The Congolese government accelerated the mining review process and gave the 60 odd companies whose contracts were under review until February 26, 2008 to respond to the assessment by the review panel.

Victor Kasongo, Deputy Minister of Mines said all the contracts established during the war and the transition process were flawed and had to be renegotiated.

A great deal of uncertainty looms over the process however. Although individual companies were given the review results of their respective contracts, no public release of the review has been made to date. The Congolese parliament has not been engaged in the process to serve an oversight role and represent the interest of the Congolese people. No structure has been established for civil society organizations to be engaged. The Financial Times reported that "behind closed door" deals may be being struck as the Congo government seeks more cash. Is the government using this process as a cash grab or is it genuinely interested in the Congolese people finally benefiting from the wealth of their country?

Thus far, there are no benchmarks that would indicate that the acceleration of the review process was done in the interest of the people of the Congo. According to a coalition of Non-Government Organizations, there are a lot of questions yet to be answered. Read about outstanding questions here...

What seems to be unfolding is that the government has its favorites and will sell out the Congolese people's wealth to its favorites while posturing and playing hardball with those companies that are in disfavor or lack the necessary connections to the elite who will undoubtly fill their pockets from the latest shake down in the name of the Congolese people.

The Congolese government recently made details of the mining review available to mining companies in the Congo. According to the deputy mining minister, Victor Kasongo, none of the country's 60-odd mining contracts were found to be properly constituted. The government delivered its findings to the companies ahead of the scheduled February 20, 2008 delivery date.

The government claims it is the next phase in the mining review process, however, no one really knows where this is heading. The report that was produced by a commission made up of international institutions such as the Carter Center and Soros Institute has not been made available to the parliament or the Congolese people. Nonetheless, Kasongo says "We intend to institute a brief and open administrative appeal process, to a specially constituted panel, through which a company can present its case for reclassification, while minimizing confrontation and shortening any delay to renegotiation." Apparently the companies will have one week to analyze the results.

Although much has been written about the Congo's contract review process, the essence of what is really at stake has hardly been discussed.

The central question for the Congo and Africa is who will control the Congo for the next 25 to 50 years? Will it be institutions like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, corporate barons such as George Forrest, Dan Gertler, Benny Steinmetz, Arthur Ditto and Richard C. Adkerson or will it be the Congolese people? This has been the central question for the last 120 years of Congo's history. It is the reason why Lumumba was assassinated in 1961; Mobutu installed; Rwanda's and Uganda's double invasion of the Congo (1996 & 1998), supported by the West; and finally, the reason why the world's deafening silence in the face of 5.4 million dead Congolese and the heinous rape and abuse of hundreds of thousands of women and children.

The question for Kabila, Kasongo, Gizenga and others is will they sell out the Congolese people like Mobutu sold out Lumumba and an entire generation of Congolese?

Will they go down in history as the modern day Tshombe and Mobutu who collaborated with the West to condemn their people to four decades of sheer hell?

For all the students of development and those who lament the poverty on the African continent, this is how it happens. This is where Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine meets John Perkin's Confessions of an Economic Hitman. What we are witnessing in the Congo today is the impoverishment of yet another generation of Congolese and the institutionalization of dependency under a neo-liberal regime.

One key antidote is to shine a light on one of the greatest heist at the dawn of the 21st century and support the Congolese people who are resisting the theft of their patrimony day and night.
Become a friend of the Congo and support the people >>

Congolese deputy mining minister Victor Kasongo announced last week that the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will accelerate the mining review process. The commission set-up to review the contracts submitted the final report to the government since the Fall of 2007. However, the government has yet to move on the prescriptions outlined by the review commission. Leaked reports indicated that the commission recommended that the 61 contracts under review ought to be renegotiated or outright canceled. The mining minster revealed that "We had expected to be able to concentrate our efforts on rectification of a few contracts. We actually found that we had [not a single contract that was properly constituted]. What was meant to be a minor corrective has turned out to be multiple, major surgery.”

The results of the review process will be announced in two weeks according to the government. Companies will have three months to address the concerns raised in the review. Congolese politicians have raised concern that the report has not made it to parliament for its input as this issue is of central concern to the people of the Congo.

Two deadly earthquakes rocked the Congo and Rwanda on Sunday, killing 39 people and injuring hundreds. As if war and displacement was not sufficient, now a natural disaster has plagued the beleaguered people of the Congo.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the one earthquake registered 6.0 on the Richter scale and the second 5.0.

Although a peace accord was signed in the Congo, many fundamental outstanding questions remain. Neither Rwanda nor the Interahamwe participated in the conference. These two entities are critical to sustainable peace in the Congo. Until the Interahamwe (Rwandan Hutus) are able to return to Rwanda and participate in the political process in Rwanda, the Rwandan government under Paul Kagame will continue to have a pretext for either invading the Congo - as it has done twice - or support rebel movements in the Congo as it continues to do to this day.

A peace conference does not equate to justice. Although there is a cease fire and the United Nations troops will patrol a buffer zone providing the population with some reprieve, justice is still being denied not only in the east of the Congo but throughout the entire country. Impunity has reigned throughout the Congo for far too long and a national undertaking is required to bring justice to the hundreds of thousands of women raped and abused along with those families and entire villages that have been devastated by marauding rebels. In addition, the vast mineral wealth of the Congo should be used to restore the people of the Congo rather than going into the pockets of local elites and western multi-nationals.

