Posted on 01/10/2019 11:59:19 AM PST by Kaslin
If you advocate electric vehicles and dote on cellphones whose manufacture depends on Congo's minerals, then the Democratic Republic of Congo's flawed Dec. 30 presidential election matters because it can affect your digital lifestyle.
Congo's stability also matters if you value human life. In Congo's last civil war (Great Congo War, 1996-2003) some three million to five million people died in anarchic combat and from starvation, disease and exposure exacerbated by war.
The election to replace term-limited President Joseph Kabila was originally slated for late 2016. The constitution, which drew on the peace agreement that ended the civil war, required he cede power.
But the crook didn't. Kabila and his corrupt regime delayed the vote and held power for another two years. During his unconstitutional extension, Kabila sought ways to continue to dominate the executive branch, either through a surrogate or by retaining personal rule.
Kabila and other corrupt elites use the presidency and its bureaucracies to plunder for personal gain. Controlling access to Congo's world-class mineral deposits is a lucrative scam but by no means their only graft and looting gambit.
Rampant corruption, shredding the constitution and the physical intimidation of opponents by pro-Kabila security forces have seeded public rage of the sort that explodes when triggered.
A contested election is a trigger. If Kabila decides to remain in office under the guise of maintaining security until disputes are resolved, violent street reaction is guaranteed. Chances of this igniting another civil war cannot be dismissed.
Congo's neighbors understand a revived civil war could expand to a regional war. On Dec. 27, representatives from several central and southern African nations met in the "other Congo," the Republic of Congo-Brazzaville (a DRC neighbor). They discussed how to respond to "spillover" conflict from Congo should post-election violence erupt. To emphasize their concern, Zambia, Angola, Uganda, Rwanda and South Africa didn't send bureaucrats; they sent senior government leaders.
South Africa and Angola are regional military heavyweights. Angola borders Congo and fears another wave of Congolese refugees like those Congo's Kasai war generated in 2016 and 2017. South Africa is the key contributor to the U.N.'s Force Intervention Brigade, which serves with the MONUSCO peacekeeping operation.
Yes, MONUSCO still has 16,000 soldiers on duty in Congo. The government it helped stabilize has now put sustained peace at grave risk. However, armed peacekeepers give the U.N. gun-barrel leverage over Kabila. Pressure from the U.N., the European Union, the U.S., Canada and Britain ultimately forced him to hold an election.
Yet international presence and pressure didn't prevent Kabila from running a handpicked surrogate, former interior minister and henchman Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary. Nor did they stop him from attempting to undermine opposition candidates Felix Tshisekedi and Martin Fayulu.
No surprise -- grounds for a disputed tally began to emerge before the election began. As this column is written (10 days after the election), accusations of vote rigging and ballot tampering are rampant. A few highlights: The Kabila government shut down internet service to prevent the dissemination of "fake news." It decided 1.2 million likely opposition voters in eastern Congo could not vote until March. Why? The Ebola virus might spread. Citizens in the areas voted any way.
On Jan. 5, Congo's Catholic Bishops Conference said that the Independent National Electoral Commission must "publish, with all responsibility" presidential election results. CENCO's secretary-general reported that vote tallies its observers have seen "reveal the choice of one candidate" as president. Later a CENCO spokesman said that there is "a clear winner" in the election. CENCO implied the victor is an opposition candidate. Rumors say it's Fayulu, with Tshisekedi second.
The Catholic Church is Congo's most trusted nationwide institution, the only national institution that is not regarded as corrupted by Congo's wealthy families and elite politicians.
CENCO deployed over 40,000 election monitors throughout the country. SYMOCEL, another citizens group, deployed 15,000. The monitors were in position to detect voting trends.
Official vote results are now due in mid-January, but the rumor mill insists Shadary finished a distant third.
That means Kabila lost. Will he go? If he doesn't, prepare for a major bloodletting.
The classic example of a sh_thole country: corrupt, backward, impoverished despite abundant natural resources.
They sure showed those Belgians when they kicked them out and nationalized the mines, didn’t they?
Enjoy your “independence”, idiots.
Doesn’t Angola know? Refugees are good and to be welcomed?
Send Nancy and Chucky to explain.
The Belgians were lousy administrators.
Worse than the Congolese?
About on a par, actually
Some of the Belgians took up cannibalism.
Heart of darkness, eh?
Hillary Clinton helped Clinton Foundation donors profit off Congo
Hillary Clinton's seeming refusal to take on corruption in African countries if the political status quo benefited foundation donors is evidence of the former secretary of state's favorable treatment of friends, author Peter Schweizer alleged in his new book, Clinton Cash. As an example, Schweizer highlights a 2006 law NY Sen Clinton supported that would have cracked down on the Democratic Republic of the Congo's illicit mineral trade — if she enforced it as secretary of state three years later. Instead, Clinton's "actions during her tenure as secretary of state came nowhere near the positions she had taken while in the U.S. Senate," Schweizer wrote.
The Congo's corrupt trade of minerals such as copper and cobalt funds rebel groups that perpetuate the violence keeping the country in tatters. Unrest in the region allows some companies to take advantage of the situation and negotiate lower prices for mining rights. "This kind of business could be enormously profitable if you were willing to look the other way on corruption and human rights," Schweizer wrote.
