Exactly 50 years ago, in the last week of June 1960, 4 African states were "liberated" at once (Madagascar, Mali, Somalia and Congo). Africa was liberated in bulk. Then the colonial administration left, but the interests of business remained: they could already be defended in a different way. Among African countries there were states poor in mineral resources. They were relatively lucky - they were of little interest. Those who suffered the most were those who still had something of value.
Congo is considered one of the richest countries in the world. The population, on the other hand, closes the list of poverty. There is even such a wish to the enemy in the Congo: "so that you live in gold" …
We all use mobile phones. They are sold up to half a billion a year, and each uses columbo-tantalite, obtained from coltan ore, and 80% of the world's coltan deposits are located in the Congo. And that's not counting a third of the world's diamond reserves, almost half of cobalt reserves, a quarter of uranium reserves, as well as significant oil fields, copper, gold and silver. One of the richest countries in the world could afford the standard of living of at least the Emirates. But there are America Mineral Fields Inc., and then there are Nokia, Siemens, as well as Cobatt (USA), H. C. Starck (Germany), Ningxia (China) and a number of others …
For 50 years in the Congo, the war, called both the "Congolese civil" and the "second African" and "world coltan", has practically not abated. At first, the fight was for diamonds, and in the 90s mobile phones appeared, and the "coltan boom" began. Over the past ten years, from 6 to 10 million people have died here (according to various sources). The "holy" war (as it is called by some of the participating groups) continues for control over the coltan mines concentrated in the South Kivu province. From here the population is fleeing en masse (who can).
Everyone has their own interests in the Congo - who did not get there only indirectly. National groups of Tutsi and Hutu (hiding the Franco-American conflict of interests), religious sects, missions of foreign states, regular units of neighboring Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and Angola, Russian and Ukrainian pilots, Chinese specialists and French mercenaries, guards of private Belgian and French firms. The dump is general. Coltan mines are concentrated, moreover, in two national nature parks - and in recent years there have been almost no animals left here. The hungry armies ate all the gorillas, elephants and giraffes, and the area itself now resembles a lunar landscape.
In addition, the coltan deposits here are mixed with radioactive uranium deposits, and it is mined manually using a shovel and a tin basin. Bottom line: almost half of the children are stillborn. Miners simply carry chunks of radioactive ore in their pockets.
Another problem for the richest country is hunger. Up to 70% of the total male population is fighting in the armies, legal and illegal armed formations, the rest produce coltan, receiving about 1-2 dollars a day. Coltan is dug in makeshift mines, where miners constantly fall asleep. Almost no one is engaged in agriculture - it makes no sense, anyway, not today or tomorrow, some army will pass and sweep everything clean. Only women still somehow swarm in the gardens to feed their children. But they are faced with another problem - according to local beliefs, a soldier who raped a woman will be protected from a bullet …
In the province of South Kivu, up to 1,500 people are now killed every day (!). As many as 33 armed groups are fighting here on the principle of all against all. Worst of all, the UN peacekeepers sent here are also immediately involved in the sharing of profits from the mines - it comes to clashes already between the blue helmets. Everyone needs coltan - its profitability significantly exceeds the income from diamonds, uranium and gold.
Local sorcerers consider coltan a "cursed stone", claiming that until all of it is dug up, there will be no peace in the Congo.
Yes, in 1960 the Belgian administration left the Congo, but the L'Union Miniere company remained, which was breathing very unevenly towards the diamond mines. Lumumba, who tried to nationalize the mines, did not live long after that, as is known. In his place, Mobutu formally ruled the capital for 40 years, hosted military parades and did not interfere with what was happening in the southern province. During this time, Congo entered the top ten poorest countries, Mobutu - one of the ten richest people in the world. Meanwhile, mercenaries from Belgian security firms, meanwhile, actively fought with competitors from other firms, rebels and raiders from neighboring states. But Mobutu was overthrown as soon as the coltan boom began, and the usual war took on the character of a merciless massacre of everyone with everyone.
