African states that withdrew their armies from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) set up criminal cartels in their place to continue plundering its natural wealth, an expert panel said on Monday.
In report to the UN Security Council, the panel named 54 people, including more than 20 senior military and political officials in Rwanda, Uganda, Zimbabwe and DRC itself as leaders of new ”elite networks” exploiting the country’s minerals, timber and wildlife.
The panel recommended imposing sanctions on them and financial restrictions on 29 companies, four of them based in Belgium, which it said were helping to run this ”multi-billion-dollar corporate theft”.
The council has scheduled a meeting to discuss the report on Thursday. The report described how ostensible enemies were colluding to rob the DRC of minerals which were exported through a dozen African countries such as Nigeria and South Africa to high-tech industries in the West, with the United Arab Emirates as a major hub for money-laundering.
The six-year war in DRC, formerly Zaire, which drew in the armies of seven African nations and claimed 2,5-million lives, according to relief agencies, has diminished in intensity since peace accords signed in Pretoria and Luanda this year.
But criminal gangs and rebel groups linked to the departing armies are profiting from continuing small-scale conflicts and are unlikely to disarm or disband, the report said.
”The elite networks maintain the facade of rebel administrations in the occupied areas” to generate and then steal public revenues, it said.
”The looting that was previously conducted by the armies themselves has been replaced by organised systems of embezzlement, tax fraud, extortion, the use of stock option as kickbacks and diversion of state funds.”
In areas under DRC government control, officials including National Security Minister Mwenze Kongolo had colluded with Zimbabwean figures to transfer at least five-billion dollars worth of assets from DRC state mining companies to private firms over the past three years, without compensation, it said.
”The key strategist for the Zimbabwean branch of the elite network is the speaker of the parliament and former National Security Minister, Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa,” it said. Among the panel’s evidence for Zimbabwe’s secret economic plans in DRC was a copy of a note to President Robert Mugabe from his defence minister, Sidney Sekeramayi, it said.
In rebel-held eastern DRC, Rwandan battalions that specialised in mining had stayed on after the army’s withdrawal, but no longer wore uniforms and would continue ”in a commercial guise” the report said.
The elite network’s operations in eastern DRC are managed centrally from the Congo Desk of the Rwandan army, which provides 80% of the army’s annual spending, estimated at $400-million, the report said. ”The elite network maintains close commercial ties with transnational criminal networks”, including those of Victor Bout, a notorious Ukrainian-born arms dealer and owner of the Uganda-based Okapi airline, it said.
Others involved in the plunder included Belgian businessman George Forrest, who ”benefits from strong backing from some political quarters in Belgium,” and a Zimbabwean-backed entrepreneur, John Bredenkamp, the report said.
It said Forrest had acquired a mineral stockpile containing 3 000 tons of germanium, a rare metal used in optical fibres and telecommunications satellites. The stockpile, acquired at minimal benefit to the state company Gecamines, was worth two billion dollars.
Bredenkamp paid a mere $400 000 to the DRC government through his Tremalt company for the right to exploit more than 2,7-million tons of copper and 325 000 tons of cobalt over 25 years, it said. The concessions were estimated to be worth more than one billion dollars.
The panel said it had documents to show that three ‘clans’ of Lebanese origin — the Ahmad, Nassour and Khanafer — bought $150-million worth of diamonds from DRC last year. It described the clans as ”distinct criminal organisations” with ties to the Lebanese political movement Amal and to the Islamic guerrilla group Hezbollah.
The report also identified 85 companies which it said were in breach of international guidelines for ethical practices. They include some of the biggest banks and trading firms in Belgium, Britain, Canada, France, Germany and the United States. – Sapa-AFP