LUBUMBASHI, Congo | Here in one of the richest mineral belts in the world, where copper and cobalt almost seem to burst from the rugged earth, the people have grown accustomed to foreign opportunists. Anger is mounting, however, at some of the newest arrivals: businessmen from China.
At lunch hour outside the smelters near Lubumbashi, the gritty capital of southern Congo’s mining country, workers in fraying clothes and canvas sneakers rattle off complaints about their Chinese employers: wages of as little as $3 a day, backbreaking hours and a lack of safety equipment, which many said had led to severe on-the-job injuries and even deaths.
“We don’t have a choice but to keep working. Life is hard, and we have to survive,” said Andre, 26, whose younger brother died in an accident last year while toiling on the graveyard shift at a private, Chinese-owned smelter. While 21-year-old Akahika was raking a slag pit early one morning, a sudden noise startled him, causing him to lose his balance and fall into the scorching slag. He was burned to death almost instantly.
Like many workers interviewed for this story, Andre asked that his full name not be used, in order to shield him from retribution by his employers. His story and those of other workers offer a glimpse into a little-known — and little-regulated — slice of China’s dramatically expanding relationship with the world’s poorest continent.
As Beijing increasingly looks to Africa as a market for its inexpensive goods and a major source of raw materials, war-torn Congo, which boasts enormous natural wealth yet needs help with almost everything else, has emerged as a key trading partner. As the countries prepare to cement a record $9.5 billion trade deal, however, Congolese activists say Beijing is turning a blind eye to substandard labor practices at the dozens of small, privately owned Chinese smelters that have cropped up across the southern mining province of Katanga.
A leading Congolese watchdog group, Action Against Impunity for Human Rights, says it has documented dozens of cases of abuses. In one case from last year, a worker said he was punched repeatedly by three supervisors, including one Chinese man. In another, a worker suffered debilitating burns on his legs when he fell into an oven, and his employer refused to pay the medical bill.
Chinese companies can treat their employees pretty much as they please, the group wrote in a forthcoming report, because workers are desperate and local authorities either lack the capacity to enforce domestic labor laws or are easily bribed to ignore violations. In June, civil servants in Katanga went on strike after several weeks without receiving paychecks.
“The weakness of our government, for the Chinese, represents a business opportunity,” said Jean-Pierre Okemba, one of the rights group’s investigators. “We don’t want a relationship like that.”
Chinese officials say these are private businesses, unattached to the government in Beijing, and that they have no power to regulate them. China’s trade with Africa soared to a record $107 billion last year, surpassing the volume of trade between Africa and the United States for the first time. If the mammoth China-Congo trade deal is approved, Beijing would win lucrative mining concessions in exchange for building roads, railways and other infrastructure that Congo needs.
“They keep their workers in really the bare minimum of conditions,” said Jean-Pierre Muteba, a Congolese trade union leader. “They operate right on the limits of what is legal.”
Wu Zexian, China’s ambassador to Congo, said he was aware of the allegations but that the Chinese government wasn’t responsible for the actions of private companies.
“The Chinese government’s position is very clear: Every Chinese company working overseas must strictly follow the laws of the country it works in,” he said.
Experts said, however, that Beijing did indeed have leverage over private entrepreneurs, most of whom are backed by state-owned Chinese banks.
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