is the process for all this to be possible. if these scumbags didn't have an investor, they wouldn't be able to operate. we have one "ethical" bank in the UK. Just one. That just shows you really. Bank with us we DONT give money to despots!! really?? Theres me thinking that sort of thing would be illegal........

what do you suggest we do ?

yes, I feel quite poweless, to change the system around me, and do not believe that the changes will be for the good of all.
Those on top, will still be the ones manipulating us and events. How to change this ???


at least "cake in a mug" is light hearted, all this other crap, types of government, corperate chaos, greedy super rich spoiled elite, war, slavery, is enough to bring down the strongest of men.

The solutions provided will not help. Death of capitalism is not going to cure the world, neither will the other "isms"

Doom and gloom seems to be around every corner, I'm depressed:(



Through early morning fog I see visions of the things to be
The pains that are withheld for me I realize and I can see . . .
That suicide is painless it brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please.

I try to find a way to make all our little joys relate
Without that ever-present hate but now I know that it’s too late,
and . . .That suicide is painless it brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please.

The game of life is hard to play. I’m gonna lose it anyway.
The losing card I’ll someday lay so this is all I have to say.
That suicide is painless it brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please.

The only way to win is cheat and lay it down before I’m beat,
and to another give my seat for that’s the only painless feat.
That suicide is painless it brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please.

The sword of time will pierce our skins it doesn’t hurt when it begins
But as it works its way on in the pain grows stronger . . . watch it grin, but . . .
That suicide is painless it brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please.

A brave man once requested me to answer questions that are key
'Is it to be or not to be' and I replied 'oh why ask me?'
That suicide is painless it brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please.
And you can do the same thing if you choose.

[---]

Hang in there Jack, don't let the bastards mash you up;)the simple beauties in life are still there for free.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pqTMrya5vM

peace

[mothandrust]

Quote:As stated there are crops growing all over Africa. There just isn't any Africans allowed to eat this stuff. That belongs to us. food mountains and folks starving to death just a few hundred miles away. If they went onto the land to steal the food they'd be shot.

absolutely. Africans do not starve because there is no food. they starve because they can't afford it.

i posted making a killing from hunger in the resources/populations forum, if anyone's interested (don't think it'll make you feel any happier Jack - sorry)

[mothandrust]

blood coltan

it was on the tracker but now i can't find it

[drew hempel]

Wow -- excellent written summary of the war and an AMAZING documentary. I didn't notice mention of the 6 million killed figure that's been thrown around though.

[jack]

Quote:Hang in there Jack, don't let the bastards mash you up;)the simple beauties in life are still there for free.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pqTMrya5vM

peace

Thanks nik:)
glad that this forum has you

Quote:absolutely. Africans do not starve because there is no food. they starve because they can't afford it.

a different reason, to keep folks hungry

Quote:We cannot quickly change attitudes, but we can change behaviour. At the World Food Programme we have recognized what a valuable tool food aid can be in changing behaviour. In so many poorer countries food is money, food is power. In some of our most successful food aid projects, we literally pay families who do not believe in educating their daughters to send those girls to school. A little free cooking oil can go a long way. We trade a 5 litre can of oil for 30 days of school attendance by a young girl. Yes, it's bribery. We don't apologize for that. We are changing behaviour, we are giving hope and opportunity to young girls -and that is all that counts. Each small change in behaviour will one day pay off in a change in attitude.

CATHERINE BERTINI
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME
FOURTH WORLD CONFERENCE ON WOMEN
SEPTEMBER 1995 BEIJING, CHINA