{{KAMPALA}}—{Illegally acquired and exported gold from the mineral-rich eastern Congo is fueling high-level corruption in the country’s military and bloodshed by rebel groups, an advocacy group said. }
Insurgents and elements of government forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo control some 65% of the country’s gold mines, which are the foundation for an international smuggling network worth an estimated $400 million a year, the Enough Project said in a report issued Thursday.
The Washington-based nongovernmental organization said 70% of the tin, tantalum and tungsten mines in eastern Congo were free from the control of armed rebel groups or Congo’s armed forces.
Gold is very valuable in small amounts, however, making it difficult to detect and easy to transport through long-established smuggling routes to Uganda, Burundi and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, the group said in its 35-page report.
In response to the report, Lambert Mende, Congo’s information minister, said that ending gold smuggling in the country remained a “challenge” but there were signs of “good progress.”
Bukenya Matovu, spokesman for Uganda’s energy ministry, dismissed the report’s allegation that the supply chain along which Congolese gold reaches the international market includes links in his country.
“As a government, we are bound by international agreements and cannot condone illicit practices” Mr. Matovu said.
In recent years, the global gold industry has come under increasing pressure to monitor and audit the origin of marketed gold.
Under a U.S. law passed in 2010, American companies are required to trace the origin of gold, tantalum and other so-called conflict minerals.
If it is determined the minerals come from Congo, the firms must certify that they haven’t passed through the hands of the country’s military and other armed groups responsible for grave human rights violations.
While helping curtail the trade in tin, tantalum and tungsten, the certification process is time-consuming and expensive, and has led to a drop in the number of companies buying gold from the Congo. That has plunged many Congolese into poverty, said members of a mineral traders association in Goma, capital of eastern Congo’s North Kivu province.
Corruption among government and military officials, as well as loopholes in the certification process, have also stifled the legal gold trade and created more incentives for smuggling, the Enough Project said.
The group urged the suspension of the certification system until better enforcement measures are put in place. It also called for an anticorruption initiative in Congo’s Mining Ministry, a lower gold tax and sanctions and prosecution for suspected gold smugglers.
In almost nonstop bloodshed between 1996 and 2003 in central and eastern Congo, at least 5 million Congolese died, according to the International Rescue Committee.
Much of the fighting, which was triggered by the 1994 genocide in neighboring Rwanda, focused on control of mines. Sporadic violence continues.
{{Wall Street Journal}}
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