Investigation of the DR Congo, Part Two

Canada is like the sweet child in your kindergarten class who shares their lunches because they want to. They play with everyone and know the answers to the teacher's questions, and aren't worried about losing marbles or getting invited to all the birthday parties, because being nice to others is what matters most. We Canadians have long prided ourselves on valuing morals and ethics above money and security. We try and run our country by the Human Security Agenda (HSA), ensuring that the safety of the individual is put above the safety of the state. We love this idea - in theory. In practice, however... well, it doesn't always work out. (Just ask East Timor.)

The situation in the DR Congo is one that demands that we decide where our loyalties lie: with the individual, or with the state. If the former, then we will work to protect the Congolese from the rebel groups who are committing atrocious acts against humanity. If the latter, we will work for corporations, the Canadian economy and our investments in the Congo's natural resources. So, where do Canada's allegiances lie in 'Africa's World War'?



Canada currently has twelve soldiers in the DRC. Apparently, our position is not to create task forces or head missions, but mostly just to support missions already in place by other organizations or countries. CIDA's page concerning the DRC states that we provide the DRC with "significant support in the form of humanitarian assistance, through non-governmental organizations and United Nations agencies." We support freedom and equality and blah, blah, blah, but nothing too concrete. This is all brushing over the fact that we are the largest non-African investor in the DRC's mining industry. This indicates to me that we are operating on security policies, with economic stability in mind, and not the fact that countless lives are lost in mines under the control of rebels.

Luckily, just as my hope for Canada sticking to the HSA begins to wane, there is talk of Canada heading a 20,000 soldier UN mission in the DRC. Although there are many different perspectives on whether or not this is a good idea, this at least a step in the direction of the HSA-oriented mandate we so often promote and so often find hard to follow through on. And so, while we have not given enough support to say we are backing the individual and not the state so far, we are certainly moving in the right direction. Canada may not be succesfully operating under the HSA, but we are certainly trying to. Well.... we are trying to try.

The Bleeding Elephant in the Room - Investigation of the DR Congo, Part One

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is a country located on the Western coast of Africa, surrounded by many countries including Rwanda, Uganda and the Congo. It is a country involved in decades long conflict, most of which can be traced to the end of the Rwandan genocide, when many Hutu rebels responsible for acts of genocide fled to the DRC - then called Zaire and ruled by Joseph Mobutu, a former army chief. Rwanda invaded Zaire to exterminate the rebel leaders in 1997, and this incited Congolese anti-Mobutu rebels - with the help of external sources, primarily Uganda and Rwanda - to up-rise and replace Mobutu with Laurent Kabila (for whom support was not unanimous) and rename Zaire the DRC. Before long, troops were in, rebel groups were formed, and war was raging. Since then, Laurent Kabila was assassinated, to be replaced with his son, Joseph Kabila, who was later elected democratically in 2006. Joseph signed peace accords with Uganda and Rwanda in 2001, and when they pulled out, the UN peacekeeping mission (MONUC) went in. However, a year later, troops were back inside the DRC.



The conflict in the DR Congo is further incited by the wealth of resources the country holds. Everyone is fighting to gain control of some of it, and many North American consumers endorse the bloody harvest of minerals and wealth daily without knowing it. The biggest example of this is the mining of coltan, which is used in cellphones, iPods, laptops, DVD players and almost all of our other consumer electronics. The DR Congo is a major supplier of this mineral world wide, and although the government of the DRC claim to control 80% of the mines, most of them are clearly in the control of rebel groups with guns. Those that are not are being run by the Congolese army, who - although officially opposing the rebel groups and their practices - tax workers illegally and in many ways mimic the rebel groups.

This conflict, the struggle for wealth between armies and rebels, has caused as many as 5 million civilian deaths. Congolese are displaced every day, forced into refugee camps that the government is currently trying to close as they attempt to get foreign troops off their soil. Citizens are raped, abused, robbed and ignored by most of the world. The conflict is consistently on the "Top Ten Humanitarian Crises" list from Docters Without Borders, and is rising to the attention of the international community once more.

This leads us to enquire, what is Canada's position in the DRC?