De drie paters werden op vrijdag 19 oktober ontvoerd uit hun klooster in Mbau (Noord-Kivu). Sinsdien is er geen nieuws van hen.
ENOUGH!
25-10-2012
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There is a six-step process for getting conflict gold from mines in eastern Congo into its final form: jewelry or gold bars for investors. At the mines, the gold is mainly dug up by hand with pick-axes and shovels in dangerous shafts as far as 100 yards into the earth. Fewer than 5 percent of miners are registered with the authorities, and an estimated 40 percent are children.*3
Armed groups and/or army commanders control a majority of mines, forcing miners to work,
taking cuts from the miners, and/or taxing traders along supply routes. An estimated 5 tons to 7 tons of gold are produced in the Kivu region of eastern Congo annually—worth between $285 million and $400 million, a large percentage of which ends up in the hands of armed groups that target civilians with rape, murder, and other abuses. *4
From the 15 major mines in the Kivu region, the gold is mainly sold to smugglers, who illegally transport 99 percent of it out of the country. The smugglers carry the gold by hand in briefcases to neighboring Uganda, Burundi, and Tanzania and then take it to Dubai. In Dubai the gold is bought by cash-for-gold dealers, and then it reaches a fork in the road: It is either processed at a refinery (smeltered) to be sold in to Europe, or it is made into jewelry for sale in the Middle East, China, and India. Refiners sell the smeltered gold primarily to banks in Switzerland to be held in vaults for investors or jewelers. Worldwide, jewelers and investors together account for 80 percent of gold consumption; roughly 10 percent of gold is used in electronics, and central-bank purchases, dentistry, and industrial uses make up the other 10 percent.*5
This supply chain is not always linear, as gold can be melted down several times, and firms generally source from several suppliers. But these six steps represent the main path for Congo’s conflict gold, a trade that is tightly controlled close to its source by a few powerful individuals. The supply chain has some key choke points, however, that can be exploited for a possible solution to the conflict—namely, the large mines, the Dubai refiners, and the handful of large smugglers in Congo and neighboring countries.
In contrast to the progress on reducing militias’ profits from the 3-T minerals, few inroads have been made in stemming the conflict-gold trade. The Dodd-Frank legislation and electronics-industry audits led to a 65 percent drop in armed groups’ profits from the 3-Ts and have spurred reforms by governments and companies
.*6
The conflict-gold trade, however, has increased over the same period rather than decreased: Fighting in and around gold mines continues; mines are at full production; the Rwandan Hutu Democratic Forces has begun trading gold again; and the M23 rebels are attempting to take over gold-trading areas in North Kivu and Ituri. As a civil society leader in eastern Congo told the Enough Project, “For now, there is no pressure on gold dealers at all …
No one cares where the gold comes from.”
*7
Building on the 3-T legislation, some companies are starting to pay attention. Some mining companies are undertaking audits, with banks auditing refiners beginning in 2013, and jewelers are putting conflict-gold policies in place. But conflict gold is still flowing from Congo unabated. The following report is an outline of the supply chain.
Eastern Congo’s gold mines are among the most abusive and dangerous places to work in the world. Gold miners have no health or safety standards because the mines and the trade are unregulated by Congo’s government. Because they are physically small enough to climb into tiny mine shafts, children make up an estimated 40 percent of the miners and can be as young as 8 years old.
*8 They are joined by crews of former militia fighters and young men, digging shafts up to 100 yards deep.
*9
Collapses in the shafts kill hundreds of workers every year. An accident in August, for example, left 60 miners dead.
*10 Mercury is also used at and around the mines without gloves or safety protection, and miners are often poisoned by inhaling mercury vapors.
The surrounding populations also can suffer mercury poisoning by consuming fish from the contaminated streams and rivers close to the mines.11 Malnutrition, physical injury, and lack of clean water and medical services compound the health and safety concerns of miners.
*12
Nearly all of the gold in the Kivu region of eastern Congo is mined artisanally—by hand, pick-axe, and shovel—and fewer than 5 percent of the miners are registered with the authorities.