According to the UN Security Council, Belgium, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Russia, China, USA, Canada, France, Switzerland, Germany, India and Malaysia (not counting African states) are participating in the world "scuffle" for coltan, according to the UN Security Council. For ten years, the UN has been demanding an arms embargo on the region, but no results are visible. Coltan and weapons are inextricably linked. As the president of neighboring Rwanda, involved in the battle for coltan (first on the side of French companies, then on the American Cobatt), said: "This war finances itself."
The equipment needed to seize the mines is bought for the already captured coltan, then the equipment is bought again with the new coltan sold. Congo alone spends about a million dollars a day on warfare (as does Rwanda). Weapons are often bought with IMF loans. In the early 2000s, the IMF praised the rapidly developing economies of all the belligerent countries, which showed 6% growth - and allocated new loans. But with such an increase, the population is diminishing before our eyes at an incredible pace: often in the armies, except for adolescents, there is no one to fight.
In addition to regular armies, foreign mercenaries and security firms, the Movement for Congolese Democracy is also fighting here, which recently seized several mines near the city of Goma, sold 150 tons of coltan in a month, almost destroying the population of this town.
The Lord's Resistance Army, which has notoriously become famous earlier for the massacre of African Catholics, is fighting from neighboring Uganda. The “divine army” was founded back in 1987 by a certain Joseph Kony. She is also known for stealing children throughout central Africa, "who are sinless and will enter the kingdom of God." They make short-lived fighters - cannon fodder in the fight for coltan. From time to time, wrapped in bible sheets, parts of the dismembered bodies of "ideological" enemies are scattered over the towns and villages of Uganda and Congo, and all this is done in the name of morality and ethics.
There is also an army of mercenaries of Nkunda, the pastor of the Rwandan Seventh-day Adventist Church, a 20,000 sectarian army tacitly sponsored by America Mineral Fields Inc. (a controlling stake in the Clintons). This year, having received weapons from Rwanda, it pushed aside the Angolan army (Chinese interests) and Congolese government forces, demanding the termination of the 9-billion-dollar contract with China for the development of coltan mines.
There is also an army of French mercenaries Jean-Pierre Bembe, a local oligarch who seized a piece of the Congo in his own fiefdom and declared himself nothing less than "the representative of Christ in the region." From this region, coltan is already used for the manufacture of Intel processors.
The coltan supply chain itself is very complicated. Congolese miners extract it by hand and hand it over to small resellers. Those, in turn, hire private jets from Ukraine and Russia, which transport the raw ore to neighboring countries (mainly Rwanda). Further, the cargo, taken out of the Congo, is delivered to Europe through government companies owned by relatives of the presidents of Rwanda or Uganda. Belgian firms are already playing the main role here. Most of the cargo arrives at the Ostend airport (transshipment point) and back the planes are already carrying weapons from Eastern Europe and Russia, and the cargo of coltan is delivered through companies registered somewhere in Cyprus to processing plants.
There are few of them, but their owners are, in fact, the main sponsors of the war in the Congo: Cobatt (USA), H. C. Starck (Germany), Ningxia (China) and a Kazakh processing plant in Ust-Kamenogorsk. The latter, presumably through the Kazakh leadership, is actually controlled by the Swiss tycoon Chris Huber. The same Kazakh-Swiss channel is mainly engaged in the recruitment of pilots in the post-Soviet countries. Now there is even such a joke: "You cannot fly in the sky of Africa without knowing Russian." Our pilots ("nice guys") serve all the warring parties, sometimes during the day they simply carry weapons to all the participants in the coltan fight.
“The mobile is oozing blood,” they say in Africa.
At one time, the South African company "De Beers" was able to force them to buy diamonds according to "white" schemes (not on the black market, where it is cheaper), simply fixing the origin of the goods. The UN is failing to achieve the same with regards to coltan: all large countries are bogged down in a fight - the profits are too great.
The Africans call the koltan region a "branch of hell" and there will soon be no one to fight here. Therefore, it is no coincidence that Belgian human rights activists note the intensification of private security firms in Eastern Europe, recruiting mercenaries in the Congo. Just business.
