"If we can take the Congo," Mao said in 1964, "we can have all of Africa." While Mao had revolution on his mind, today's party leaders understand that Congo's soil has every mineral known to man: 10% of the planet's known copper; 30% of its cobalt; 80% of its coltan (used in everything from PlayStations and iPods to magnets, cutting tools, and jet engines); and untold quantities of bauxite and zinc, cadmium and uranium, gold and diamonds. "Geologists just go into raptures about Congo," says Tara O'Connor, founder of Johannesburg's Africa Risk Consulting, one of the continent's leading corporate intelligence agencies. "The copper just bursts through the earth, and geologists wander around in a haze of ecstasy."
Congo should be one of the world's richest countries. Joseph Conrad's 1899 classic, Heart of Darkness, was inspired by the discovery of its fabled mineral wealth -- and the horror unleashed as those reserves were plundered. What the novelist couldn't know was that the looting would continue for another century and beyond. Always a troubled state, Congo has been systematically stripped by a succession of slave traders, Belgium's brutal King Leopold II (who made Congo his personal possession and a showcase for "civilizing the Negroes"), and a homegrown dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko, who presided over three decades of kleptocracy, using the state's mining monopoly as his personal kitty.
Today, the death toll in Congo -- "the world's forgotten crisis" -- stands at more than 10 times that in Darfur, according to the International Rescue Committee. Nearly 5.5 million Congolese have died since 1998 in the country's two civil wars and their aftermath, mainly from starvation and epidemics. Ongoing, rampant smuggling and corruption continues at all stages of the mining process, resulting in direct benefits to the state of a paltry $32 million in 2006. Of Congo's 65 million inhabitants, 80% live on 50 cents a day.
To understand how things got this bad, one must go back to when Congo was known as Zaire -- back to the reign of Mobutu, the leopard-skin-fez-wearing strongman who styled himself "the cock who leaves no hen untouched." Mobutu almost single-handedly destroyed an economy that was one of Africa's best in the 1960s. Then, while his starving people looked on, he bragged to 60 Minutes in 1984 that he was the world's second-richest man. Two years later, at the White House, President Reagan praised Mobutu (a useful Cold War ally) as "a voice of good sense and goodwill." Many Congolese will never forget those words.
Mobutu essentially replaced the country's formal, mineral-based economy with an utterly corrupt machine. "The parallel economy was not a simple substitute for the official economy," concludes Koen Vlassenroot, a Belgium-based professor and an expert on Congo's wars. "The official economy stopped functioning almost completely." When Mobutu was forced into exile, the network of graft he left behind was transformed into a minerals-based war economy run by invaders, rebels, and warlords -- and abetted by Western companies. Neighboring nations were willingly used as transshipment points for the contraband minerals.
Mobutu's replacement, Laurent Kabila (father of Joseph, the current president), canceled the contracts Mobutu struck with mining houses and dished them out to new companies to finance his war chest. As Laurent marched across Congo in 1997, so the story goes, he used a satellite phone to drum up $500 million in deals. When Laurent faced his own rebellion the following year, the Zimbabwean government stepped in, demanding access to minerals in exchange for saving him. Laurent was assassinated in 2001.
Between 1998 and 2001, coltan was the most desired mineral in the warring Congo and the United States was the world's No. 1 importer -- until China overtook it in 2002. Since then, cassiterite, a derivative of tin that is also used by the electronics and computer industries, has become the most coveted Congolese mineral (its use, ironically, makes devices more eco-friendly). Those booms have sustained a rebel occupation of two entire eastern provinces, where the bulk of those minerals are mined (in some cases by locals held at gunpoint by the rebels). Last June, after a decade of delay, the UN Security Council declared that its global peacekeeping operation should consider widening its mandate to prevent the illegal exploitation of resources from fueling violence. The Congolese representative pointed out that while "blood diamonds" might be better known, there was also "blood copper," "blood gold," "blood coltan," and "blood cobalt."
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Recent Comments | 10 Total
October 22, 2008 at 12:34am by Ann Garrison
You say that, "In reality, China is part of the problem," and then detail the Chinese mineral smuggling that Kasongo is trying to stop. Obviously the Chinese black marketeers or whatever have more cash to throw at the smuggling than Kasongo has to throw at stopping it, but is Kasongo signing a contract with China, to exchange minerals, legally mined, for infrastructure, roads, schools, hospitals, clean water and electricity, going to affect the smuggling one way or another? Make it worse? He has to do something, so why not China? I've heard this story before; it's not great; China in Africa is anything but great, but you don't put forth another idea for the Congo, so this just seems hugely cynical. I also hear Africans and Congo friends looking at what China offers with eyes wide open and saying, "Well, it's the best deal on offer, and the only offer to build desperately needed infrastructure."
November 11, 2008 at 8:56am by willy wacker
I disagree with the perception Kasongo tries to create. He is in power since 4 years and to date the only thing what he has achieved is to discredit the Congo,made any project unfinancable while the country missed the biggest boom ever thanks to him.The revenues could have already started if he had not made sure that all are delayed + 3 years. The only person who benefitted financially to date was him ( as he is not as honest as he tries to portray himself)as is dealing the projects out several times. If the country could get rid of him and his cronies it would be a lot easier for the local population to benefit from the next boom at least.