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.
But hundreds of billions of dollars are involved in these mining projects and they have no problems moving heavy equipment into the most rural areas, building runways, and shipping the product out.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
