Meet Josephine Kibondo and Moza Zawadi, two women artisanal gold miners in Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ituri Province. They share their stories of their life as artisanal miners and, while they say it’s hard work, they rely on the income from artisanal mining to support their families.
Together with Canada’s Carleton University and Uganda’s Development Research and Social Policy Analysis Centre, IMPACT is exploring women’s livelihoods in the artisanal mining of 3Ts (tin, tantalum, tungsten) and gold within the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The human cost of the transition to electric vehicles.
The European Parliament voted to ban the sale of carbon-emitting petrol and diesel cars by 2035, pushing forward the transition to electric vehicles. But essential to electric vehicles are rare minerals used in the batteries: Cobalt has become highly important and as demand increases, a scramble for resources is happening in the Democratic Republic of Congo where the world’s largest deposits are found.
Across Africa, lobbyists, philanthropists and businesspeople are working to open up the continent to GMOs. They argue that GMOs can provide a miracle solution to two of Africa’s biggest problems: famine and malaria.
One of the main supporters of the movement is Bill Gates, one of the world’s wealthiest individuals and founder of the most powerful philanthropic foundation in history. The film shows how the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation became the main funder of genetic experiments underway on the continent.
Discreetly and beyond the reach of critical voices, scientists are conducting research on the genetic modification of cassava plants and mosquitoes as a solution to the malaria problem.
The role of the EU here is an ambiguous one: Whereas the bloc was initially skeptical about genetic engineering because of the potential risks to health and the environment, now the EU is working together with the Microsoft founder’s nonprofit conducting experiments that would be banned in Europe.
Genetic modification in Africa is about power, but it is also about money. And this puts the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in the firing line: by financing genetic engineering experiments in Africa, the organization is playing into the hands of big western agribusiness.
“Africa, GMOs and Western Interests” shines a light on the brave new world of philanthrocapitalism, where humanitarian aid has a stubborn aftertaste of business, famine programs are often a pretext to introduce GMOs and public investments can serve private interests.
President Biden’s son Hunter was found in hot water “again”
In 2016, an investment firm co-founded by Hunter Biden helped a Chinese mining conglomerate get control of a large Congolese cobalt mine from an American company.
According to one of the New York Times stories, Tom Perriello, then a top U.S. envoy to Africa, “sounded alarms” within the State Department in 2016 about the sale of Tenke Fungurume, one of the largest cobalt mines in the world, to China Molybdenum, a global mining company with financing from Chinese state banks. Perriello also raised the issue with the National Security Council, according to the story.
January 19, 2022, Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), ranking member on the House Oversight and Reform Committee, wrote to the National Archives with a sweeping document request [below], asking for any records or communications from the last two years of the Obama administration discussing cobalt mines, the companies involved in the deal, and Hunter Biden.
I write to request documents regarding Hunter Biden’s involvement in the 2016 sale of a
cobalt mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) from an American company to a
Chinese company. Recently, the New York Times published explosive reporting on Hunter
Biden’s role in “helping facilitate a Chinese company’s purchase from an American company
of one of the world’s richest cobalt mines.”1
The American people deserve answers regarding why the Obama Administration—whether at then-Vice President Biden’s behest or not—watched in silence as an American company transferred control of this precious asset to a Chinese conglomerate and why Hunter Biden was—yet again—involved in international matters on which he has no expertise.
President Biden’s son crack cocaine habit
The FBI reportedly possesses Hunter Biden’s laptop containing emails that reveal his foreign business dealings in Ukraine – as well as alleged compromising photos involving sex acts and crack cocaine use.
Naked Hunter Biden filmed himself smoking ‘crack’, drinking hard seltzer, and fondling himself while floating inside a sensory deprivation tank – one month after convincing dad Joe to wire him $20,000 for his detox program.
Rare access inside one of the world’s longest-running conflicts
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is home to Africa’s longest continuing conflict. In this film, we followed a whistleblower and a patriotic military commander who provided a visceral, yet intimate, insight into a nation caught between foreign-backed rebels and the government of then-president Joseph Kabila, who ruled until 2019. As the conflict resonates with both men’s lives, the film reveals the insidious legacy of colonialism, resource exploitation and wars that have created a continuing cycle of violence.
A leak of 3.5 million documents revealed how a Chinese-run company moved millions of dollars to former Congo President Joseph Kabila’s family and allies.
The Democratic Republic of Congo is entering its third decade of armed conflict. Throughout this period corruption has been tightly linked to conflict.1 The 2006 Congolese constitution was created in the aftermath of thirty-two years of dictatorship, during which President Mobutu Sese Seko used public funds to enrich himself and his allies, and sets up safeguards to prevent the abuse of public office for personal enrichment. This report by the Congo Research Group (CRG) at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation is the first in a series of investigations by CRG into links between politics and business in Congo, aiming to promote greater accountability and to bolster the oversight enshrined in the constitution. It examines the business networks of the country’s most powerful elected official, President Joseph Kabila, and his family.
