Dancing in the Glory of Monsters (72 page)

28
Author’s interview with Jean Mbuyu, Kinshasa, November 2007; author’s interview with Mwenze Kongolo, Kinshasa, May 2009.

29
Confidential industry intelligence report on Billy Rautenbach, August 10, 2000.

30
Ibid.

31
Cliff Taylor, “Congo Wealth Lures Africa’s Power-Players,”
Independent
(London), October 31, 1998; Michael Nest, “Ambitions, Profits and Loss: Zimbabwean Economic Involvement in the DRC,”
African Affairs
100, no. 400 (2001): 484.

32
Report of the United Nations Panel
, 8.

33
Martin Meredith,
Our Votes, Our Guns: Robert Mugabe and the Tragedy of Zimbabwe
(New York: PublicAffairs, 2002), 142.

34
Author’s interview with mining officials, Kinshasa, May 2009. There are, unfortunately, almost no legal safeguards in the Congo to prevent such transfer pricing.

35
Author’s interview with Dona Kampata, Kinshasa, July 2009.

36
Prunier,
Africa’s World War
, 239.

37
His name has been changed to protect his identity.

38
This section is based on several interviews with the pilot in the Eastern Congo, March 2008.

39
The UN panel of experts that was researching the illegal exploitation of natural resources in the Congo at the time was given similar information regarding how long it took to fly the stockpiles to Kigali.

40
According to Global Witness, a kilo of tin was being sold for $6 in Goma in 1998, when the world coltan price was hovering around $60 per kilo of refined tantalum. Coltan sold in Goma usually included around 20 to 40 percent tantalum. See Didier de Failly, “Coltan: Pour comprendre ...,” in
L’Afrique des Grands Lacs: Annuaire 2000–2001
(Paris: L’Harmattan, 2001), 13, and “ Under-Mining Peace,”
Global Witness
(June 2005): 28.

41
Report of the United Nations Panel
, 8.

42
Gauthiers de Villers with Jean Omasombo and Erik Kennes,
Republique democratique du Congo: Guerre et politique: Les trente derniers mois de L. D. Kabila, août 1998–janvier 2001
(Paris: L’Harmattan, 2001), 114–115.

43
Author’s interview with Benjamin Serukiza, former RCD vice governor of South Kivu and a prominent member of the Banyamulenge community, Kinshasa, October 2007.

44
Jeroen Cuvulier and Tim Raeymaekers,
Supporting the War Economy in the DRC: European Companies and the Coltan Trade
, International Peace Information Service (IPIS), January 2002, 8.

45
As always, reliable statistics are hard to come by in the region. According to the United States Geological Survey, columbo-tantalite exports for 2000 amounted to 1,011 tons for Rwanda and the Congo combined, while a UN experts panel estimated exports to be around 1,200 tons for the same period. Rwanda has several, smaller coltan mines, but the bulk of their exports comes from the Eastern Congo. The local price in Goma peaked in the second half of 2000 at $75 per kilo of 20 to 40 percent coltan and $150 for higher-grade product. The world price, however, peaked at around $600 for refined tantalum, so middlemen had handsome profit margins. See George Coakley,
The Mineral Industry of Congo-Kinshasa
, U.S. Geological Survey Country Report, 2002, 10.3,
www.usgs.gov
.

46
Stephan Marysse and C. Andre, “Guerre et pillage économique en République Democratique du Congo,” in
L’Afrique des Grands Lacs
; see also Bjorn Willum, “ Purely Beneficial or Contributing to War,” PhD diss., October 21, 2001, University of Copenhagen. Willum conducts a comprehensive analysis of gold, coltan, and diamond exports from the Eastern Congo and concludes that the Rwandan army and its business associates were making around $250 million in profits from mineral trade in the Eastern Congo at the height of the war.

47
Report of the United Nations Panel
, 27.

48
International Institute for Security Studies,
The Military Balance
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).

49
Author’s interview with Colonel Vincent Kitoko, Kinshasa, July 2008.

50
Rwanda: The Search for Security and Human Rights Abuses
, Human Rights Watch, vol. 12, no. 1(A), April 2000.

51
Author’s interview with Patrick Karegeya, Dar es Salaam, January 2008.

52
Final Report of the United Nations Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
, S/2002/1146, United Nations, October 16, 2002, 15.

53
World Bank: Doing Business 2009
(Washington: World Bank, 2008), 43.

54
Final Report of the United Nations Panel
;
Report of the United Nations Panel
; Cuvulier and Raeymaekers,
Supporting the War Economy
.

55
Stewart,
Corporate War Crimes
, 34–36.

CHAPTER 20

1
Gaetan Kakudji was a longtime associate of Kabila, his representative in Belgium during the 1980s, and his interior minister once he came to power; Victor Mpoyo was minister of the state portfolio for several years and handled much of Kabila’s financial dealings.

2
According to Edy Kapend, the following people attended this meeting: several of Laurent Kabila’s old comrades from his early days as a rebel, namely General Celestin Kifwa, General Sylvestre Lwetcha, General Francois Olenga, Victor Mpoyo, Gaetan Kakudji, and Yerodia Ndombasi; and members of the new vanguard, including Mwenze Kongolo, Didier Mumengi, Nono Lutula, and Henri Mova. Others say the group was smaller but did not include any other names.

