The Lost World War

The war on Iraq is not the only war in the world and it is not the only war being fought for our material benefit. Western consumers’ seemingly insatiable demand for mobile phones, laptops, games consoles and other luxury electronic goods has been fuelling violent conflict and killing millions in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire). By Erik Vilwar.

Either side of an 1800 mile front-line, a country the size of western Europe with a population no larger than England’s has been carved up by warring factions and foreign armies from nine different countries, leaving millions dead or homeless. What little infrastructure dictator Mobutu Sese Seko did not wreck during his three decades of misrule has mostly been destroyed by fighting, or has finally succumbed to neglect.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is possibly the most mineral rich place on earth – though this has proved a curse to the people of the Congo. The Congo holds millions of tons of diamonds, copper, cobalt, zinc, manganese, uranium (the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were built using Congolese uranium), and coltan. Coltan, a substance made up of columbium and tantalum, is a particularly valuable resource – used to make mobile phones, night vision goggles, fiber optics, and micro-capacitors.

What is Coltan?
Coltan looks like black mud, but is three times heavier than iron and only slightly lighter than gold. It is found in abundance in eastern Congo and can be mined with minimal equipment. Coltan is vital to the high tech economy. Wireless electronic communication would not exist without it. The ‘mud’ is refined into tantalum – a metallic element that is both a superb conductor of electricity and extremely heat-resistant. Tantalum powder is a vital component in capacitors, for the control of the flow of current in miniature circuit boards. Capacitors made of tantalum are found inside every laptop, pager, personal digital assistant, and mobile phone.1 Tantalum is also used in the aviation and atomic energy industries. A very small group of companies in the world process coltan. These include H.C.Starck (Germany, a subsidiary ot Bayer), Cabott Inc. (US), Ningxia (China), and Ulba (Kazakhstan). The world’s biggest coltan mines are in Australia and they account for about 60% of world production. It is generally believed, however, that 80% of the world’s reserves are in Africa, with DRC accounting for 80% of the African reserves.2

At the end of 2000, there was an unprecedented ‘gold rush for coltan’. Over a few months the price rose tenfold. In January 2000, an international trader would have paid between US$30 and US$40 for a pound (lb) of unprocessed coltan. By December 2000 the price has risen to US$380/lb. This dramatic price increase was driven by a sudden and steep rise in the demand for tantalum powder, caused by an overvaluation of the technology market triggered by a new generation of mobile phones and the consumer rush following the launch of the Sony Playstation 2.

At the height of the demand for coltan, it is known that Rwandan soldiers and other affiliated criminal groups were making roughly US$20 million a month solely from the trade in coltan.3 However, the coltan boom was short-lived and prices rapidly fell as more and more coltan came on to the market. By October 2001, coltan prices were back to where they started. In the meantime, thousands of destitute Congolese people had gone digging for the precious ore, a few international traders had made a fortune and millions of dollars had flowed to the parties waging war. Prices have fallen from the late 2000 peak, but the trade in coltan is still fuelling the war.

The human costs of this conflict have been horrific. According to the UN, up until last September, in the five Eastern provinces of DRC alone, between 3 and 3.5 million people had died directly because of the war. 4 Many were killed and tortured but most died of starvation and disease. The destruction of farms has resulted in malnutrition and starvation. Millions of people have been forced from their homes. Years of war have led to a social environment in which men abuse women on a staggering scale and children become instruments of war, forced to work in mines and conscripted into armed forces. Surveys in Butembo found that 90% of people were living on less than 20 cents a day and only one meal. 5

Most people in Britain appear ignorant of this war. The underlying causes of the war and the role of the British government and British companies are obfuscated by the media presentation of the war as a confusing ethnic conflict, involving seven African states and many rebel groups. In fact, the war is quite simple to understand. It is about money.

