Congo Seeks Reparations From Uganda At World Court
By Paul Gallagher
Reuters
April 11, 2005
The Democratic Republic of Congo accused Uganda on Monday of "massive" human rights abuses, looting and destruction in a war on its territory and demanded compensation from its neighbour at the World Court.
The Congo -- rich in gold, diamonds and timber -- was the battleground for rebels, local factions, tribes and neighbouring countries, including Uganda, in a 1998-2003 war in which 4 million people died, mainly from hunger and disease. "Uganda played a considerable role in the murderous war which tore apart the Congo for five years," Congolese representative Maitre Tshibangu Kalala told the court at the start of public hearings on Monday.
Congo took Uganda to the World Court in 1999, accusing it of responsibility for human rights abuses and "armed aggression". It called for compensation for what it said were acts of looting, destruction and removal of property. Congo says Uganda committed "violations of international humanitarian law and massive human rights violations", the World Court said in a statement.
Cases at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), also known as the World Court, can take years to be completed. The court is the U.N.'s highest and its ruling in the case will be final and not subject to appeal. Uganda has filed a counter claim, accusing Congo of responsibility for attacks on Ugandan citizens and diplomatic buildings in Kinshasa and unspecified acts of aggression against Uganda. A Ugandan representative declined to comment on the case and said his country would outline its position on Friday. Congo's Justice Minister Kisimba Ngoy was quoted by U.N. radio as saying reparations could amounts to billions of dollars.
Changing Motives
Rwanda and Uganda invaded Congo after rebel factions backed by them took up arms in 1998 to topple the late President Laurent Kabila, who was supported by Namibia, Angola and Zimbabwe. A ceasefire was negotiated in 1999 and Ugandan troops finally pulled out in 2002.
A U.N. report in November 2001 said the initial motivation for Rwanda and Uganda to intervene in the central African nation had been to secure their borders. But over time the lure of natural resources became the primary motive for staying in many areas of the former Zaire and perpetuating the warfare, the report said.
U.N. officials have accused Ugandan commanders of stealing gold, diamonds and timber, although Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has rebuffed such charges, saying there is nothing of value in the country to exploit. Under a 2003 peace deal, a power-sharing government was set up to shepherd the Congo to elections this year, but armed groups still rule much of the country as local strongmen protect privileges built up during the war.
Uganda, Angola, Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Congo pledged in September 2002 to stop interfering in each other's affairs in a new regional bid to end Congo's war. But a U.N.-commissioned report in January singled out Uganda for failing to control cross-border trade into the Congo's lawless northeastern district of Ituri, where warlords prosper amid a local conflict that has killed 60,000 people since 1999.
Additional reporting by David Lewis in Kinshasa
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Diamond Exports Triple, Says UN Congo Report
Monitor, November 22, 2001
Uganda's diamond exports have tripled in last eight months, the second United Nations report on the alleged exploitation of the Democratic Republic of Congo mineral wealth has said. The report, which was released yesterday, said that the sharp rise in Uganda's diamond exports, is evidence of the continued plunder and exploitation.
The first UN panel of experts report, which was released in April, indicated that Uganda exported 11,000 carats valued at $ 1.7m. "Figures for 2001, extrapolated form the sales for the first eight months, shows 35,000carats valued at $ 3.8 million, Ugandan diamond export to Antwerp," the 38-page report said.
The report said they gained better understanding of diamond exploitation activities by "taking a closer look at the activities of the Belco-Diamant comptoir in Kisangani."
Uganda denied exploiting Congo' mineral wealth before Justice David Porter's Commission of Inquiry into the alleged exploitation of DRC's natural resources.
Appearing before the Justice David Porter probe in July this year, the commissioner in charge of minerals in the ministry of Energy and Mineral Development Watuwa Bwobi did not deny the diamond export figure but expressed ignorance over its source.
Uganda is not known to have diamond deposits.
The second report also indicates a sharp rise in gold exports. The exports were an eighth of a tone in 1994 but has since raised to over ten tones by 2000. The new report has no figures for this year.
However, government contested these findings in the first report and attributed the increase in exports to the 1993 policy to liberalize gold sales and exports.
Government officials claimed that as a result of the ease, with which gold can be smuggled, Uganda became the preferred destination for gold produced by artisanal miners in the surrounding region.
Interestingly though the panel says it has evidence that artisanal gold mining activities in the northeast by UPDF and RCD-ML have continued. It sites an example of the Kilo-Moto area where operations at the Gorumbwa and Durba sites in the DRC are under the control of the UPDF and RCD-ML.
One of the sites reportedly "employs 10,000 diggers and generates amounts of gold valued at $10,000 per day". It also claims that the gold produced is still being sold through the Victoria comptoir in Kampala.
The Porter Commission exonerated all the accused including President Yoweri Museveni and members of the First Family.
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The Looting of Congo
New York Times
May 29, 2001
From the depredations of Belgian colonial rule through the cold-war kleptocracy of Mobutu Sese Seko, the vast Central African nation now called Congo has been ransacked by foreigners and their African collaborators. Africans and non-Africans alike have extracted diamonds, gold, copper, timber, elephant tusks and other resources in a lawless commercial culture. As both Secretary of State Colin Powell and members of the United Nations Security Council have crisscrossed Africa in recent days to encourage the withdrawal of foreign troops from Congo, a disturbing U.N. report offers fresh evidence of the degree to which Congo's nearly three-year-old civil war serves the economic interests of some of the West's staunchest African allies and an array of foreign businesses.
