Rebels funded war from Canada: UN; Congo Conflict

Rwandan rebels settled in Canada have helped bankroll a resource-driven war in the Democratic Republic of Congo that has killed millions and seen more than 200,000 women raped, UN investigators say.

Their report released yesterday on Africa's deadliest conflict highlights how the biggest UN peacekeeping force in the world has failed to bring order to the country.

The Rwandan rebels, who trace their roots to extremist Hutus behind the 1994 genocide of 800,000 Tutsis and others, are among groups controlling mineral exploitation in eastern DRC.

Some of the illegally extracted gold, tin and rare minerals is used in cellphones and other electronic gadgets. The Canadian-sourced cash is moved in part through faith-based organizations linked to the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), the main Rwandan rebel group.

"The [UN investigators] obtained … Western Union receipts showing money transfers from…members of FDLR diaspora residents in Canada and Netherlands" among others, says the 287-page report. For example, on March 6, 2005, a woman named Jacqueline Mukamurenzi transferred cash from Canada to a Tanzanian-based priest with links to the FDLR leadership.

According to the report, the clergyman, Paul Riwa, "has held prayer sessions" with the wives of the FDLR's deputy commander and a regional university senior official who "reportedly administers medical treatment to wounded FDLR."

Other documented transfers originated in New Brunswick in 2007, and ended up in the hands of a liaison officer with an FDLR splinter group called the Rally for Unity and Democracy. In these transfers, people identifying themselves as Willy Andrews and Willy Toby in Fredericton, Tony Andrews in Woodstock and John Ndiyo in Moncton sent cash to Augustin Ndondo Shabade in DRC's North Kivu region, where some of the worst atrocities have taken place.

While none of the documented Canadian-sourced transfers exceeded $850, they were among scores of cash injections from supporters in 25 countries worldwide. Indeed, the investigators said for the first time the overseas financial help has become critical to the Hutu militias' grip on the resources of eastern DRC.

"The [UN investigatory] group has … documented that FDLR has a far-reaching international diaspora network involved in the day-to-day running of the movement, the coordination of military and arms trafficking activities, and the management of financial activities," the report says. The Canadian-sourced money transfer to Riwa is one of its two "case studies on the involvement of individuals linked to faith-based organizations."

Parts of the report were leaked more than a week ago to DRC-based members of the international media, but no details about Canadian links to the international funnelling of cash were available until the official release.

Overall, the report is a scathing indictment of how little has been done to choke off support for the Hutu militias.

This is despite the UN's deployment of 20,000 peacekeepers to the country at a cost of US$1.3-billion annually and Security Council sanctions aimed, in part, at preventing companies from buying "conflict" minerals.

Companies cited as having links to buyers of the looted minerals include the British-based Amalgamated Metals Corp. and Nevada-based Niotan Inc. Also named as sanctions busters are business operators in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and the United Arab Emirates, as well as weapons suppliers from Sudan and North Korea.

Preventing the illicit minerals trade "is a more complicated task than, for example, the Kimberly Process with diamonds, where diamonds are obviously very readily identifiable by their source of origin," Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the UN, said last week.