Click here to read the peace agreement (French)!

Reuters reported that "The peace pact in the eastern town of Goma was subscribed to by Tutsi rebels loyal to renegade General Laurent Nkunda, President Joseph Kabila's government, and several militia and armed groups from Congo's North and South Kivu provinces."

There is little doubt that the peace conference will make a difference, the question is how much of a difference and for how long.

The agreement establishes an immediate ceasefire and the creation in five days of a buffer zone to be patrolled by U.N. peacekeepers in North Kivu province.

Both the Mai Mai rebels and Laurent Nkunda's CNDP are supposed to disarm and integrate in the Congolese National Army. Amnesty was offered to rebel groups involved in atrocities. However, the case of Nkunda, who is wanted for war crimes is still outstanding and in all likelihood will remain that way.

The status of the Interahamwe is still an unresolved issue although the Congolese government signed a pact earlier in the year with Rwanda which promised the expulsion of the Interahamwe.
As one can surmise, the devil is in the implementation.

The Peace Conference that was supposed to end this past weekend is delayed once again to a date to be determined. The main sticking point is the status of the main protagonist, Laurent Nkunda of the National Council for the Defense of the Congolese People (CNDP). Nkunda has an arrest warrent out for war crimes and the CNDP would like for all belligerents to receive amnesty as was done before the Intercongolese Dialogue of 2002. Other sticking points include the Mai Mia militia who are calling for the CNDP to disarm and the CNDP claims it will not disarm or demobilize until its arch enemy, the Interahamwe (Rwandan Hutus) do the same.

The deal on the table that would ostensibly bring the conflict to an end is an immediate ceasefire, the phased withdrawal of all rebel forces in North Kivu province and resettlement of thousands of villagers, while the United Nations troops police a buffer zone.

Even if a deal is struck the core issues still have to be addressed, two of which are the return of the Interahamwe to Rwanda and the cessation of the interference in the Congo by Rwanda. Rwanda must create political space for the return of the Rwanda Hutu currently in the Congo.

As a deal appears to be in the making the International Rescue Committee (IRC) released its latest report on the conflict in the Congo. The report highlighted a number of facts:
1. 5.4 million Congolese have died as a result of the conflict since 1998 (The study did not address the deaths from the first invasion of the Congo by Rwanda in 1996).

2. Most of the deaths are a result of preventable illnesses such as malaria, diarrhea, pneumonia and malnutrition.

3. An average 45,000 people are dying each month, half of the deaths are among children less than 5 years old, which is enormously disproportionate considering that this cohort only accounts for 19 percent of the population.

The peace conference on the Kivus (North and South Kivu) initiated by Joseph Kabila got off to an auspicious start on Sunday, January 6, 2008 after several days of delays. Probably the most intriguing occurrence was the absence of the two main protagonists, President Joseph Kabila and rebel leader Laurent Nkunda. Although they are absent, government officials are of course represented as well as representatives from Nkunda's National Council for the Defense of the People (CNDP). Although representatives of the Hutu militia are present in Goma, capital of North Kivu and site of the conference, they have not been allowed to participate in the conference. Representatives of the Mai Mai have finally been allowed to participate and a number of civil society groups who were boycotting the conference are now participating.

As comical as it may seem, the conference was delayed again on Wednesday to accommodate an an influx of participants and the unending need for accreditation. The number of people participating is growing rapidly to the point where the initial expected 300 delegates in all likelihood will exceed 1,000. This exceeds the number of delegates who participated in the Sovereign National Conference in the 1990s and the Inter-Congolese Dialogue of 2002, both of which were formed to address issues on a national scale unlike the Kivus conference which is addressing regional matters. Such large numbers lend credence to the critique that politicians and others are participating in large part to benefit from the per diem.

Nonetheless, in the final analysis, progress will not be made in the east until and unless pressure is brought to bear on Rwanda by its Western masters, mainly the United States. As long as Rwanda continues to supply rebel forces in the Congo with military, material and financial aid, the conflict will continue.

The peace conference in the Kivus is scheduled to begin on January 6, 2008. On Thursday, December 27, 2007 preparations began as the conference was originally scheduled to begin on this date but was rescheduled to begin on the 6th and end on the 14th of January.

The conference initiated by president Kabila aims to put an end to the conflict in the east of the country. However, there is little expectation from civil society and progressive forces that this conference will bring an end to the conflict. As long as Laurent Nkunda is armed and controls territory in North Kivu, peace will be fleeting.

The very organizing of the conference is seen as a capitulation by the Kabila government and armed forces of the Congo. Kabila had promised in September that he would pursue a military option to route Nkunda and his National Council for the Defense of People (CNDP). However, the 20,000 Congolese Armed Forces dispatched to the east were not able to route Nkunda's 4,000 rebel forces. A number of observers have indicated that the military leadership at the highest level of the Congolese army betrayed the armed forces which resulted in a couple thousand soldiers dead and the loss of substantial material and equipment. Kabila is now under enormous pressure from the international community to find a political solution to the conflict.