Global minerals, arms smuggling networks fuel DR Congo conflict – UN report
NEW YORK, 7 December 2009: Minerals and arms smuggling worth millions of dollars persists in eastern DR Congo (former Zaire) despite international sanctions.
This fuels rebel strength despite national army operations, and army and rebel soldiers continue to kill civilians, according to a new United Nations report that calls on the Security Council to take action to plug the gaps.
The independent Group of Experts monitoring UN sanctions on the DR Congo reports that the mainly Rwandan Hutu rebels of the Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR) continue to exploit gold and cassiterite in North and South Kivu provinces with the help of trading networks in Uganda, Burundi and the United Arab Emirates, while irregular arms deliveries have come from North Korea and Sudan.
End buyers for cassiterite include the Malaysia Smelting Corporation and the Thailand Smelting and Refining Company, which is held by United Kingdom-based Amalgamated Metals Corporation, the experts add. The rebels also get weapons leaked to them from the army itself while the rebel diaspora abroad, particularly in Europe, coordinates fundraising and operations.
“The increasing rate of FDLR combatant defections and FDLR temporary removal from many of its bases are only a partial success, considering that the armed group has regrouped in a number of locations in the Kivus, and continues to recruit new fighters,” they write of the army’s offensive, noting that the rebels continue to benefit from residual but significant support from top army commanders and external support networks in Burundi and Tanzania.
“FDLR has a far-reaching international diaspora network involved in the day-to-day running of the movement, the coordination of military and arms trafficking activities and the management of financial activities.”
The report calls on the Security Council to ask Member States to share data on active FDLR diaspora members, prosecute sanctions violations by nationals or leaders of armed groups residing in their territories and take steps to prevent companies from supporting such groups by trade in natural resources.
The Council should also call on all States in the Great Lakes region to immediately publish their full import and export statistics for gold, cassiterite, coltan and wolframite and centralize them in a body chaired by an independent auditor mandated to verify any statistical anomalies.
Kilde: FNs Nyhedstjeneste
