EUROPE: Long March From Plundering to Peacekeeping

Petar Hadji-Ristic

BRUSSELS, Jul 4 2006 (IPS) – A curse or a blessing? Diamonds, gold, cobalt, copper and many other valuable minerals make the Democratic Republic of the Congo potentially one of the richest countries in Africa. But greed has made it a graveyard of plunders.
Today a large UN peacekeeping operation is in place to help give the nation a better chance through the first real election in more than 40 years, due later this month..

Less than half of the 2,000-strong EU battle group some 800 will actually be in the Congo when 25 million voters go to the polls Jul. 30. Most of these will be camped down at their forward base at N Dodo airport in Kinshasa, the capital of the Congo.

The main EU contingent of 1,200 soldiers will be two hours flying time away in Libreville, the capital of Gabon. Back in Europe there will be a strategic reserve of 800 French soldiers.

Visibility, credibility and deterrence , were the three crisp words German general Karlheinz Viereck used for his Congo mission goals at a press conference in Berlin. His aim, he said, was to support a clean and orderly election in the Congo. We have the right forces, at the right places and at the right time.

On an idyllically-situated military base outside Potsdam, not far from Berlin, the general was showing off his high-tech operational headquarters to journalists and the EU s top diplomat Javier Solana. Facing three vast illuminated wall maps of the Congo, he and his men seated before computer screens will coordinate the far-away mission supporting the 17,000 UN peacekeepers in a country the size of Western Europe or seven times larger that Germany.
But not everyone is impressed. The operation is merely a cosmetic exercise, said Timothy Raeymaekers, research fellow with the Conflict Research Group at the University of Ghent in Belgium, and a specialist on central Africa.

It is not going to solve the current situation one of the most serious in the world today. The people still do not have security. At the heart of this crisis there s a political crisis.

For the last three years the Congolese have had a transitional government, after nearly 10 years of conflict. The conflict began in 1996 with a rebel movement led by Laureat-Désiré Kaliba which ousted the corrupt despot General Mobutu Sese Seko.

A transitional government including two rebel movements was set up in 2003 with Kaliba s son Joseph as its head.

There s been much talk of the peace-spoilers in the Congo, Raeymaekers said. Actually it s been the transitional government and army who have shared with these peace-spoilers an interest in maintaining a climate of fear, for their economic gain.

Plundering from illegal mining by government officials and the irregular militias has been running into billions a year, he said. This is money that must be used for the benefit of the Congolese people.

As the elections have approached the security situation has actually deteriorated, says Raeymaekers. In terms of direct casualties the situation may be worse today than three years ago when the transitional government was formed.

Last January the International Rescue Committee estimated that 38,000 people were still dying every month from war-related causes. Almost four million have died since the start of the conflict.

Aid workers returning from the troubled mineral-rich eastern provinces confirm that there is an ever-smouldering conflict.

It s so frustrating. There s a local initiative to build something, and then three weeks later, in storm the government troops or rebels, plundering, raping and leaving everything in ashes, says Oxfam s Michaela Raab after a recent visit to South Kivu province bordering Burundi..

Everywhere you travel in the east you see signs of malnutrition, especially among the children, Raab says. It means resistance to common illnesses is low. But Congo s healthcare situation is appalling and there are few medicines.

More than three million of Congo s 60 million people are now dependent on UN food aid.

One of the Congo s most urgent post-election needs is for the aid agencies to have the courage to spend more on development projects for rebuilding the country s infrastructure and providing jobs for its young population, says Raeymaekers. But once again this turns on the unsolved security issue. So long security is lacking, we can only offer humanitarian help, Raab says.

Despite the insecurity millions are expected to turn out to cast their votes at some 50,000 polling stations.

The people clearly are enthusiastic about participating, says Annetta Weber of the Ecumenical Network for Central Africa who has travelled widely in the Congo and is touch with a broad network of church, civic groups and human rights organisations in the country.

This election is an important step. Time has been running out for the present, imposed structure. There really is an expectation that things must now change, that weapons must finally be given up.

But she adds cautiously that hopes for change could be dashed.

There s a worldwide profit interest that the present plundering mechanism stays in place. There are an enormous number of people siphoning off Congo s resources. It s all laid out in reports you can read on the Internet. There s the government elite, all kinds of European firms, a huge number of African firms, and neighbouring countries. It s a vast network profiting from the exploitation.

Weber, who works with a network of 58 European lobbying groups for the Congo, believes that one positive outcome of sending EU troops will be more public interest in the Congo. This could result in pressure for transparency from companies trading in such rare metals as coltan, the magic powder of electronic devices, and germanium used in satellites, telecommunications and military equipment.

The Congo has 80 percent of the world s coltan, a strategic resource, without which the EU operational headquarters in Potsdam would probably not be operational.

The consumer may say yes, I do like using my mobile phone and playstation, but I don t particularly want to be complicit in child soldiers being used as slave labour in mines where the metals inside come from, and the plundering of a country s resources, says Weber.

I do think this rings a cord with the young people in Europe. Change always comes when people engage.

Raeymaekers sees the elections as offering an opportunity for the emergence of new partners for peace in the Congo. The conflict in the Congo can be likened to a hurricane, he says.. It s transformed entire regions. Rather than just focusing on power-sharing at the central government level, we should now be prepared to work with these people and organisations who could really provide security and be ready to share and redistribute the Congo s rich resources.

Together with new pressure for greater accountability, this change of focus could eventually end what he describes as the Congo s historic resource curse ..

The Congo has huge potential. Its resources could make it one of the world s richest countries. But it is just these which have been up to now its main obstacle to stability and democracy.