The DRC “is the third largest country in Africa after Sudan and Algeria.”10 It is “two times the size of South Africa, three times the size of Nigeria, five times the size of France and over eighty times the size of its former colonial master, Belgium.”11 The country has 2 345 406 square kilometres (905 562 square miles).12 It shares borders with nine countries in Central, Eastern and Southern Africa. These countries are: Sudan to the north, the Central Africa Republic to the north west, Angola to the south, Zambia to the south-east, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania to the east, and Congo Brazzaville to the west (see appendix two). The
10 Though not yet official, the DRC may now be the second largest country in Africa. This follows the granting of autonomy to Southern Sudan as an independent state (The author acknowledges this comment from Professor Uzodike, Pietermaritzburg, 25 August 2011).
11 LLB Info, Gweru, 24 December 2008.
12 LLB Info, Gweru, 24 December 2008.
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dominating features are the Congo River basin that stretches from the east from Lukashi general area north of Lubumbashi up through Kindu, Kisangani, Lisala and Mbandaka in the north, Kinshasa in the west up to Matadi and then flows into the Indian Ocean (see appendix three). The Congo River is one of the five longest rivers in the world and it has a high volume potential for hydroelectricity production and “part of this potential has been harnessed through the Inga Dam to provide electricity to the Congo and other countries in the sub- region such as Zambia and Zimbabwe.”13
The DRC has two time zones. The equator line crosses its northern provincial capital, Mbandaka.14 As Moyroud and Katunga observed, “the DRC has three distinct land areas: the tropical rain forests, located in the central and northern parts of the country; the savannahs, located in the northern and southern parts of the country and the highlands, which consist of the plateaux, rolling meadows, and mountains found along the country’s eastern border, all along the Great Rift valley” (Moyroud and Katunga, 2002:168). The country is rich in mineral resources such as columbite-tantalite (cobalt/coltan) used for the manufacture of mobile cellular phones and other high tech computer hardware. Coltan is found in abundance in the Kivu and Maniema provinces. Whilst “eighty percent (80%) of the world’s coltan reserves are said to be in Africa, the DRC accounts for all eighty percent (80%) of these African reserves” (Moyroud and Katunga, 2002:168; also see Supporting the War Economy in DRC: European companies and the coltan trade, IPIS Report, Brussels, January 2002).
Moyroud and Katunga, also noted that “gold and Manganese are also found in the oldest rock formations of the country” (Moyroud and Katunga, 2002:168). In 1994, a study carried out
13 As pointed out by the DRC Presidential Special Security Advisor, Professor Mumba (a geo-strategic analyst by profession), the hydroelectric complex has major lighting potential capacity for the entire African continent and Europe (Interview with author, Kinshasa, 05 June 2009).
14 This information was obtained by the author from unclassified paper presentation entitled “DRC geostrategic set up during the SADC military intervention” courtesy of the SADC Regional Peacekeeping Training Centre Library, Harare, 2009.
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by the National Centre of Geological and Mine Research (CRGM) discovered that the Ituri region has abundant gold deposits from which it is possible to extract pure gold at a ratio of 6-7 kilograms per tonne (Naidoo, 2003:5). Geological specialists revealed that the OKIMO concession, which is situated around Mongbalu city on the border with Uganda, has estimated reserves of between 2,000 and 3,000 tonnes of gold which is worth between US$20 to US$30 billion. Concentrations may reach up to 18 kilograms of pure gold per ton in certain places as compared to an overall global average of 11 grams of pure gold per ton (Bosongo, 1998:13; Naidoo, 2003:5).