<><> The head of a Canadian-based company with an enormous stake in the Congo's mining and oil announced a $100 million donation to the Clinton Foundation through his charity on the heels of Clinton's first presidential campaign, the Schweizer book noted. Lukas Lundin, a Swedish investor whose family had founded the Lundin Group, also personally gave between $1 million and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation prior to 2013, donor records show. Lundin's lucrative mining operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo were threatened by the piece of legislation Clinton herself had cosponsored in 2006.
The Congo Relief, Security and Democracy Promotion Act would have upended the Congolese leadership that allowed Lundin to mine in the country unhindered, Schweizer wrote. When the struggling Congolese government attempted in 2008 to reclaim control over parts of the mine that holds the world's largest deposits of copper and cobalt, Lundin Mining reportedly resisted. The company claimed allowing the government a larger share in the mine would make the project "economically unfeasible," the Globe and Mail reported in 2008. At the time, Lundin owned a 24.75 percent stake in the mine and another company, Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold, owned 57.5 percent, leaving the Congolese government in control of 17.5 percent of the mine.
<><> Freeport is also a major Clinton Foundation donor, giving between $250,000 and $500,000, according to donor records. The Congolese government saw its stake in the mine climb by just 2.5 percent in 2010 after talks that were thought to have been conducted by the State Department "in support of Freeport," the Financial Times reported that year. Clinton's agency allegedly intervened in another dispute between a mining company and the Congo's government in 2009, Schweizer noted.
<><> First Quantum Minerals, another Canadian mining corporation, was locked in a dispute with the Congolese government after winning the rights to a profitable mine using "questionable methods," the author wrote, alleging the firm bribed officials in the country to get the contract. Clinton's State Department intervened after the Congolese government stripped First Quantum of its business license, ensuring the company was paid $1.25 billion for its assets in the country, according to the Schweizer book.
First Quantum's founder, Jean-Raymond Boulle, has had controversial ties to the Clintons for decades. In 1998, he dropped all business with the Congo's existing regime and began heavily bribing the incoming dictator, Laurent Kabila, in an apparent attempt to secure valuable mining property before the country's leadership changed hands, Forbes reported that year. The U.S. still backed the Congo's existing leader at the time. The report suggested Boulle's ties to Clinton helped him seal the remunerative deal. "Did Boulle have advance knowledge that the U.S. was about to change sides, sealing the fate of the old dictatorship?" the Forbes report said. "We don't know; Boulle denies he had any help from the U.S. government. But we do know that Jean Boulle has interesting Clinton Administration connections."
SOURCE--https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/clinton-helped-companies-that-donated-to-foundation-profit-off-africa
A little known Swedish-Canadian oil and mining conglomerate human rights groups have repeatedly charged produces “blood minerals” is among the Clinton Foundation’s biggest donors, thanks to a $100 million pledge in 2007, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation has found. “Blood minerals” are related to “blood diamonds,” which are allegedly mined in war zones or sold as commodities to help finance political insurgencies or despotic warlords. When the Vancouver, Canada-based Lundin Group gave its $100 million commitment to the “Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative,” the company had long been cutting deals with warlords, Marxist rebels, military strongmen and dictatorships in the war-torn African countries of Congo, Sudan and Ethiopia.
Lundin promoted its reputation as a fierce, hard-driving company. Adolf Lundin, who founded the company, audaciously traveled to the French home of Congo dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in 1996 to secure mining rights for his company. A few years later, Lundin admitted he had offered a “donation” to Mobutu’s “elections campaign,” but later said he never gave the funds. His son, Lukas Lundin, also likes to promote the company’s reputation. He told an interviewer in 2005 his personal philosophy was “to chase elephants. Go big or go home.” The Lundin Group reportedly cut a deal in 1997 with Congolese Marxist warlord Laurent Kabila, with a $50 million down payment toward $250 million they would give to the rebels in exchange for mining rights, according to according to U.N. Inspector Jason K. Stearns. Lundin eventually won majority rights to one of the country’s richest mineral veins.A Swedish prosecutor, mirroring the views of human rights groups, once characterized the company as filled with “opportunistic, dictator-hugging businessmen,” a description the company has vigorously denied.
In accepting the $100 million, President Bill Clinton hailed Lundin’s contribution, saying “today’s generous support by the Lundin Group is to be applauded because it demonstrates the potential of this global initiative to capture the imagination and support of the mining sector.” It wasn’t the first time Clinton consorted with mining moguls.
In the waning hours of his presidency in 2001, Clinton pardoned Glencore International mining and oil magnate Marc Rich after his wife, Denise, made generous donations to the Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton’s Senate campaign and his Clinton Library. Clinton’s pardon erased a 65-count indictment against Rich for trading with Iran against the oil embargo. Rich did the Iranian oil sales while Americans were held captive in the country by the Mullahs.
