How We Fuelled the Deadliest War in the World -- and It's Starting Again
The deadliest war since Adolf Hitler marched across Europe is starting again -- and you are almost certainly carrying a blood-soaked chunk of the slaughter in your pocket. When we glance at the holocaust in the Congo, with 5.4 million dead, the clichés of Africa reporting tumble out: this is a "tribal conflict" in "the Heart of Darkness." It isn't. The United Nations investigation found it was a war led by "armies of business" to seize the metals that make our twenty-first century society zing and bling. The war in Congo is a war about you.
Every day I think about the people I met in the warzones of Eastern Congo when I reported from there. The wards filled with women who had been gang-raped by the militias and shot in the vagina. The battalions of child soldiers -- drugged, dazed thirteen year olds who had been made to kill members of their own families so they couldn't try to escape and go home. But oddly, as I watch the war starting again on CNN, I find myself thinking about a woman I met who had, by Congolese standards, not suffered in extremis.
I was driving back to Goma from a diamond mine one day when my car got a puncture. As I waited for it to be fixed, I stood by the roadside and watched the great trails of women who stagger along every road in Eastern Congo, carrying all their belongings on their backs in mighty crippling heaps. I stopped a 27 year-old woman called Marie-Jean Bisimwa who had four little children toddling along beside her. She told me she was lucky. Yes, her village had been burned out. Yes, she had lost her husband somewhere in the chaos. Yes, her sister had been raped and gone insane. But she and her kids were alive.
I gave her a lift, and it was only after a few hours of chat along on cratered roads that I noticed there was something strange about Marie-Jean's children. They were slumped forward, their gazes fixed in front of them. They didn't look around, or speak, or smile. "I haven't ever been able to feed them," she said. "Because of the war." Their brains hadn't developed; they never would now. "Will they get better?" she asked. I left her in a village on the outskirts of Goma, and her kids stumbled after her, expressionless.
There are two stories about how this war began -- the official story, and the true story. The official story is that after the Rwandan genocide, the Hutu mass murderers fled across the border into Congo. The Rwandan government chased after them. But it's a lie. How do we know? The Rwandan government didn't go to where the Hutu genocidaires were; not at first. They went to where Congo's natural resources were -- and began to pillage them. They even told their troops to work with any Hutus they came across. Congo is the richest country in the world for gold, diamonds, coltan, cassiterite, and more. Everybody wanted a slice - so six other countries invaded.
These resources were not being stolen to be used in Africa. They were being seized so they could be sold on to us. The more we bought, the more the invaders stole -- and slaughtered. The rise of mobile phones caused a surge in deaths, because the coltan they contain is found primarily in Congo. The UN named the international corporations it believed were involved: Anglo-America, Standard Chartered Bank, De Beers and more than 100 others (they all deny the charges). But instead of stopping these corporations, our governments demanded the UN stop criticising them.
There were times when the fighting flagged. In 2003, a peace deal was finally brokered by the UN, and the international armies withdrew. Many continued to work via proxy militias -- but the carnage waned somewhat. Until now. As with the first war, there is a cover-story, and the truth. A Congolese militia leader called Laurent Nkunda -- backed by Rwanda -- claims he needs to protect the local Tutsi population from the same Hutu genocidaires who have been hiding out in the jungles of Eastern Congo since 1994. That's why he is seizing Congolese military bases and is poised to march on Goma.
It is a lie. Francois Grignon, Africa Director of the International Crisis Group, tells me the truth: "Nkunda is being funded by Rwandan businessmen so they can retain control of the mines in North Kivu. This is the absolute core of the conflict. What we are seeing now is the beneficiaries of the illegal war economy fighting to maintain their right to exploit." At the moment, Rwandan business interests make a fortune from the mines they illegally seized during the war. The global coltan price has collapsed, so now they focus hungrily on cassiterite, which is used to make tin cans and other consumer disposables. As the war began to wane, they faced slowly losing their control to the elected Congolese government -- so they have given it another bloody kick-start.
Yet the debate about Congo in the West -- when it exists at all -- focuses on our inability to provide a decent bandage, without mentioning that we are causing the wound. It's true the 17,000 UN forces in the country are abysmally failing to protect the civilian population, and urgently need to be super-charged. But it is even more important to stop fuelling the war in the first place by buying blood-soaked natural resources. Nkunda only has enough guns and grenades to take on the Congolese army and the UN because we buy his loot. We need to prosecute the corporations buying them for abetting Crimes Against Humanity, and introduce of a global coltan-tax to pay for a substantial peace-keeping force. To get there, we need to build an international system that values the lives of black people more than it values profit.
Somewhere out there -- lost in the great global heist of Congo's resources - are Marie-Jean and her children, limping along the road once more, carrying everything they own on their backs. They will probably never use a coltan-filled mobile phone, a cassiterite-smelted can of beans, or a gold necklace -- but they may yet die for one.
Johann Hari is a writer for the Independent. To read more of his articles, click here.
To save the lives of the victims of Congo's sexual violence, you can donate money here.