Our research over the past 20 months, supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, shows that the Kabila family either partially or wholly owns more than 80 companies and businesses in the Congo and abroad. President Kabila directly and through a company he owns with his children holds more than 71,000 hectares (175,444 acres) of farmland.2 Two companies that belong to the family own diamond permits that extend for more than 450 miles along Congo’s southern border with Angola.3 Jaynet Kabila, the president’s sister and a member of parliament, owns a stake in the country’s largest mobile phone network,4 while their brother Zoé, who is also a parliamentarian, owns companies that have been contracted to work on some of the world’s richest mineral deposits.5The network of family companies has the following characteristics:
The businesses are invested in almost every part of the Congolese economy, including farming, mining, banking, real estate, telecommunications and airlines.
The value of their assets is difficult to determine. However, a conservative reading of public documents suggests that their companies have had hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues since 2003, and that they own assets that are easily worth many tens of millions of dollars.
Over the years, some of the businesses have benefitted from Congolese government contracts, as well as from contracts with the World Bank, the U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and the United Nations.6
The lack of fiscal transparency in the Congo and in foreign tax havens where some of the companies are registered formed a significant obstacle to our research. While President Kabila has reportedly declared his assets to the judiciary as required by the constitution, his submissions have not been made public, rendering it impossible to verify their accuracy.7 There is no requirement in the Congo to publish property taxes or corporate taxes, making it difficult to know how much the family’s companies are worth.
Congo Research Group
This report is limited to our investigation into the Kabila family businesses and is not intended to be a complete accounting of the family’s various revenue streams. We also do not conclude that the family’s holdings are necessarily illegal or corrupt. However, some of the family’s holdings may violate Congolese law or codes, while other ventures raise serious questions of conflicts of interest:
Congo’s Ministry of Mines has granted a company controlled by the president’s sister, Jaynet Kabila, more mining permits than allowed under the country’s mining code.8
Companies belonging to Zoé Kabila have made millions of dollars from mining joint ventures and subcontracts, including at Sicomines, part of Congo’s $6.2 billion minerals-for- infrastructure deal with China.9
Some of the family’s business assets are protected or overseen by members of the Republican Guard, which is likely outside the legal mandate of the force.10
Family companies have benefitted from large state contracts, including for the issuing of drivers licenses.11
At least one family company was part of a controversial 2011 copper mining deal that led the International Monetary Fund to cancel its half-billion dollar loan program with Congo.12
The Kabila family’s investments will likely play a role in their decision-making during the current political transition. While Kabila’s second mandate ended in December 2016, under the terms of a deal signed with the opposition he will stay in power until the next elections, which are supposed to be held before the end of 2017.
While this report examines the assets of the presidential family, it is clear that members of the elite on all sides of the political divides have abused their office for personal enrichment. While most international interventions in the Congo have placed an emphasis on negotiation and political compromise, they have failed to hold elites or the corporations they work with accountable for this kind of corruption.
Millionaire Congolese politician Moise KatumbiChapwe has relaunched his US lobbying campaign after a brief pause following his return from exile in 2019.
The former governor of Katanga province has hired international law firm King & Spalding to lobby on human rights violations, anti-bribery and anti-corruption legislation, child labor, economic and environmental cooperation, and international trade and investment, according to a new lobbying filing. The firm is expected to arrange meetings with Congress and the Joe Biden administration and engage with think tanks, media and other groups.
The engagement was effective June 3 and is worth €40,000 per month (around $48,500) for an indefinite amount of time, with €125,000 ($151,500) to be paid in advance. Registered to lobby on the account are J.C. Boggs, a partner with King & Spalding’s Government Advocacy and Public Policy group (bio) and a former senior counsel to the Senate Banking and Governmental Affairs committees, and Steven Kupka, a partner in the firm’s Corporate, Finance & Investments Group (bio).
A businessman who made a fortune in mining and other industries, Katumbi fled the Democractic Republic of the Congo in 2016 after being accused of hiring foreign mercenaries following his announcement that he was running for president against incumbent Joseph Kabila. During his exile in Brussels he retained the services of US lobbying firm Akin Gump to advocate for “free and fair elections” (the firm previously had a $300,000-a-year contract with Katumbi’s Mining Compnay of Katanga from 2013 to 2016).
Akin Gump in turn hired the DCI Group and RMG Africa Advisors as subcontractors on the account (see chart below).
In addition, London election campaign management company Gabara Strategies briefly retained the services of Washington PR firm Blueprint Communications and law firm Brownstein Hyatt in 2017 to build support for his candidacy with the Donald Trump administration and try to organize a US visit. The trip never happened.