The U.N. report documents in impressive detail the role of Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi in the wholesale looting of eastern Congo. The panel concluded that the leaders of Uganda and Rwanda, Yoweri Museveni and Paul Kagame, two of Washington's allies during the Clinton administration, were "on the verge of becoming godfathers of the illegal exploitation of natural resources and the continuation of the conflict."
The panel did not accuse the two men of profiting personally. But it properly held them accountable for failing to prevent their top generals, relatives and associates, along with proxy rebels and warlords in regions under their control, from profiting in league with criminal cartels and foreign companies. Mr. Museveni has denounced the report and noted that it overlooks the crimes of Uganda's main rivals in Congo. Angola, Zimbabwe and Congo itself have likewise engaged in thievery.
But the U.N. report also makes clear that Africans have exploited Congo's natural resources in league with reputable foreign companies and financial institutions. Some three dozen businesses, based in Belgium, Germany, Malaysia, Canada, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Britain, India, Pakistan and Russia, are identified as having imported minerals from Congo through Uganda and Rwanda.
The world must find ways to deter non-African companies and financial institutions that are only too prepared to take advantage of Congo's misery. An embargo on minerals, timber, gold or diamonds shipped from the states whose forces currently occupy territory in Congo -- states that would not normally export large quantities of these resources -- may be necessary. Public and private financial institutions should reconsider doing business with banks in Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi that have close ties with the armies and rebel militias engaged in Congo. As many as 2.5 million Congolese may have died from starvation and disease in eastern Congo. Legitimate companies should have no business profiting from this catastrophe.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/congo/2001/0529loot.htm
UN Panel on Congo Exploitation Calls for Embargo Against Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda
By Edith Lederer
Associated Press
April 16, 2001
A U.N.-appointed panel investigating the illegal plundering of Congo's resources called Monday for an immediate temporary embargo on trade in diamonds, gold, timber, and minerals used in high-tech equipment with Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi.
In a report to the Security Council, the five-member panel accused top military commanders in the three countries of helping to systematically exploit Congo's resources along with a number of companies, individuals and a growing international network of criminal cartels.The illegal exploitation of Congo's wealth, it said, is fueling the country's 2 1/2-year civil war.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni ''are on the verge of becoming the godfathers of the illegal exploitation of natural resources and the continuation of the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,'' it said. The presidents have knowledge of the exploitation and have failed to stop it, the report said. ''They have indirectly given criminal cartels a unique opportunity to organize and operate in this fragile and sensitive region.''
The report said it would make no allegations about the personal involvement of the countries' presidents until further investigation is carried out.
The report called on the governments of Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi to pay compensation to companies whose properties and natural resources were confiscated or taken between 1998 and 2000, and to farmers and religious groups whose crops and land were looted or taken by their armed forces.
The five-member panel also urged the 189 U.N. member states to immediately freeze the financial assets of all Congolese rebel movements and their leaders. It called for an immediate arms embargo on rebel groups operating in the Congo and urged the council to consider extending the embargo to countries that support them.
The panel said the Security Council should urge all countries to freeze the assets of companies and individuals that continue to exploit Congo's natural resources and to ensure that public and private financial institutions stop doing business with banks in Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda allegedly involved in illegal Congo dealings.
It also recommended that the council consider international prosecution of individuals, companies and government officials ''whose economic and financial activities directly or indirectly harm powerless people and weak economies.''
The panel report is one of several investigations commissioned by the Security Council to look into the role that diamonds and other natural resources are playing in fueling Africa's brutal wars.
Rebels backed by Rwanda and Uganda took up arms to topple former Congolese President Laurent Kabila in August 1998. Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola joined the fight in support of Kabila. A 1999 cease-fire signed by most combatants was never fully implemented, but the search for peace gained momentum following Kabila's assassination in January and the succession of his son, Joseph, to the presidency.
Previous reports on the illegal diamond-for-gun trade in Angola and Sierra Leone have led to widespread calls for tighter export controls on diamonds and weapons.
The Security Council has imposed diamond and arms embargoes on rebels in Angola and Sierra Leone in a bid to strangle their abilities to make war. No such sanctions exist on Congo or its rebel groups, but under France's sponsorship, the council authorized the panel to investigate reports that the warring sides were making money off the conflict.
The panel's report concluded that the Congo conflict ''has become mainly about access, control and trade of five key mineral resources: coltan, diamonds, copper, cobalt and gold.'' Coltan is used in the production of power-storing components for high-tech gear ranging from nuclear reactors to cell phones to PlayStations.
The embargo against Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi called for by the panel includes coltan, niobium, pyrochlore, cassiterite, timber, gold and diamonds. The panel said it should remain until the three countries' involvement in exploiting Congo's resources ''is made clear and declared so by the Security Council.''
The countries backing Kabila's government argued they shouldn't be investigated for alleged plundering since they are in the country at the request of the government. They say any illegal activity is being carried out by the ''uninvited aggressors'' _ Rwanda and Uganda.
The report said the Rwandan and Ugandan economies had benefited financially from the conflict to varying extents, ''unlike those of Angola and Namibia.'' It said Zimbabwe was ''a special case'' because some Zimbabwe companies received concessions.
www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/congo/2001/0416panl.htm
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