CAPITALISM'S ACHILLES HEEL Dirty Money and How to

142 CAPITALISM’S ACHILLES HEEL
particular those “Congolese individuals who put their lives at risk in order
to provide the Panel with information.” 181 Carefully documenting an elite
network of political, military, and commercial interests that “benefits from
instability in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” their report asserted
that just one part of this den of thieves “transferred ownership of at least
US$5 billion of assets from the State mining sector to private companies
under its control in the past three years with no compensation or benefit
for the State treasury . . .” 182 The report describes various collections of
thugs “linked to the armies of Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe and the
Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo” who “have built
up a self-financing war economy centred on mineral exploitation.” 183 Illicit
proceeds are generated through “organized systems of embezzlement, tax
fraud, extortion, the use of stock options as kickbacks and diversion of
State funds conducted by groups that closely resemble criminal organizations.”
184 Set out in detail are the allegedly illicit activities of government
ministers and military officers from several countries, toughs from throughout
the region, suspect entrepreneurs overseas such as George Forrest in
Belgium, arms dealers including the notorious Russian Victor Bout and his
henchman Sanjivan Ruprah, and Lebanese diamond traders based in
Antwerp with reported links to Hezbollah and Amal. Front companies in
the region are named, including their ownerships through shell companies
based in the Channel Islands and British Virgin Islands.
Take just one mineral, coltan, as an example. Coltan is an ore made of
columbium (properly known as niobium) and tantalum. Congo has perhaps
60 percent of the world’s reserves of coltan, from which tantalum is refined
for use in cell phones, laptops, PlayStations, avionics, and atomic energy applications.
The UN report speaks of prisoners, indentured laborers, and conscript
workers forced to exploit coltan sites under extreme conditions,
working under Rwandan army officers functioning as comptoirs, or buying
and marketing syndicates. According to the report, Rwanda-controlled comptoirs
forced “captive labor” to work coltan sites. Captive labor? In the twentyfirst
century, were the worst excesses of the mid-twentieth century being
repeated in a dark corner of the globe?
The report named 54 ministers, military officers, politicians, ambassadors,
parliamentarians, intelligence officials, chairmen, stockholders, managers,
and businesspeople it recommended should be slapped with financial
restrictions and travel bans. Twenty-eight mining, trading, and transporting