In the same year the Clinton Foundation accepted Lundin’s money, Swedwatch, a Swedish non-governmental organization that tracks Swedish business dealings in the developing world, released a condemnatory report about the company’s operations in Congo, titled “Risky Business.” The report detailed widespread suffering in the Congo as whole villages were removed to make way for Lundin’s mining operations.
Six years earlier, the relief organization Christian Aid released a report denouncing the scorched-earth tactics of the Sudanese military to clear villages for Lundin’s petroleum exploration. Its report was titled, “Lundin Oil in Sudan: Scorched Earth.” Thanks to those reporters and others, Lundin is known in Congress as well. Rep. Joe Pitts, a Pennsylvania Republican who co-chairs the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, told TheDCNF that “areas with high conflict over minerals are breeding grounds for human rights abuses on a massive scale, and when entities like the Clintons’ Foundation accept donations from these corrupt actors, they are sanctioning the exploitation.”
Swedish foreign minister Anna Lindh reflected her government’s regret over the Swedish company in April, 2001, saying, “Lundin Oil activities are negative for Sweden.” She added, “we expect Swedish companies to respect an ethical code in line with human rights and the environment in which they operate abroad.”
Although then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited the Congo in 2009, she unexpectedly delayed implementation of a landmark “certification” program designed to assure human rights were respected by mining companies like Lundin in Africa. The certification process was passed under the Dodd-Frank Act. Her failure to act was criticized at the time by John Prendergast, president of “Enough.org,” a nongovernmental organization which championed the “blood minerals” legislation. “At rare moments during the course of a war, a confluence of factors come together to provide a window of opportunity for real conflict transformation,” he wrote in 2010, a year after Clinton assumed office. “That missing conductor is the United States, and more specifically, its highest ranking official to travel to Congo and make it a priority: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. “At this pivotal moment, it is imperative that Secretary Clinton’s 14 month-old commitments to Congo are translated into concrete actions from the U.S. government.”
Robin Wright, another Enough.org advocate, wrote in Time Magazine that two years after Clinton traveled to the Congo, local villagers told her, “nearly everyone I met asked me to take a message back to ‘Mama Clinton’ to urge her to make good on her promise to implement the certification process.” Such apparent quid pro quos were common at the Clinton Foundation, charges Charles Ortel, who has extensively studied the foundation. “Since January 2001, the Clinton family has used their public charity as a vehicle to create enormously valuable concessions in numerous desperately poor and corrupt countries, for individuals who claim that they have made extravagantly large ‘pledges.'”
The final execution of the certification process was announced by the Department of State the same month Clinton left office in February, 2013. Human rights groups have released numerous reports of the devastation wrought by oil and mining companies in Africa, with many focusing specifically on Lundin. Swedwatch wrote extensively of the horrors caused by Lundin mining in Congo. “Three villages were relocated to make room for the new mining activities. In October 2007, many resettled families that had been promised new houses were still sheltering under plastic sheeting, waiting for their new houses to be built,” the report stated.
In the Sudan, Christian Aid said field workers in the Sudan “found thousands of Nuer civilians displaced from villages along this road, hundreds of miles away” due to Lundin oil operations, adding, “Then government troops arrived by truck and helicopter, burning the villages and killing anyone who was unable to flee – in most cases, the old and the very young.” In April, 2001, Swedish Dagens Nyheter journalist Anna Koblanck toured Lundin’s Block 5A oil parcels in the Sudan with company executives. Koblanck described seeing death and destruction along the way, writing, “the displaced Bentiu are starving to death.” She reported that “many villages along the road are empty.” Human Rights Watch in 2003 noted Lundin never mentioned the scorched earth tactics in public statements about its presence in the Sudan: “The oil companies, led by Lundin, made no public statement condemning this destruction and displacement in Block 5A, despite the press attention it garnered and the regular alarms from U.N. agencies about the dire state of the needy in this very area.
“None of this fighting nor mass displacement caused the oil consortium, led by Lundin, to express concern about the well-being of the people living in its concession area,” said Human Rights Watch. “Lundin never mentioned the armed conflict in its public releases.” Accusations of Lundin human rights violations in Ethiopia were so frequent in 2011 two Swedish journalists went there to investigate charges the company was party to widespread human rights violations. They were arrested by Ethiopian authorities government on “terrorism” charges and in 2012 sentenced to 18 years in prison. The two “were investigating allegations of human rights violations linked to the activities of the Swedish oil company Lundin Oil,” stated PEN, the international journalist organization. The international outcry finally secured their release after more than a year of imprisonment.
For his part, Lukas Lundin has taken a page from the Clintons. He has established his own family Lundin Foundation that showcases an allegedly softer side of the company. Lundin states the company is concerned about the welfare of local people, emphasizing “education and skills training to maximize local hire” including “sourcing from local producers” and “targeting wealth and employment creation in sectors independent of extractive activities.” Neither the Clinton Foundation nor Lundin Group responded to requests for comment by The Daily Caller News Foundation (TheDCNF).
“Kabila and his corrupt regime delayed the vote.” - “The Kabila government shut down internet service.”
Kabila is a person missing a prefrontal cortex, lacking reasoning skills and void of prudence. Kabila is just going with his animal impulses and instincts. As a result, the advice from the Catholic Church is ignored.
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