Belgian Senate Commission On DRC Finds No Wrong Doing
February 25, 03
A year and a half after it started its work, the Belgian Senate commission on the exploitation of natural resources in Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has not found illegal acts were committed by the people and companies investigated.
The surprising conclusions come after the commission held 71 hearings and was under pressure by various NGOs. "Without prejudice of evidence to be brought in the future, the commission has not noted illegal acts committed by auditioned people," the report said.
The 15-member Senate commission was established after a UN Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of the DRC published a report that blamed companies from Belgium in involvement in exploiting the African country.
Opposition senators, according to the UN’s Integrated Regional Information Network, refused to endorse the text, saying that the recommendations "without any content" are aimed to protect "Belgian political and economic interests in the region". The senators said they would not be accomplice to the humanitarian catastrophe in DRC.
The commission's findings and recommendations focus primarily on the trade in coltan, diamonds, gold, and wood from the DRC, as well as on the trafficking of arms.
The Senate commission's report recalled the involvement of neighboring countries of DRC in the exploitation of natural resources in order to finance their war effort, and "at the expense of the Congolese population", but refrains from accusing any individual.
However, several Belgian companies have been named in the reports of the UN panel, including Lebanese diamond traders in Antwerp accused of money laundering and criminal activities.
"We have asked the UN panel to bring us the legal evidence of these accusations, but in vain so far," Marcel Colla, co-writer of the report from the political majority, said at a news conference.
He added, "The boundary between moral and immoral, legal and illegal is not obvious”.
Critics said that the Senate commission led only one fact-finding mission to Rwanda and DRC in November 2002, and that their final report made no mention that the pro-Rwandan Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD-Goma) rebel movement in eastern DRC had denied the senators access to cities under their control.
"I am bitter and even furious that we weren't able to publish a more precise and more convincing report which could have contributed to stop the plundering and thus the tragedy," said Georges Dallemagne, report co-writer of the political opposition.
"We are only halfway. At present, Rwanda and Uganda are trying to take the control of the gold mines of Kilo Moto in Ituri [District, northeastern DRC]. But the commission failed to recommend an embargo on resources coming from that region as long as there is no transitional government in DRC," he said.
The commission suggested the creation of a follow-up committee during the next Belgian government, to be implemented after the general elections of May 18. "It will help to make the link with the UN panel, whose mandate has been prorogated for a new period of six months," Andre Geens, the commission chairman, said.