• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

DR of Congo: Security Council extends panel seeking to halt plunder of resources

13 August – Striving to halt the continuing plunder of natural resources in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the United Nations Security Council today unanimously renewed the mandate of a special investigative panel and demanded that all States take immediate steps to end such illegal exploitation.

The 15-0 vote gives the Expert Panel on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of the Congo until 31 October to complete its mandate, at the end of which it will submit a final report to the Council.

The resolution noted "with great concern" that plundering continued, especially in the eastern part of the DRC, and stressed that "appropriate action should be taken with regard to those responsible for such activities."

The Council "reiterates its demand that all states concerned take immediate steps to end the illegal exploitation of nature," the resolution added.

In a report to the Council last year, Panel Chairman Mahmoud Kassem said it had identified three "elite networks" that had carved out separate spheres of economic control in the country over the past four years.

"The elite networks' grip on the DRC's economy extends far beyond precious natural resources to encompass territory, fiscal revenues and trade in general," he added.

He said the networks' activities involved highly organized and documented systems of embezzlement, tax fraud, extortion, kickbacks, false invoicing, asset-stripping of State companies and secret profit-sharing agreements, and that these activities were orchestrated in a manner that closely resembled criminal operations.

"The networks collaborate with organized criminal groups, some of them transnational organizations in order to maximize profits," he stated, adding that they use those criminal groups for discreet military operations, money laundering, illegal currency transactions, counterfeiting operations, arms trafficking, smuggling and many other activities aimed at political destabilization.

The war economy directed by these networks functions under the cover of armed conflict, manipulation of ethnic tensions and generalized violence that generate enormous profits for "small coteries of powerful individuals or the commercial wing on military institutions," Mr. Kassem said. The activities drain the DRC's treasury of revenues at the national and local levels and leave the population without basic services.