Global Policy Forum

The United Nations has begun investigations to establish the extent of alleged looting by Zimbabwe Defence Forces chiefs and top government officials of the mineral resources of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), it was learnt this week.

The UN has already investigated other countries involved in the war in the DRC, dubbed Africa's First World War, and issued detailed reports against Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi.

Officials helping UN investigators to check on the exploitation of the DRC's resources this week said the investigators wished to establish the extent of the alleged looting by Zimbabwe and Namibia and if possible name the culprits.

"During the investiga-tions which led to the report against Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, some prima facie evidence pointing to the involvement of Zimbabwean generals in the looting of the DRC surfaced," one official said.

"The focus now is to try and concretise this evidence to establish whether or not the same charges made against Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi apply to the other countries involved in the DRC conflict."

Zimbabwe, as well as Namibia and Angola, has been fighting against DRC rebels backed by Rwanda and Uganda in the Congo. Alpha Sow, the chief aide to Amos Namanga Ngongi, the UN secretary-general's special representative in the DRC, confirmed that a probe had been launched but said he could not shed any more light as the UN's panel of investigators operated independently.

He said Ambassador Kassim Kassim of Egypt had been appointed to take charge of the investigations. Others are Moustapha Tall from Senegal, Henry Maire from Switzerland and Paul Bart, also from Switzerland.

He said the investigators were due in the DRC in the next 10 days. The Financial Gazette this week failed to contact any of the investigators for an update on their investigations. Sow said the investigators would not issue any media statements until they had finished their probe and submitted a report to UN boss Kofi Annan.

He said all the investigators except Kassim had participated in the probe that resulted in the report against Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi published earlier this year.

The investigations on Zimbabwe coincide with publication of a separate report by an international organisation linking the ruling ZANU PF party, some Zimbabwean army generals and President Joseph Kabila's family to a complex deal that would rake in profits worth US$300 million within the first three years of operation.

The deal, unearthed by the London-based Global Witness and published by this paper two weeks ago, is said to involve the exploitation of vast tracts of Congolese forests.

The deal would enable the parties involved to log 33 million hectares of Congolese trees in an area estimated to be one-and-a-half times the size of the United Kingdom.

It also emerged this week that the UN's own contractors could be linked to the DRC diamond smuggling and to the looting of the DRC's resources.

Reports from New York, the headquarters of the UN, said the world body's investigators were examining allegations that flights used by a UN contractor had been smuggling diamonds out of the DRC.

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