The ‘second Congolese war’ supposedly began in August 1998, with an attempt by Tutsi rebels backed by Uganda and Rwanda to depose former Congolese president Laurent Kabila, whom they accused of sheltering the Hutu Interahamwe militias responsible for the 1994 slaughter of some 800,000 Tutsis in Rwanda. Soldiers from Angola, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Chad were sent in, ostensibly to save Kabila’s regime. It is clear that the primary motivation for the intervention of these armies was to loot Congo’s rich resources and sell them.

The looting of the Congo’s natural resources is carried out by elite networks consisting of a small core of political and military elites and business persons and, in the case of occupied areas, selected rebel leaders.6 These networks ensure the viability and profitability of their economic activities through control over the military and other security forces that they use to intimidate, threaten, torture and kill. Actual commercial activities are carried out through front companies, supported by organised transnational criminal groups. 7
‘The role of the private sector in the exploitation of natural resources and the continuation of the war has been vital.’

UN Panel of Experts
Last October, an independent panel of experts reported to the United Nations Security Council that 85 multinational companies based in Europe, the US and South Africa had facilitated the plunder of the Congo and illegally profited from the war. Twelve of the companies named in the report are based in Britain.8

Mahmoud Kassen, chairperson of the UN Panel of Experts, said ‘The role of these companies is really important. Corporations have a direct and indirect role. Without them this kind of commerce would not be possible’.9

The Panel’s investigations had previously led them to conclude that the war in the Congo ‘has become mainly about access, control and trade’ of minerals, the most important being coltan. The one thing that unites the warring parties is the desire for money.
‘Because of its lucrative nature,’ the Panel said, the war ‘has created a win-win situation for belligerents. Adversaries and enemies are at the same time partners in business, get weapons from the same dealers and use the same intermediaries. Business has superseded security.’ 10

The twelve British-based companies named in the UN report are…

Britain is not only involved in the exploitation of the Congo’s natural resources; it also armed all the sides involved in the DRC conflict. UK arms manufacturers have been granted export licenses to sell weapons to Zimbabwe, Uganda, Angola, Namibia and Burundi.11

In a speech to the Labour Party Conference last year, Tony Blair said that, with UK help, the world community could ‘sort out the blight that is the continuing conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where three million people have died through war or famine in the last decade’. What Blair refers to as ‘the blight’ within the DRC was exacerbated by his own government’s sanctioning of military exports and training into the region. Since the Labour Party came to power, Britain has more than quadrupled arms sales to Africa.12

Congo History in a Nutshell
The Congo has been relentlessly pillaged for more than a century. To begin with, it was taken over as a personal possession by Belgian King Leopold II following a series of fraudulent treaties with African kings. Leopold thought a good name would be the Congo Free State, perhaps because he got it for nothing. Private companies were brought in to do the dirty work, extracting as much rubber and ivory as possible, and making money hand over fist. Leopold’s rule was tyrannical and vicious and killed more than half the population in less than 20 years. In 1909, Belgium took the country over and renamed it the Belgian Congo. They eased up on the killing but kept the forced labour. Fierce rioting in 1959 resulted in Belgium abruptly granting independence in 1960. The country was renamed the Democratic Republic of Congo. Shortly after independence, the US took over in a bloody coup. The CIA arranged the murder of Patrice Lumumba, the country’s first elected leader. In his place they installed their paid agent Colonel Mobutu Sese Seko. In Mobutu’s 37 years as ruler of the Congo (which he renamed Zaire) he managed to amass a huge personal fortune and continued to oppress the general population. Nevertheless, he remained popular with Western governments and companies. From 1965 to 1991, Zaire received more than $1.5 billion in US economic and military aid. According to the World Bank (a long-time supporter of Mobutu), 64.7% of Zaire’s budget was reserved for Mobutu’s discretionary spending. Mobutu’s greed was ultimately his downfall. When he tried to stop sharing the Congo’s wealth with his Western backers, the US prepared for him to be overthrown. In October 1996, the Rwandan army along with Ugandan troops invaded Zaire and by May 1997 had forced Mobutu to flee to Morocco. The invasion was disguised as a local rebellion. The Tutsi Rwandan forces called themselves the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (ADFL) and recruited Laurent Kabila, an exiled Congolese Marxist, as a figurehead leader. Kabila was installed as President and changed the country’s name back to the Democratic Republic of Congo. In July 1998, Kabila expelled Rwandan and Ugandan forces from the Congo. On 2nd August, Rwanda and Uganda invaded the eastern region of the Congo and set up surrogate ‘rebel’ armies. Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia sent their armies to support Kabila and Burundi joined the Rwandans and the Angolans. This was the start of the second Congo war. The US backed the Rwandan and Ugandan invasion and pressured Kabila into signing the Lusaka Accord which treated the conflict as a civil war. The result is a partitioned Congo with Rwanda and Uganda still occupying the eastern half and ignoring all deadlines for leaving. On 17th January 2001, on the fortieth anniversary of the assassination of Lumumba, Laurent Kabila was assassinated. Joseph Kabila, Laurent’s son, took over as President.

