Democratic Republic of the Congo

voir aussi la fiche ressource de Ritimo sur la République démocratique du Congo

The battle for coltan rages in the Congo

> Catherine Morand, swissinfo

http://www.africafiles.org/article.a (...)

A human catastrophe threatens the Congo In Kivu, in the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo, war has broken out again, bringing atrocities and displaced persons in its wake. At stake: the control of the fabulous reserves of coltan, a highly prized mineral fought over by all the major industrial powers. The tragedy of the Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire, is its underground wealth, abundant in strategic minerals – copper, cobalt, gold, diamonds, uranium, coltan, and cassiterites (tinstone) –which are motivating the greed of all the industrial powers, including China. The commandeering of coltan in particular, whose open-pit mines are located in Kivu province, is at the heart of the conflict which is once again tearing this region apart.  read

DRC: a demonstration of plunder and submission

> by Damien Millet and Eric Toussaint

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is a textbook case for those who wish to understand complex notions like the pillage of a country’s wealth, the intolerable loss of a State’s sovereignty, or the concept of odious debt. The manner in which the budget of 2007 was prepared and the orientations of the government led by Antoine Gizenga provide clear confirmation of what the Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt and many other social movements have been asserting for a number of (...) read