Logging Must Stop--DR Congo Govt

From Reuters:

Logging must stop on nearly 13 million hectares of forest in Democratic Republic of Congo after a government review cancelled nearly 60 percent of the vast country's timber contracts, the government said on Monday.

Congo, home to the second largest tropical forest in the world after the Amazon, has completed a long-delayed review of 156 logging deals aimed at stamping out corruption in the sector and enforcing minimum legal and environmental standards.

Logging, mining, and land clearance for farming are eating away at the Congo Basin, which accounts for more than a quarter of the world's tropical forest, at a rate of over 800,000 hectares a year -- an area roughly the size of Massachusetts.

Question: Can that possibly be true? An area the size of Massachusetts? That's huge.

Let the Backtracking Begin

Secretary of State nominee Hillary Clinton is appearing at her confirmation hearing today. As is typical for these sessions, she's saying very little of substance while reassuring the senators about how seriously she takes the issues. Her testimony comes in three parts: an opening statement at the start of the hearing, her oral response to questions from the senators at the hearing (a transcript of which is not yet available), and a written response to questions previously submitted to her by the Senate Foreign Relations chair, John Kerry.

It is discouraging to note two things: first, she spends a mere 97 words on Africa out of nearly 6,000 in her opening statement, and those 97 words appear about three quarters of the way down, long after discussions about Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Middle East, Europe, Asia, Russia, China, and the polar ice caps. Second, she makes almost no commitments regarding foreign aid--how it should be reformed, what areas need more support, whether the foreign assistance act of 1961 needs to be rewritten, etcetera. But she does say that while President elect Obama promised to double foreign assistance to $50 billion by the end of his first term, the onset of the economic crisis means that it could take "slightly longer" to phase in this increase. Of course, it could be argued that the economic crisis, which is hitting poor countries hardest, is a reason to ramp up foreign assistance, not slow it down.

All of this is, I fear, Washington-ese for the following: despite the rhetoric we might have used during the campaign, Africa isn't really that important, and despite the promises we might have made about helping the world's poor, current conditions render them no longer operational. Also, we'll tell you what we plan to do with USAID after we're safely ensconced in power, but don't expect anything too earth-shaking.

Here is Senator Clinton's entire statement about Africa:

In Africa, the foreign policy objectives of the Obama administration are rooted in security, political, economic, and humanitarian interests, including: combating al Qaeda's efforts to seek safe havens in failed states in the Horn of Africa; helping African nations to conserve their natural resources and reap fair benefits from them; stopping war in Congo; ending autocracy in Zimbabwe and human devastation in Darfur; supporting African democracies like South Africa and Ghana--which just had its second change of power in democratic elections; and working aggressively to reach the Millennium Development Goals in health, education, and economic opportunity.

Um, how do I say this in a way that doesn't sound overly cynical? It's good to see that in this overview of US relations in the world, the Congo merits a few words--well, four to be exact. I was worried that the deadliest war since World War II wasn't going to be a priority for the new administration.

Rally for the Congo!

A coalition of Congo-focused groups is sponsoring a rally for the Congo on Saturday Jan 17th, 2009 in front of the White House for an afternoon of events to remind President Elect Barack Obama that peace in Congo should be a priority.

From 1 - 4 PM Eastern Time:
Rally in support of Peace in DRC
Place: Lafayette Park (In Front of the White House)
Between 16th & H Street, NW
Honor Speaker: Eve Ensler of V-Day


That same evening, there will be a commemoration of Patrice Lumumba on the 48th anniversary of his assassination:

From 6-9 PM Eastern Time:
Congo Forum: What is the Future of Congo in honor of Patrice Emery Lumumba
Place: Trinity University
125 Michigan Ave, NE
Washington, DC 20017

Honor Speaker: Guy Patrice Lumumba (the Youngest Son of Lumumba)

Kristof's Double Standards

So last week Nicholas Kristof of the NYT wrote an op-ed on military options for the new administration regarding Darfur. Numerous advocacy groups have emerged since Colin Powell first declared in 2004 that the Sudanese regime was committing genocide in Darfur. Most of these organizations have been as vague in their recommendations as they have urgent in their tone. But Kristof, cribbing off recommendations from a source in the State Department, is uncharacteristically clear about the options:

The United States could jam all communications in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital. This would include all telephone calls, all cellular service, all Internet access...
The United States could apply progressive pressure to Port Sudan, from which Sudan exports oil and thus earns revenue. The first step would be to send naval vessels near the port. The next step would be to search or turn back some ships, and the final step would be to impose a quarantine and halt Sudan’s oil exports...
The United States could target Sudanese military aircraft that defy a United Nations ban on offensive military flights in Darfur. The first step would be to destroy a helicopter gunship on the ground at night.

What Kristof doesn't address is the concern that Sudan has become too complicated--both morally and politically--for a categorical, hardline approach to work. According to the Washington Post, while the government-sponsored Janjaweed caused most of the displacement and suffering during the first two years of the conflict in 2004-2005, the conflict is more fluid now, "with fighting among various Arab tribes and rebel factions displacing more people this year than government bombings."

