Gold fuels Congo atrocities: report

JOHANNESBURG – Foreign firms are looking to strike gold in Congo’s lawless northeast while militia fighters massacre, torture and rape local people, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report on Wednesday.

The report said the world’s number two gold miner, AngloGold Ashanti, had given financial and logistical support to the Nationalist and Integrationalist Front (FNI), a militia suspected of gunning down nine UN peacekeepers in February. AngloGold, which began prospecting in Congo’s Ituri district early this year, acknowledged in a response to the report that its local staff had paid US$8 000 (N$54 400) to the FNI, which controlled the area where it operates, but said they had done so under duress.It said staff had feared for their safety and that the payment was against company policy and would not be repeated.Several other big mining firms have concessions in the area.”Rather than bringing prosperity to the people of northeastern Congo, gold has been a curse to those who have the misfortune to live there,” HRW said of the Ituri district, which has some of the richest gold seams in Africa.”Local warlords and international companies are among those benefiting from access to gold-rich areas while local people suffer from ethnic slaughter, torture and rape,” it said.Beyond monetary and logistical support, the FNI had gained political credibility through contact with an international company, the report said.The ethnic Lendu-dominated militia has been involved in a conflict with rival ethnic Hema factions in Ituri that has killed more than 60 000 people since 1999, hampering efforts to rebuild Congo after a five-year civil war.The United Nations has stepped up its efforts against militias in the lawless region since its peacekeepers were killed in the February ambush.But HRW said the world body had failed to loosen warlords’ grip on gold mining in the area.”The UN Security Council has buried these concerns under the carpet,” Anneke van Woudenberg, author of the report, told a new conference on Wednesday.Up to US$60 million worth of gold is smuggled each year by the militias to neighbouring Uganda, which has few gold reserves of its own, and is then exported to Europe, HRW said.There is no certification programme for gold, such as the Kimberley Process for diamonds, which has had success in stamping out trade in so-called blood diamonds which fund wars.”Both Uganda and Congo need to tighten their controls …we are talking to donors and we’re going to Uganda at the end of the month,” Van Woudenberg said.Much of the smuggled gold ends up in Switzerland, but Swiss gold refiner Metalor agreed last month after talks with HRW to stop purchasing gold from Uganda until it could confirm the source of the material, the rights group said.Industrial mining firms largely abandoned Ituri during the civil war, meaning mining is carried out by small-scale miners with shovels and picks – sometimes forced to work by militias.AngloGold, majority owned by diversified miner Anglo American, said in April it would plough US$5 million into exploration this year and hoped for a “substantial” find.But it said on Wednesday it would mull pulling out of the project if “extortionate demands” were put on its staff again.- Nampa-ReutersAngloGold, which began prospecting in Congo’s Ituri district early this year, acknowledged in a response to the report that its local staff had paid US$8 000 (N$54 400) to the FNI, which controlled the area where it operates, but said they had done so under duress.It said staff had feared for their safety and that the payment was against company policy and would not be repeated.Several other big mining firms have concessions in the area.”Rather than bringing prosperity to the people of northeastern Congo, gold has been a curse to those who have the misfortune to live there,” HRW said of the Ituri district, which has some of the richest gold seams in Africa.”Local warlords and international companies are among those benefiting from access to gold-rich areas while local people suffer from ethnic slaughter, torture and rape,” it said.Beyond monetary and logistical support, the FNI had gained political credibility through contact with an international company, the report said.The ethnic Lendu-dominated militia has been involved in a conflict with rival ethnic Hema factions in Ituri that has killed more than 60 000 people since 1999, hampering efforts to rebuild Congo after a five-year civil war.The United Nations has stepped up its efforts against militias in the lawless region since its peacekeepers were killed in the February ambush.But HRW said the world body had failed to loosen warlords’ grip on gold mining in the area.”The UN Security Council has buried these concerns under the carpet,” Anneke van Woudenberg, author of the report, told a new conference on Wednesday.Up to US$60 million worth of gold is smuggled each year by the militias to neighbouring Uganda, which has few gold reserves of its own, and is then exported to Europe, HRW said.There is no certification programme for gold, such as the Kimberley Process for diamonds, which has had success in stamping out trade in so-called blood diamonds which fund wars.”Both Uganda and Congo need to tighten their controls …we are talking to donors and we’re going to Uganda at the end of the month,” Van Woudenberg said.Much of the smuggled gold ends up in Switzerland, but Swiss gold refiner Metalor agreed last month after talks with HRW to stop purchasing gold from Uganda until it could confirm the source of the material, the rights group said.Industrial mining firms largely abandoned Ituri during the civil war, meaning mining is carried out by small-scale miners with shovels and picks – sometimes forced to work by militias.AngloGold, majority owned by diversified miner Anglo American, said in April it would plough US$5 million into exploration this year and hoped for a “substantial” find.But it said on Wednesday it would mull pulling out of the project if “extortionate demands” were put on its staff again.- Nampa-Reuters