*13 There is one exception to this: The Canadian/South African company Banro is producing gold at one industrial mine, and both it and a South African consortium are separately planning production at two other mines next year. These mines appear to be conflict-free, but both companies have had issues working with local communities. Banro is currently benefitting from a 10-year tax break from the Congolese government. Whether industrial mining helps or harms eastern Congo will depend on how companies interact with communities and help artisanal miners, meet key standards, exclude warlords, and operate transparently.
There are also hundreds of child soldiers involved in the gold trade. When the Enough Project asked a room full of former child soldiers at a local rehabilitation center who among them had been involved in the gold trade, the vast majority of the children ages 11 to 16 raised their hands.
The chief reason for the abhorrent conditions is the control of the trade by armed groups and their criminal networks, including the former National Congress for the Defense of the People—which is now part of M23—as well as the Rwandan Hutu Democratic Forces, Mai Mai armed militias, and Congolese official army commanders.
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There has been limited improvement in some gold mines—one demilitarized mine was identified in 2011—but according to the U.N. Group of Experts, “Gold is among the main sources of financing most readily available to armed groups.”
*17
U.N. investigators confirmed this trend in a September 2012 report.
*18
Armed groups control a majority of the trade through four main means: taxation, protection, commercial control, or coercive control.(19 Taxation is done by collecting fees from miners at mines or roadblocks. Protection involves extorting money from mine managers with the threat of violence to them or their operations. Armed groups exercise commercial control by buying and selling close to the mines and owning gold-processing machines. Coercive control is carried out by pillaging mines or forcing miners to work exclusively for the armed group for a certain number of days each week. General Ntaganda, who has since mutinied from the army to start a rebellion, ran an extensive gold-smuggling network in 2011 worth tens of millions of dollars from mines in Walikale, Numbi, and Rubaya. This included the attempted sale of a $27 million lot of gold to three Houston-based businessmen, allegedly brokered by former basketball star Dikembe Mutombo.
*20
Armed groups—often battlefield enemies—continue to trade gold for weapons, including the Rwandan Hutu Democratic Forces trading with the Congolese army, Mai Mai militias trading with the army, and M23 trading with the Rwandan Hutu Democratic Forces
.*21
The United Nations has stated that, “According to local leaders in one remote area, the first thing newly arrived [Congolese army] officers often ask them is
“Where are the mines?’” *
22
The Rwandan Hutu Democratic Forces and allied Mai Mai militias until mid-2011 controlled a large number of mines and trading routes in Lubero, Fizi, Shabunda, Mwenga, and Walikale,*
23 but was displaced from its bases in late 2011 by Congolese/U.N. military operations. It has since moved back into some gold-mining areas.
Congolese army officers continue to profit by controlling mines in North and South Kivu and extorting bribes from exporters in the gold trading cities of Butembo, Beni, and Bukavu. For example, General Gabriel Amisi’s troops forcibly took over the important Omate gold mine in 2010 to install a company from which he was to take 25 percent of the profits, beat up local civilians who protested the move, and moved to control several minerals pits in Walikale.*
24
Army officers are also involved in a trade in counterfeit gold worth millions of dollars, whereby real gold is used to lure buyers, who are then given up to 400 kilograms of fake gold.
*25 Gold is also reportedly financing Burundian rebels, who are potentially looking to destabilize that country. *
26
Local smugglers
A handful of local smugglers in eastern Congo who work with armed groups and regional smugglers control the trade by pre-purchasing gold directly from the mines. Known locally as comptoirs, local smugglers send their traders to the mines with large amounts of cash, and the traders then transport the gold back to three main towns: Bukavu, South Kivu or Butembo, and Beni, North Kivu. The local smugglers exporters have working relationships with one or more armed groups for protection of mines and transport routes. As Jacques, a former rebel told Enough, “[As a rebel], you have to work with certain sellers who help you sell the gold. You can’t sell it yourself because the bigger traders would think that you’d kill them.”
*27 A gold exporter then told Enough, “I can no longer visit the villages. They will kill me.”