More irritating to me is Kristof's double standards when it comes to Rwanda, about which he never fails to gush: "Increasingly [in Africa] there are new leaders like Paul Kagame here in Rwanda who are honest, intelligent and capable. President Kagame reads Harvard Business Review and is an African version of Lee Kuan Yew, the founder of modern Singapore. Both are authoritarian, repressive and quirky (Mr. Kagame banned plastic bags to curb litter). Both did wonders for their countries' living standards."

Forget that the Rwandan government uses security concerns to close down and punish civil and political opposition. Forget that the government’s true power base is shrinking even as its outer circle (such as its much-lauded women parliamentarians) is growing. Forget that it is seen within Rwanda as representative only of the repatries--the Tutsi refugees from Uganda who made up the rebel army that put Kagame in power, and that this is a government determined at all costs to stay in power. Forget its own widespread human rights violations--which, although not on the scale of a genocide, include massacres and political assassinations.

Consider only that it has launched a war in the Congo that has so far cost 5 million lives. Consider that there is by now more than enough evidence that Rwanda's putative security concerns are a fig-leaf: that it has been documented in report after report after report to have been interested in only one thing: Congo's minerals--even to the extent of cooperating with the genocidaires in extracting them. Why are we not only not condemning Rwanda, but actively supporting it? When will Kristof lend his voice to the call to stop subsidizing Rwanda's murderous behavior in the Congo--as the Economist and Independent have done?

That Rwanda is well-run is no excuse. Kagame is not the first leader to have made the trains run on time.

For DRC, a Dubious Distinction

Medecins sans frontieres, the French humanitarian NGO, issued its annual list of the top ten neglected humanitarian tragedies of the year, and for the tenth straight year, listed the war and upheaval in the Democratic Republic of Congo among them. No other disaster anywhere else in the world has appeared so consistently on the list.

UN Report Leads to more Fallout against Rwanda

Pressure is building on Britain to follow the lead of the Dutch and Swedish governments and end direct budget support to Rwanda. Richard Dowden, the director of the Royal African Society, today joined The Economist in arguing that Rwanda's support of Nkunda, as revealed in the UN's just-published report by the Group of Experts on the DRC, is too serious a violation to countenance. Writing in The Independent, he says that "Kagame denies he [Nkunda] is a Rwanda proxy but the UN report shows he uses Rwandan banks and has had direct support from the army. It also shows how Nkunda's forces operate out of Rwandan territory and recruit soldiers from its army." Whatever claim Kagame makes to be protecting Congo's Tutsi minority, says Dowden, is "undermined by Nkunda's grab for the region's wealth."

The Dutch and Swedes have already announced they will no longer provide direct budget support to Rwanda. Kagame responded to their action by upping the ante: Surviving on handouts is too unreliable, he announced; it was time for Rwandans to prepare themselves for a life after aid. Rwanda's English-language daily The New Times mocked the two EU states for reducing aid even as the EU as a whole was increasing its support for Rwanda: "Now, here is the hilarious bit, both the Dutch and the Swedes, are major contributors to the overall EU budget." We'll see if the New Times' editors still think it's hilarious if Britain cuts its support.

Thousands Protest in Kinshasa against Rape as War Weapon

Thousands demonstrated in Kinshasa on Tuesday against rape as a weapon of war in eastern Congo. Eastern Congo, where brutal rape (the adjective is unfortunately not redundant) has become common, is said to be the worst place in the world to be born a woman. Monuc's story on the demonstration is here. The KongoTimes story is here.

The National March of Congolese Women departed from Central Station on the 30th June Boulevard and walked to the Palais de Justice, where they read a manifesto titled "A Declaration by Congolese Women against Sexual Violence as a Weapon of War." The manifesto is available here.

Rape in eastern Congo is on the cusp of becoming an international cause celebre. The issue has been widely discussed in the United States, in popular TV programs such as 60 Minutes and Oprah, and in reports, documentaries and magazines aimed at a broad public. The work of Eve Ensler and Mia Farrow has been critical in raising public awareness. Among many other groups, Human Rights Watch just published its umpteenth letter pleading for an end to the sexual violence.

Sadly, an Agence France Presse article says that the incidence of rape is rising in Kinshasa:

Kinshasa has become a hotbed of rape by men posing as policemen. As armed militiamen rape and kill hundreds of women in the war-ravaged east of the country, the capital has witnessed a similarly disturbing rise in this trend.

Foreign Direct Investment in DR Congo Plunges

The IMF has slashed its projection for direct foreign investment in Congo for 2009 from $2.5bn to $800m.

It also cut its 2009 growth forecast by more than half to 4.4 percent due to weak demand for the DRC's commodity exports.