When the elections were rescheduled in 2018 after a two-year delay, Katumbi was barred from running. He ended up backing Martin Fayulu and lobbied on his behalf. Fayulu lost to Felix Tshisekedi in December 2018 (Kabila did not run for re-election), but Katumbi and his lobbyists challenged the results until the US State Department endorsed the election in late January 2019.
At one point, Katumbi was involved in no fewer than three lobbying campaigns simultaneously.
In addition to his own lobbying, which ended in March 2020, Katumbi also bankrolled a separate Akin Gump agreement with Fayulu himself. That contract lasted from December 2018 until February 2019.
Separately, the so-called Group of Seven, a political coalition of former Kabila allies who broke with him in 2015, retained Ballard Partners from September 2017 to May 2019 for $50,000 per month. Katumbi was also part of that group.
In addition, a pair of Africa lobbyists, former Gerald Ford speechwriter George Denison and former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Hank Cohen, paired up in 2015 to represent a US domestic group called the Coalition for a Free Democratic Congo they said was “associated with” Katumbi and Tshisekedi. The pair were paid a total of $360,000 to “promote and encourage democratic practices in the DRC” but haven’t disclosed any payments or activities since 2018.
Following his return home, the former governor has relaunched his own political movement, Together for the Republic. He is now looking toward the 2023 election rather than revisiting the one from 2018.
“I am hopeful that President Tshisekedi’s efforts to open the political space to opposition exiles such as myself will be respected by others such as the former President, Joseph Kabila, and that my return will be without event and that I will be secure and safe during my visit,” he wrote to US Ambassador Michael Hammer, Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), then-House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) and Reps. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) and Karen Bass (D-Calif.) in May 2019 letters thanking them for their support. “Regardless, I must return and help lead my people in their constitutional efforts to make our country become the beacon of democracy and prosperity that I know it can be.”
Meanwhile Tshisekedi has hired his own lobbyists to defend his legitimacy in Washington. Although he ran against Kabila’s chosen candidate, Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, some critics accused him of cutting a deal with Kabila to gain power.
The Canadian Caroline Law Corp. represented him pro bono from March 2018 to April 2019. In January 2019, soon after his election, Tshisekedi signed a one-month, $90,000 contract with Avenue Strategies Global to help organize a trip to Washington. That March, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo welcomed him at the State Department and expressed support for his “change agenda” to tackle corruption and insecurity.
Most recently, a consulting firm in Kinshasa called the REM Corp. run by Tshisekedi adviser Rafael Papismedov hired former Bill Clinton press aide Steven Rabinowitz and his Washington-based Bluelight Strategies on a six-month, $67,500 contract to help organize Washington meetings for Congolese officials including possibly PresidentTshisekedi himself. The contract runs from March 1 through Sept. 6.
Update: This story was updated on June 15 and June 16 with more details about Moise Katumbi’s past lobbying.
Julian Pecquet is the author of the article: Congolese millionaire politician Moise Katumbi restarts US lobbying ahead of 2023 election.
Julian Pecquet is the founder and editor of Foreign Lobby Report, the comprehensive news site tracking foreign influence operations in Washington. Prior to launching the site on June 1, 2020, Julian was a reporter and editor for Middle East news site Al-Monitor for six years. There he initiated lobbying coverage that won national awards from the Online News Association and the Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW). Before that he was a Global Affairs reporter for The Hill and a newspaper reporter in Florida for many years. Contact him at jpecquet@foreignlobby.com or on Twitter @JulianPecquet.
Kabila’s Eastern Allis (2001): A look at Mai-Mai guerrillas in DRC.
Laurent Kabila spent 30 years with anti-Mobutu guerrillas in Eastern Congo. These guerrillas became the Mai-Mai – not a tribe but a popular defence movement. Under the command of Kabila’s former companions, they have been fighting occupying troops from Rwanda since 1998. Commander Zofi has liberated a dozen villages. Before the Mai- Mai took control the occupying forces committed terrible atrocities here, as refugees testify. Now a dozen armed men protect each village.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo President Laurent Kabila speaks during a news conference in Brussels on November 25, 1998. Kabila died on January 16, 2001, after being shot by one of his bodyguards, the Belgian Foreign Ministry spokesman Koen Vervaeke told Reuters Kabila died after being hit by two bullets. “The circumstances are too confusing to know more”
They say Kabila “taught us about politics and the art of war ” after Independence in the sixties. But like all stories in this region, this one is complex. Known as Negative Forces because they are said to work closely with Hutu extremists from Rwanda, the Mai-Mai deftly changed sides more than once during Kabila’s rise to power. Now they consider themselves part of Congo’s army, although they never received many supplies from Kinshasa. As long as their ancestors’ soil is occupied, the Mai-Mai resistance will go on. The new regime may do well to court their continued loyalty.
Ads Blocker Detected!!!
We have detected that you are using extensions to block ads. Please support us by disabling these ads blocker.