3
Author’s interview with anonymous presidential aide, Kinshasa, July 2009.

4
Ibid.

5
Danna Harman, “A Shy Son in Congo’s Hot Seat,”
Christian Science Monitor
, January 23, 2001.

6
Jean Omasombo and Erik Kennes,
Biographies des acteurs de la transition
(Terveuren, Belgium: Musée Royale de l’Afrique Centrale, 2006), 70. Tanzanian security officials and numerous members of Joseph Kabila’s entourage have confirmed this.

7
Author’s interviews conducted in Kinshasa in 2007–2009; interestingly, this version is also supported by Laurent Nkunda, who fought alongside Joseph Kabila—albeit as a junior officer—in the AFDL war.

8
Erik Kennes with Jean Omasombo,
Essai biographique sur Laurent Désiré Kabila
(Paris: L’Harmattan, 2003), 300.

9
Colette Braeckman, “ Mama Sifa, la mère du president parle,”
Le Soir
(Brussels), June 6, 2006 (my translation).

10
Author’s interview with Kenyan security official, Nairobi, June 2009; “Portrait: Joseph Kabila,”
La Revue
(July/August 2006): 37.

11
“Kabange” denotes the second born of twins in Laurent Kabila’s native language, Kiluba.

12
Francois Soudan, “Portrait: Joseph Kabila,”
La Revue
(July/August 2006): 41.

13
He had been nominally in charge of some military operations during the AFDL offensive, but according to soldiers serving under him at the time, he worked in the shadow of Rwandan commanders.

14
Gérard Prunier,
Africa’s World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 258.

15
Ibid.

16
Chris McGreal, “Western Allies Urge Rwanda to Leave Congo,”
Guardian
(Manchester, U.K.), February 9, 2001.

17
“Congo Rebels Deny Clearance to U.N. Troops Trying to Land,” Associated Press, April 16, 2001.

18
Prunier,
Africa’s World War
, 263.

19
Author’s interview with UN official, Nairobi, June 2009.

20
Author’s interview with American diplomat, Kinshasa, July 2009.

21
Author’s interview with foreign journalist, Kinshasa, July 2008. The ambassador in question was Georges Serre.

22
Author’s interview with UN official, Nairobi, June 2008.

23
Author’s interview with Philip Winter, Kinshasa, June 2008.

24
Netherlands Institute for Southern Africa (NIZA),
The State vs. The People
, 2006, , 41.

25
Author’s interview with UN official, Nairobi, June 2008.

26
Special Commission Charged with Examining the Validity of Economic and Financial Conventions Concluded During the Wars of 1996–1997 and 1998: The Lutundula Report
, National Assembly of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, February 26, 2006, 63–64.

27
Final Report of the United Nations Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
, #S/2002/1146, United Nations, October 16, 2002, 7; Toby Heaps, “A Glimpse of the World: Joseph Kabila,” Tea with the
FT
,
Financial Times
(London), April 9, 2006.

28
Brooderlink Delen, “Memorandum to the Attention of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Member States of the International Committee of Support for the Transition in the DRC,” Rights and Accountability in Development, 11.11.11, February 20, 2006, 8.

29
“Office Memorandum from Craig Andrews, Principle Mining Specialist, to Pedro Alba, Country Director for the DRC,” September 4, 2005, in the author’s archive.

30
Author’s interview with presidential advisor, Kinshasa, November 2007; author’s interview with presidential pilot, Kinshasa, June 2008; Gertler is also named in
Report of the United Nations Panel on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
, United Nations, April 12, 2001.

31
Author’s interview with Congolese politician, Kinshasa, July 2009.

32
Author’s interview with Congolese mining lawyer, Kinshasa, July 2009.

33
Author’s interview with Gérard Gerold, Kinshasa, January 2007.

34
For a study of Laurent Nkunda, see Jason Stearns, “ The Emergence of a New Rebellion in North Kivu,” in
Afrique des Grands Lacs: Annuaire 2007–2008
, eds. Stefaan Marysse and Filip Reyntjens (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2008); for Rwandan support to Nkunda, see
Final Report of the United Nations Group of Experts on the DR Congo
, S/2008/773, United Nations, December 12, 2008.

35
We Will Crush You
, Human Rights Watch Report, November 2008.

36
I was speaking with a presidential intelligence officer after an abortive coup attempt by Major Eric Lenge in July 2004.

37
Author’s interview with officer in staff headquarters, Kinshasa, July 2009.

38
Author’s interview with presidential advisor, Kinshasa, July 2009.

CONCLUSION

1
Philip Gourevitch, “Forsaken,”
New Yorker
, September 25, 2000, 65.

2
The International Rescue Committee, in its most recent mortality study in 2007 concluded that 5.4 million people had died as a result of the conflict in the Congo between 1998 and 2007, not counting those who had died between 1996 and 1998, or those who have died since 2007 in the ongoing violence. “IRC Affirms Congo Mortality Findings,” January 21, 2010,
www.irc.org
. Figures of rape are notoriously difficult to estimate, but the United Nations believes that over 200,000 women have been victims of sexual violence since 1998. “Nearly 200 Women and Children Raped in Systematic Attack in Eastern DRC,” Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, August 27, 2010,
www.torturecare.org.uk/news/latest_news/3173
, accessed September 30, 2010.

3
Eve Ensler, “The Beginning of Hope or the End of It,”
Huffington Post
, October 30, 2008,
www.huffingtonpost.com/eve-ensler/the-beginning-of-hope-or_b_139423.html
.