I have to say that to my non-expert eye, a growth rate of 4.4 percent is perhaps not as bad as it could be--given that we are widely said to be in the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

Stars to the Rescue

Ben Affleck has launched an emergency appeal for humanitarian relief in eastern DRC under the auspices of the UNHCR. Called Gimme Shelter, the appeal features an MTV-like video of refugees in North Kivu accompanied by Gimme Shelter, the Mick Jagger song. The campaign hopes to raise money for emergency assistance kits that contain sleeping bags, thermal blankets, mosquito nets, and so on.

It is not clear to me that UNHCR lacks the funds to pay for basic humanitarian supplies in eastern Congo. But the larger objection, as so often in these cases, is that focusing on the humanitarian side of the problem is a case of treating the symptom, rather than the disease. It's a palliative rather than a cure.

Mia Farrow also visited the Congo recently, in an effort to draw attention to the violence there, especially the raping of women. Here is an excerpt of her interview on BBC Radio.

It's a shame that neither Farrow nor Affleck are using their star power to call for an EU force to intervene in the DRC. Celebrities seem reluctant to call for political solutions as opposed to humanitarian ones. At the moment, however, an EU force seems to me to be the one possibility that could have an immediate impact on the ground. (Surely Carla Bruni would take a call from Mick Jagger . . .)

Ex-US Official: Congo Can Trade Its Way out of War

Herman Cohen, a former assistant secretary of state for Africa under George Bush (41), proposes in today's New York Times that incoming president Obama appoint a special negotiator to develop an economic common market encompassing Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. The agreement would allow the free movement of people and trade, and give Rwandan businesses continued access to Congolese minerals and forests, in return for payment of royalties and taxes to the Congolese government. Cohen says that for most Rwandan businesses, those payments would be offset by increased revenues.

People familiar with the history of American ex-officials selling their influence in the region are right to be wary of Cohen, who has worked as a lobbyist on behalf of such charming fellows as Laurent Kabila, Omar Bongo, Robert Mugabe, and even Charles Taylor. But the idea isn't entirely meretricious. Essentially, it offers the various combatants the opportunity to engage in a formal, regulated economy in return for putting down their arms. The immediate problem, of course, is that at the moment there's no power in place capable of pacifying opposing forces and regulating the economy. No one's going to give up their guns without a guarantee that the other sides have too. The other problem is that you don't necessarily want to reward the guys who have taken up arms by entrenching their economic gains.

I have for some years now urged that an amplified Monuc take on direct responsibility for the mining operations in eastern Congo. There are a limited number of highly productive mines and a limited number of airfields and roads in the region. Control these, and you eliminate the militias' source of income. You also eliminate the main reason everyone's at each other's throat. But I've never had the means and the expertise to fully develop this idea, and whenever I've suggested it to Monuc representatives they've always been unresponsive.

DR Congo's Economy in Free Fall

The Central Bank announced on Friday that the DR Congo's economy shrunk by 2.7 percent from July thru October this year, and revised the anticipated annual growth rate downward from 11 percent to 5.9 percent.

The decline is largely due to the slump in international commodity prices. Copper has fallen by 75 percent from its high , diamonds have fallen by 40 percent, and cobalt is now worth only a fifth of what it was worth earlier this year.

Victor Kasongo, the DRC's deputy minister of mines, says that he expects a 30 to 40 percent decline in the production of copper in 2009, to 365,000 tons. Cobalt production will be cut in half, to 32,000 tons.

The impacts of this decline are visible everywhere. Forty-five of 75 copper and cobalt facilities in Katanga have shut down this year. Big firms like Katanga mining and Anvil Mining have shuttered their operations.

Katanga's minister of mines Barthélemy Mumba Gama says that the closure has set about a chain reaction, with restaurants, stores, and even the airport almost completely empty. "People are starting to sell their household goods, develop small, subsistence gardens, and the number of beggars has shot up," said Gama.

The same is true in Kasai Orientale, where MIBA, the giant state-run diamond company, has also closed down, having simply run out of cash. The firm has been mismanaged for ages. It's been used as a cash cow to pay for the war in the east, its infrastructure has never been maintained and is now obsolete and inefficient, payments on its loans are overdue, and bankers were simply unwilling to front it any more cash.

The downturn has MONUC worried. It reports that 52 of the 56 companies operating in Katanga have slowed down their operations, with the prospect of shuttering them entirely. MONUC is organizing "an in depth evaluation of the situation, its impact on the security of the population and on the peaceful coexistence of the communities in the province."

"The Pain Is Going Straight into my Heart"

New video on rape in eastern DRC posted on Youtube, from Journeyman TV. Click here.

Charlie Rose on the Congo

From December 4, features Anthony Gambino, Suliman Baldo, and Severine Autesserre. For non-U.S. readers: Charlie Rose is the "high-brow" evening news and culture show on PBS, our non-profit TV network.

The participants on what needs to happen:

Autesserre: Can't wait three months. Many of the problems are over land and local power. Need a European or multinational force going in.

Gambino: End the lawlessness. Need to get DRC army back in their barracks, ceasefires among other groups, and effective military action against one group in particular: the FDLR. A force is needed because the armed groups operate in bad faith. The US needs to work with other actors, help put together the necessary coalitions.