Global Policy Forum

By Paul Redfern

The British government has been accused of failing to act to investigate four UK companies accused of being involved in breaching UN guidelines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A number of British MPs, environmental groups and other development NGOs have voiced their concern at London's apparent reluctance to pursue the four companies named in a UN report.

A panel of experts set up by the UN Security Council in June 2000 to investigate how the warring factions in the DRC were plundering gold, diamonds and the metallic ore coltan, which is vital in mobile phones, found that a number of multinational companies were involved. The four British companies accused of breaking the UN guidelines were the cargo operators Avient Air and Das Air, De Beers and Oryx Natural Resources. All have denied breaking the rules.

London excused itself from taking any action on the issue on the pretext that the UN panel has now been disbanded and therefore nothing more can be done. However, a Security Council statement last month urged all states to act on the panel's findings and conduct their own inquiries. Panel chairman Ambassador Mahmoud Kassem said that all countries had been told of the procedures and knew what they had to do.

But Britain's Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) excused itself from action on the basis that the UN report was "too general in content and relates only to some of the named companies." It added that pursuing the cases would be difficult "on the basis of what has been provided (by the UN) so far." Later however the DTI backtracked and amended its statement somewhat telling The Guardian newspaper that "contact has been made with the companies (named) and if further evidence is provided by the panel, the DTI will mediate between the parties to address the allegations."

In November of 2003, the Ugandan government was accused in a secret section of the same UN report of continuing with its policy of supporting rebel groups despite a promise not to do so. Kampala was also accused of "a shift to a more centralised, state-sponsored policy" of militia funding and mineral exploitation.

The allegations of Uganda's continued involvement with rebel militia's in the DRC were not published in the UN report released earlier this year and the British Broadcsating Corporation programme Crossing Continents notes that this "is not the first example of the international community turning a blind eye to abuses in the Congo." Now independent Ugandan MPs want to know why the British government - one of Kampala's largest aid donors - had not used its leverage to stop the continued exploitation in the DR Congo.

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