The Democratic Republic of Congo is Back on the Front Page
The killing of the Italian ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the lifting of U.S. Treasury sanctions against an Israeli businessman accused of mining-related corruption in the final hours of the Trump administration has again focused international attention on the interlocking crises in the DRC.
Italian Amb. Luca Attanasio was killed when the World Food
Programme caravan he was part of was stopped en route to a school feeding
program in Rutshuru, near Goma, in eastern Congo. (His driver and bodyguard
were also killed.) The DRC authorities are claiming that the perpetrators were
part of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR); the militia
denies it. The FDLR, one of some 120 separate armed groups [PDF] operating in
eastern Congo, is associated with the Rwandan cabal that led the 1994 Rwandan
genocide; Congolese officials frequently blame it for atrocities in eastern
Congo.
Dan Gertler, an Israeli mining merchant closely associated
with former DRC dictator Laurent Kabila and his son-turned-successor, Joseph
Kabila, in 2017 was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department after being
widely accused of staggering corruption. Those sanctions excluded him from the
American financial system and blocked access to his American accounts. The
Trump administration in its final hours in office quietly eased those
sanctions. Their easing, while not necessarily illegal, violated usual Treasury
procedures and has provoked outrage among human rights activists in the United
States, the DRC, and elsewhere. Critics see the reprieve as a part of President
Trump's wave of pardons to criminals with good connections. According to the
media, the Biden administration is likely to reverse the move.
Eastern Congo is a stark example of great wealth—mostly
based on the strategic minerals that have made Mr. Gertler rich—amidst grinding
poverty. Militias and gangs, allegedly with ties to neighboring Rwanda,
Burundi, and Uganda, are active. Ethnic conflict is widespread. Criminality,
sometimes with political links, is ubiquitous. Ebola recurs; new cases have
been reported this month. Government at the national and provincial levels is
notorious for corruption and appears largely alienated from the people who live
there. The DRC is far from fulfilling the basic requirement of
sovereignty—guaranteeing the security of its citizens.
The ambassador's reputation was that he was devoted to his
humanitarian mission, that he was judicious, and did not take unnecessary
risks. The road traveled by the convoy was regarded as safe. So, what group
killed the Italian ambassador? It may have been by a group with a political
agenda. But the event also has elements of being primarily a criminal
enterprise: after capturing the ambassador, the perpetrators moved him into the
bush, in what is believed to have been an attempted kidnapping. He was killed
only after security forces attempted to rescue him.
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