Washington, DC — The governments of Uganda and Rwanda are denouncing a United Nations report written by a "Panel of Experts" on the exploitation of natural resources in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Since its release last month, the 56-page report's accusations of "systematic looting" of Congo by Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi, and its call for sanctions against those nations, has been a subject of contention.
"This is a type of report the reader should read backwards," Rwanda's government said last month in a detailed reply to the report's allegations. "One should start with the wild recommendations in order to follow the absurdity of the reports contents."
All three nations have said that the report harms peace efforts. On the other hand, argues Learned Dees of the Washington, D.C.-based National Endowment for Democracy, who has been following the Congo situation closely: "The report is a lever of pressure, a stick even, to make them [Uganda and Rwanda] do what they were supposed to do [to comply with the Lusaka Accords]."
Under the Accords, which were signed in Lusaka, Zambia in July of 1999, Uganda agreed to withdraw all of its troops from Congo. Other provisions of the accord commit Uganda to join efforts to normalize the DRC's border, control illicit trafficking of arms and the infiltration of armed groups; and to disarm militias and armed groups, as well as implement other security measures.
Although Uganda now says it is no longer bound by the Lusaka Accord, it continues to pull back its troops from Congo, and an anti-war group has emerged in the Ugnadan parliament.
The report has not settled the question of where to point the finger of blame for Congo's continuing conflict. That issue was the subject of fierce debate Thursday at the UN Security Council. "Most of the evidence is either hearsay or falsehoods," said Amama Mbabazi, Ugandan Minister of State for foreign affairs. Congo's foreign minister, however, praised the report: "The aggressor countries occupy Congo because of powerful and obvious economic interests which also feed their war effort," said Leonard She Okitundu. He asked for sanctions and reparations.
The report itself asks the Security Council to embargo the import and export of certain minerals by Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. Any nation breaking the embargo should face sanctions, the report proposes.
"Illegal exploitation of the mineral and forest resources of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is taking place at an alarming rate," according to the report, which also claims that exploitation by Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda "took different forms, including confiscation, extraction, forced monopoly and price-fixing." The first two forms, says the report, "reached proportions that made the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo a very lucrative business."
The five-person panel that wrote the report was selected by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan last July in response to a request by the Security Council. Mme. Safiatou Ba-N'Daw of Côte d'Ivoire chaired the group. Defending the report before the Security Council, she repeated its main charge: Exploitation in the Congo is being carried out in "systematic fashion."
The report specifically names Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni's younger brother, Major-General Caleb Akandwanaho (also known as Salim Saleh), one of President Museveni's sons, and several senior Ugandan army officers as some of the important looters.
Mr. Mbabazi said that Uganda has created a commission to investigate all the Ugandans cited by the report.
The report describes both mass-scale looting and the systemic exploitation of natural resources. It says there are strong indications that, during the phase of mass looting, key officials of the governments of Rwanda and Uganda were aware of the situation on the ground and had knowledge that looting of stocks from a number of factories was taking place. The panel also concluded that the current illegal exploitation is facilitated by administrative structures established by Uganda and Rwanda.
Rwanda's exploitation in particular, was portrayed as a sophisticated operation using several banks and other commercial instruments in the capital, Kigali. Rwanda also used prisoners to dig for Coltan, a valuable mineral used in the making of cellular telephones, in exchange for sentence reduction, the report alledges.
Patrick Mazimhaka, a special envoy of Rwandan President Paul Kagame, challenged as incorrect, the characterization of "illegal" exploitation being applied to activities that the Congo government did not sanction. Kinshasa only controls 40 percent of the Congo's territory, and by the panel's reasoning, any economic activity in the 60 percent not controlled by the government would be illegal.
"One of the most disturbing features of the report is its glossing over the real plundering of the natural resources and other forms of wealth by the Kinshasa Government and its allies," argues Rwanda's government. "The criminal transactions carried out partly for financing the war and partly for enriching some individuals are handled in the Panels report as if they were normal transactions."
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
Some members of the Council agree that the report is flawed. Learned Dees, although a sharp critic of Uganda's Congo involvement, believes there is "merit to the criticism of the report as one-sided." Norway's representative said it was difficult for Council members to separate facts from hearsay. James Cunningham, the U.S. representative, noted that Uganda and Rwanda cooperated with the panel and suffered most of the criticism. Zimbabwe, which refused to cooperate, received little censure.
There is virtually no disagreement, however, that the Congo has been ruthlessly exploited by many parties during the last three years of war and for much of its 40-plus years of independence from Belgium.
The Security Council session ended with a decision to extend the panel's mandate for another three months in order to continue its investigations. In defending her report before the Security Council, Mme. Ba-N'Daw said it was 70 percent complete.
