Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-11-19-Speech-3-017"
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"en.20081119.3.3-017"2
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".
Mr President, a whole series of neighbouring countries are physically involved in this war and there is, above all, direct participation from Congolese government troops, together with militia and Angolan troops on one side, with General Nkunda, Tutsi soldiers and Rwandan support on the other. It is a regional war which does not just concern eastern Congo.
One key point is clear: the Congolese government has thus far not been prepared to negotiate directly with the rebels. That is a point on which pressure must be applied. It is very important to examine the real background to this conflict. The Federal President of Germany himself has made reference to the fact that this is a conflict about raw materials. Crude oil, gold, diamonds, copper, cobalt, coltan, zinc, tin and so on play a very important role here.
Above all, it is also about who actually holds the relevant licences to exploit these materials. Action really has to be taken against these companies. I just want to name one of these companies:
based in Nuremberg, is clearly the direct owner of one of the central mines over which this conflict is being fought.
I would like to talk a little about the role of the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC), since everyone in the House seems to be calling for MONUC to be re-supplied. According to what I read, it is the case that MONUC is part of the problem rather than part of the solution, because MONUC itself describes its situation as having developed into fighting on four fronts. MONUC’s role should actually be quite different. In the meantime, we have found out from Human Rights Watch that Indian or Pakistani MONUC soldiers are conducting direct weapons trading with irregular militias and are clearly involved in the conflict for raw materials. That cannot be allowed to happen. MONUC’s role must be something else entirely and completely neutral. That being the case, calling for MONUC to be re-supplied is not all that helpful.
I would also like to again point out that Congo played an important role once before in a previous European Union operation. At that time, it was the security of elections that was our role and Mr Kabila was installed as president – the same Mr Kabila whose troops are now a significant escalating factor. With that in mind, there should be close scrutiny of the actual role played by the EU in Mr Kabila’s installation. I find what the EU did to be very problematic. The point must clearly be made that Mr Kabila and his troops must also be criticised in this respect.
The report by the local correspondent of the
newspaper, who was captured, made very worthwhile reading. He described the set-up of the conflict very well. His article shows the interaction between official and unofficial troops, which is to say that calling for the re-supply of MONUC alone is pointless, as what is really needed is to get to grips with the causes of the conflict."@en1
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"Gesellschaft für Elektrometallurgie mbh"1
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