Over Five Million Dead in Congo? Fifteen Hundred People Daily?

Been there, done that. Now it is time for us all to grow up. 

Plantation Slavery in the Heartland 

At the height of the supposed disintegration of Zaire-mid-1980's through the mid-1990's-the Blattner family was rapidly expanding their operations and consolidating power. The previous and already vast empire in Zaire was established by James Blattner as the Group Agro Pastoral (GAP), and this was later divided up amongst sons David and Elwyn (Daniel's role in Congo is uncertain), who scooped up plantation after plantation, concession after concession, becoming involved in transportation, shipping, aviation, telecommunications, agriculture, logging and construction. Elwyn Blattner's father-in-law, Shimon Razin, also runs a company, Safgaz, in Congo, when he is not in Tel Aviv, and the Blattners send their children to elite colleges in Europe. In 2003, Elwyn Blattner was President of the Communaute Israelite de Kinshasa.

The Blattner empire today is perpetuating massive suffering in the interior, with slavery and all the abominations of paramilitary fiefdoms occurring on the Blattner plantations.

None of this has been reported, but for those who wonder how the mortality rate in the interior of the Congo could be so high-a sudden flash of awakening with the release of the January 2008 International Rescue Committee statistics-the answer lies in the capitalist enterprises of the Elwyn Blattners, the Maurice Templesmans, the Etienne Davignons and Nicky Oppenheimers, and the IRC itself. The Blattners frequently travel back and forth from Congo to the United States, Belgium, Tel Aviv and South Africa. On August 2, 2007, for example, David Blattner and family attended a lavish Bar Mitzvah of friends in Israel held at the Sheraton Hotel in Tel Aviv. On the same day, the second of August, 2007, at least 1500 people died in the Congo. 

What is the IRC's relationship to the plantation slave-drivers and how did the IRC statistically figure the higher mortality rates on plantations run by the Blattner or George Forrest Groups in rural Congo? 

It Takes a Village 

By the late 1990s, the guarding of the diamond concessions in Zaire had ceased to operate under a single chain of command and had become increasingly militarized by thugs of all stripes. Atrocities mounted during the heaviest war years, but violence continues in these areas today.  

Katanga has repeatedly been described as the province of "forgotten strife." In the past decade alone, millions of people have been dispossessed of their livelihoods, their land, their futures and their lives, and the mining in Katanga and Mbuji-Mayi has been going on since the end of the Leopold era.  

Entire villages have been sacked and burned by militias and in some almost every woman has been raped during military campaigns of the past few years.

More than 5000 children have lived on the streets in the center of Mbuji-Mayi town in the past few years-yet another generation of Congolese leaders lost-and recent systematic massacres of street children have occurred at the hands of militias, political groups and security forces.[14] 

How does the IRC mortality study factor in the deaths of street children murdered in Mbuji Mayi? After a century of exploitation and slavery, we find the DRC's huge state diamond firm, MIBA, consistently withholding payment of salaries to starving Congolese laborers and middle managers for months at a time. April and May 2007 saw strikes and protests leading to the Kabila government's arbitrary arrest, detention and torture of trade union organizers like Leon Ngoy Bululu; police have also shot protestors.

So-called 'illegal' diamond workers-disenfranchised local Congolese people forced into "criminal" activities to survive-were summarily executed on MIBA concessions in Mbuji-Mayi. The BBC, in August 2006 reported that MIBA security guards were sniping unemployed diamond miners.

Of course, the BBC never gives us the deeper story, it is only for expedience and some interest somewhere that they are saying anything revealing at all. 

Katanga is the Democratic Republic of Congo's southernmost province, and it is the world's richest mining metropolis, with the poorest people in the world. Part of the vast copper belt that stretches across northern Zambia and southern Congo, Katanga is home to unprecedented human misery. The Zambian copperbelt concessions over the border involve many of the same companies and interests mentioned above.

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