To read more of Johann's reporting on Congo, click here.
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It should be "The deadliest war since Joseph Stalin marched across Europe,".
thanks for this. action info would be helpful.
Just a thought - Bearing in mind the relative wealth of some of the richest people in the world, aswell as revelations about how modern wars are being fought(And I'm ignoring the reasons why they were employed at all while I make this point), is it not possible for Bill Gates, or any billionaire - perhaps a collection of such people - to hire out Blackwater and help save the lives their charitable foundations attempt to save from famine and disease?
Perhaps Gates is a bad example, he may well - as I do - feel that individuals should not become involved like this, especially in such violent ways. But in a vacuum of nations willing to take the burden, shouldn't someone try?
I think you missed the point of the article. Wealthy people are the cause, not the solution. Solving a problem like this isn't cost-effective for them. They are only interested in their reputations and donating a few million here and there to the American Cancer Society suffices.
I don't think I missed the point, I was just thinking out loud. I have such little faith in my government or any other spending even time considering solutions for this catastrophic situation, I guess I was grasping to find some way it could be lent some real help.
Also I think you missed both a point from the article and a point I was making - While there are a lot of corporations from across the world involved in the scurrilous activities of buying and selling off the back of suffering, I do believe that not all wealthy people bear direct blame. I'm not saying Bono's the superhero he thinks he is, but there are a lot of people who do have money who are trying to make a difference.
To be honest I think all of us share some blame for not being more aware of this situation, and I also lay blame at the public worldwide for not making a vocal effort to provoke government into at least acknowledging the situation and trying to investigate and possibly prevent the sales of the materials being mined from DR Congo.
I regard Blackwater as a threat to Democracy and to all that is good in the world. I'd rather see it dismantled than given another dollar of anyone's money.
I agree with you, but it seems the public military is too expensive for government to use.
Where is the main stream media? Why are we not being told about this? How many more massacres will we witmess before the governments of the world do something?
never again!!!!...well maybe just this once..but what about what happend last year? well maybe twice but that's it.
Sad to say - the answer, as always, is blowing in the ...
Witness? We never see it in the media. Never.
Crushing story. But because it is in Africa, I have serious doubts that it will be taken seriously by any world "leader". And even if it is, is it to become another occasion for the developed nations of the northern hemisphere and our allies to occupy a country to better assert an authority that would do nothing but create MORE militias and factions out to kill?
Perhaps I'm missing something.
But it has to be said, as hard as it is to say, that much of the developed world has little interest in saving African lives. Live Aid, Band Aid, Live 8 and more have come and gone as one-off initiatives to provoke the public, but little has changed. It's true, that salvation is only attained through struggle, but with western money flowing to the unscrupulous parties involved in DR Congo, it seems impossible to predict anything but more bloodshed in the name of a quick buck. Make no mistake, I hope I'm wrong, and that something will prove me so.
No, you aren't missing something. The west has always turned a blind & deaf attitude toward those it exploits going back past the Crusades. But if we stop buying their ill gotten gain the laws of supply and demand will change some things. We can still do something with our power as consumers if we choose to.
thank you for your excellent reporting on this burgeoning conflict.
"A global coltan-tax?" That will never, ever fly. Once again, the real problem is national sovereignty -- of states that will not risk their interests, and states which cannot protect theirs.
It’s easier to count the countries that don’t have African blood on their hands.
It’s no wonder nothing is done. There’s nothing left.
Most are staring at their shoes in shame when the discussion arises.
im going to invite flaming here but, are you really to blame for congolese genocide because you like a can of beans with your rice once in awhile? gold diamonds, perhaps even coltan, luxuries i condemn happily, but common strategic metals? why are these corporations buying so much of them from africa. to satisfy our oil dependency we sent half a million soliders, bombers, tanks and attack helicopters, that would stop the genocide but it wouldnt make anyone happier for it. i am not criticising even the tone of the article but it could perhaps point to some other causes of african genocide. political ecmonomic and millitay, and possibly some solutions. im assuming that ingeneral african nations would, like to export their products.
Exporting is a lot cheaper when you can do it outside the law.
It’s easier to count the countries that don’t have African blood on their hands.
It’s no wonder nothing is done. There’s nothing left.
Most stare at their shoes in shame when the discussion arises.
The mineral substance coltan? You mean cobalt.
No, he meant Coltan. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coltan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coltan
It "coltan" is in your cell phone. Multiply.
Well, Johann, I like your work. Very tough to restrict commodities. So much smuggling. Its also tough to make change in developing countries where the civil institutions are so weak.
Coltan -tax for a peace-keeping force? Is it a UN army, Congonese, private?
Our governments demanded that the U.N. stop criticizing the corporations who were buying the blood stained commodities? Where do you start with this? the U.N? a boycott? the media? I will spread the article around. This is horrific.
The truly sad thing is that not only will governments not do anything, I doubt that the public of any nation capable of help cares enough to provoke their government. We get the leaders we deserve, and as such we get leaders who will allow this to continue.
Just like the Middle East wars that have grown out of the West's addiction to oil.
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