*28 As a civil society leader later explained, “That is because he [the trader] has been trading gold with the [Rwandan Hutu Democratic Forces] for years. The communities hate him for that; he brought them war.”
*29 Because of these close relationships, exporters are generally aware of the sources of their gold and can identify the mines of origin due to differences in quality and purity from the different mines. The local smugglers then aggregate the gold from different mines through rudimentary refining.
The largest exporter in South Kivu is Etablissement Namukaya, locally known as CongoCom. Namukaya has been documented by the United Nations to have bought gold from the M23-linked Mai Mai Sheka rebel group—which allegedly orchestrated the rape of 387 people in 201030—the Rwandan Hutu Democratic Forces, and other Mai Mai groups.
*31 Its director, Evariste Shamamba, also owns an airline that transports
gold from mines to Bukavu.
*32 A Namukaya representative admitted that its due diligence consisted solely of buying “from areas where it is safe to land a plane.”
*33
The trade in North Kivu was controlled by Ugandan-linked Kambale Kisoni until his murder in 2007, but trader Kasereka Maghulu appears to be taking over Kisoni’s former position in Butembo
*34 Maghulu also operates an airline that regularly flies to remote areas in Congo
*35 The Butembo-Beni trade has links to Mai Mai Lafontaine, the Rwandan Hutu Democratic Forces, the Congolese army, the Allied Democratic Forces—a Ugandan rebel force—and other local armed groups
*.36
A smaller amount of gold is bought by individual traders, negociants, who sell it to other traders to smuggle out of the country. This petty trade is highly risky, as the individuals undercut the powerful smugglers and face high security risks transporting the gold along the road. The Enough Project witnessed several such small enterprises that traded out of the back of grocery or hardware stores through secret doors. On the way out of Congo, the traders pay bribes to different armed groups to pass security checkpoints. As Willy, a minerals transporter, told Enough, “If you drive from Walikale [a major minerals center] to Goma, you have to pass three different checkpoints. You have to pay the [Rwandan Hutu Democratic Forces], you have to pay the [former National Congress for the Defense of the People], and you have to pay the army. You have to pay all, or they will kill you.”
*37
The volume of this trade is smaller than that carried out by the armed groups, with transactions up to $5,000. Larger deals appear to go through the main exporters in Bukavu and Beni/Butembo—the gold traders in the Essence area of Bukavu that Enough spoke to, for example, sell the vast majority of their gold to Namukaya.38
Only a tiny fraction of Congo’s gold production is exported legally. For example, only 23 kilograms of gold was officially exported from the Kivu regions in the first six months of 2012, despite an estimated 2 tons to 4 tons going out unofficially.
*39
This stands in contrast to the 3-T minerals, which are larger and more difficult to smuggle. Roughly $30,000 worth of gold can fit in one’s pocket, and $700,000 worth can fit in a briefcase, whereas it would take 13 large trucks carrying 233 tons of tin ore total to equal that value.
*40
Discrepancies in regional export taxes have also helped increase smuggling in the past, as Congo’s export tax was triple that of Uganda and Burundi. Congo lowered the gold export tax in late 2011, however, from 3.25 percent to 1 percent, bringing it nearly in line with that of Uganda.
*41
Regional smugglers in Uganda, Burundi, and Tanzania
From eastern Congo’s major towns, gold is mainly transferred to a small network of smuggling firms in neighboring Uganda, Burundi, and Tanzania. These firms are able to control the market because they can pay a higher price for the gold by avoiding taxes.
*42 These companies both pre-purchase gold from the large Congolese producers and buy from individual smugglers who bring gold across the border from Congo. As a western industry analyst who witnessed transactions first hand told Enough, “The buyers [in Uganda] ask the sellers where the gold comes from. Even though all the traders are Congolese, they all say ‘South Sudan,’ but it’s obvious that that is not true. They write ‘South Sudan’ on the import form, and the transaction is finished, no questions asked. Then the mining ministry sees that ‘South Sudan’ has been written and stamps its approval.”
*43
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