The middle “Pre-cambrian formations of the east centre of the country are associated with tin, tungsten and related minerals, and the Katanga series of the Upper Pre-cambrian in Katanga Province are a source of copper, cobalt, zinc, lead, silver, cadmium and nickel” (Moyroud and Katunga, 2002:168). Uranium, an important mineral used for nuclear reactors and other non-mineral resources such as timber, is also found in abundance in the DRC (Moyroud and Katunga, 2002:168). The mineral resources lured powerful nations, particularly western countries and the US, to support the Kinshasa regime during the Cold War period. One third of the country experiences tropical rain for twelve months of the year and much of the rain is in the two Savannah zones on either side of the Equator. The DRC has the agricultural potential to feed the entire African continent. At the end of the twentieth century, an estimated less than three percent of the country’s arable land was under cultivation. For example, “the North and South Kivu provinces in the eastern part of the country have the potential to rank among the most productive places in Africa” (Young, 2002:13). The region is a major supplier of important resources such as water, energy, food and arable land. Most farming can yield up to three harvests per year (Young, 2002:13). It would appear therefore that the availability of vast natural resources explains why there has not been pronounced
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mass starvation in the DRC despite the collapse of the formal economy caused by the conflicts after the country’s independence. Even after the end of colonialism, the US and most Western countries and also those from the East have continued to have an interest in the Congo.
The history of the DRC has been subjected to external interests and meddling consistent with its geo-strategic economic significance. Hence Frantz Fanon once famously remarked that Africa is in the “shape of a pistol, with Congo Kinshasa resembling the trigger housing” (see Le Carre, 2006:1). Young corroborated this point by stating that the “violence implicit in the metaphor aptly captures the tumultuous events afflicting a significant part of Africa in the 1990s” (Young, 2002:13). The pistol however, rather than pointing toward Antarctica, aims its fire inwards. Africa has experienced conflicts in twenty-four of the fifty-three states in the last decade, and the Congo has become a veritable epicentre of conflict in Africa with the involvement of almost half a dozen armies (Young, 2002:13). The DRC’s enormous wealth in terms of mineral resources seems to have resulted in a historical exploitation of these minerals for the benefit of foreigners at the expense of Congolese (Chinyanganya, 2006:93).
During King Leopold’s rule Congo’s mineral wealth was also exploited for the benefit of the Belgians rather than the Congolese. It was through this exploitation of Congolese minerals that the Belgian government managed to finance the functioning of its civil service particularly the foreign affairs and defence ministries. The competition for Congo’s resource wealth has seen states and even individuals having interests at various levels of the conflict.15
Despite the withdrawal of the Belgians from the Congo, the country’s mineral wealth continued to be exploited by Mobutu and his close cronies who worked closely with western
15 Interview with DRC Presidential Special Security Advisor, Professor Mumba, Kinshasa, 05 June 2009.
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nations who had an interest in the strategic mineral resources such as the large uranium deposits. During the Cold War period, the US and its allies initiated a strategy of working closely with a compliant Mobutu regime in an effort to prevent the Congo from being ruled by any leadership that was supportive to the Soviet Union and its eastern bloc allies. The allegations levelled against the Washington administration as having been behind the assassination of Patrice Lumumba are linked to the belief that the US wanted to avoid a situation where Lumbumba would rule the Congo.16 It would appear the Washington administration saw the likely danger of a Lumumba administration having close diplomatic ties with the Kremlin, thereby resulting in a possibility of Moscow having access to Congolese uranium.17
The US government also worked closely with western nations during the Cold War period to try and avoid Russia and other communist administrations from having close ties with any of Congo’s post-independence political leadership. To reinforce its plans of thwarting Soviet influence in the Congo, the American government was directly involved in the construction of the Kamina Air force base in the eastern DRC which is one of the most strategic military airbases in sub-Saharan Africa and, to some extent, the world with the capacity to accommodate US military aircrafts such as the B52 Bomber. During the Cold War period, the base was manned and serviced by serviced by US military service personnel (Chinyanganya, 2006:94).
16 Interview with Presidential Special Security Advisor, Professor Mumba, Kinshasa, 05 June 2009.
17 Interview with DRC Presidential Special Security Advisor, Professor Mumba, Kinshasa, 05 June 2009(see also Chinyanganya, 2006:94).
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