Mining companies and neighbours of the Congo took the offensive yesterday against a damning United Nations report that accuses them of helping to pillage the giant war-torn country of its riches.
"First Quantum would like to point out that the information contained within the report is factually incorrect and that all allegations included or implied within the report are categorically refuted," Philip Pascall, chairman and chief executive of the Vancouver-based company, said in a statement asking the world body to retract the "baseless allegations."
The company, which owns large copper mines in Zambia, was among five Canadian firms and dozens of multinationals, plus a string of criminal networks, accused of violating business ethics and Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development guidelines on transparency and human rights.
The report urged tighter monitoring in the Congo, plus the imposition of financial restrictions against many of the parties named, saying that home governments are obliged to ensure that companies in their jurisdictions do not abuse the principles of the OECD.
The Congolese war, sometimes called Africa's version of the First World War, sucked in several African neighbours, angling for influence and access to some of the world's richest mineral resources.
Although Rwanda and Uganda, which backed rebel groups, have announced their withdrawal, the report alleged that so-called "elite networks" are running a war economy centred on looting the Central African country's gems and minerals.
Joining First Quantum in rejecting the report were the notable mining companies Anglo American Plc., De Beers and another Canadian company, Kinross Gold Corp., which is based in Toronto.
Kinross president Bob Buchan said his company's Congolese dealings have been "totally open and uncomplicated" and "by any standards, appropriate and defensible." The company dealt openly with the government and with the state-owned mining company when looking at opportunities in that country, he said.
Ken MacLeod, president of Kakanda Development Corp. (formerly International Panorama Resources), said he was shocked to read that the UN report lists his company, which he said has done nothing but maintenance on its copper- and cobalt-mining operation in the Congo since 1998.
"I am anxious to see the source of contention and of the panel's information," he said yesterday. "We had no need or desire to bribe anybody. Our policy is, we don't pay [bribes]"
Although the Kinshasa government declined yesterday to respond to the report, officials in Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe rejected it.
"The story is meaningless. No one in the world, especially in the West, was happy with the assistance that we rendered to the DRC government. So they just want to tarnish our names," General Vitalis Zvinavashe, a Zimbabwean commander named in the report, told his country's official Herald newspaper.
"It has no factual evidence to prove we are plundering Congolese resources," Rwandan presidential aide Theogene Rudasingwa said. He said Rwanda is particularly disappointed by the section of the report accusing its army of making common cause with its archenemy, the Interahamwe militia, for purposes of plundering the Congo.
"It is the most tragic part of the report. It is cynical, absurd," he said.
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