John Bredenkamp
John Bredenkamp is 33rd on Britain’s rich list, higher than Paul McCartney. The last year was a good one for him. He was the 19th fastest riser on the rich list – just behind Richard Branson. Bredenkamp has a £700 million personal fortune stemming from a business empire that includes the top sports management company Masters International, whose clients include chess master Gary Kasparov. 13

Last October’s UN report on the DRC names Bredenkamp as a key arms trader and a man who has made millions from the illegal exploitation of natural resources in the Congo. The UN report recommends that Bredenkamp’s personal assets be frozen and that a travel ban is imposed on him. According to the UN he has been illegally exploiting the mineral resources of DRC through a British Virgin Islands registered company, Tremalt.14 Britain’s imposition of an arms embargo on Zimbabwe has not affected Bredenkamp’s business. In July 2001, an invoice obtained by the UN shows that one of Bredenkamp’s companies, Raceview International, was supplying Mugabe with £2.3 million of camouflage cloth, batteries, fuel, boots and army rations. The UN also says it can prove that Bredenkamp provided £2 million of aircraft spares to the Zimbabwean airforce. 15

In addition Bredenkamp is an investor in a company called Aviation Consulting Services (ACS). Despite the innocuous name, this company is one of the most important arms trading groups in Africa, brokering deals between firms and governments.16 One of ACS’s major clients is BAE Systems. The UN report alleges that Bredenkamp has used his involvement with ACS to offer to mediate sales of BAE military equipment to the Democratic Republic of Congo. The UN report also claims that EU sanctions were breached in early 2002 when Hawk jet spares were supplied to Zimbabwe.17 Although John Bredenkamp is not a British citizen – he carries a Zimbabwean and Dutch passport – he is still free to run his evil empire from Britain.

1 ‘A Black Mud From Africa Helps Power the New Economy’ NY Times, August 12th 2001 2 ‘Supporting the War Economy in the DRC: European Companies and the Coltan Trade’ IPIS Report January 2002 http://users.skynet.be/ipis/coltan14-1.htm 3 ‘Final Report of the Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of Congo’ United Nations Security Council, 16th October 2002 www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf/vID/706B89B947E5993DC1256C590052B353?OpenDocument 4 www.irinnews.org/print.asp?ReportID=30525 5 ibid. 6 see note 3 7 see note 3 8 ‘Multinationals in scramble for Congo’s wealth’ The Guardian, October 22nd 2002 www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4529206,00.html 9 www.news24.com/News24/Finance/0,4186,2-8_1276961,00.html 10 see note1 11 www.caat.org.uk/information/magazine/1201/africa.php 12 ‘British arms sales to Africa soar’ The Observer, February 3rd 2002 www.guardian.co.uk/armstrade/story/0,10674,644227,00.html 13 ‘UK Sports Agent Accused of Selling Military Gear to African Despot’ The Observer, 27th October 2002 www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4533060,00.html 14 see note 3 15 see note 3 16 see note 14 17 see note 3