[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 69 (Friday, May 24, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E908-E910]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            H. CON. RES. 410

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. TONY P. HALL

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 23, 2002

  Mr. HALL of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to join Congressmen Ed 
Royce, Amo Houghton, Frank Wolf, and Don Payne in introducing a 
resolution supporting peace and democracy in the Democratic Republic of 
the Congo, and an end to the plunder of its natural resources. H. Con. 
Res. 410 calls on President Bush to press for a United Nations embargo 
of Congolese diamonds, which are helping to fund a war that has 
engulfed the heart of Africa since it began in 1998, and plunged its 
people into a darkness where disease and misery flourish. As the 
Washington Post reported a few months ago:

       Since a rebellion erupted in 1998, Congo, which is roughly 
     the size of Western Europe, has been effectively partitioned 
     into several autonomous regions, each under the control of a 
     foreign army that systematically loots its area of control. 
     As a result, Congo's plentiful resources enrich the leaders 
     of surrounding countries while providing no benefit to the 
     vast majority of Congolese. . . .

  Diamonds are not the cause of what has come to be known as Africa's 
First World War, but they play a crucial role in sustaining it. The 
most concentrated form of wealth ever known to mankind, diamonds are 
one of Africa's most liquid resources, the world's easiest commodity to 
smuggle, and readily available to anyone with power. From individual 
soldiers; to military commanders who have reoriented their troops 
toward full-time pillaging; to regimes that depend on standing armies 
and the chaos of war to stay in power; to Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and 
other radical groups that have used this resource to inflict terror 
beyond Africa's shores--all have exploited the Congo's diamonds. They 
have turned a symbol that Americans treasure into a means for torturing 
countless thousands of people in Africa. They have put an industry that 
is important to American and African communities alike under a cloud, 
and they must be stopped.


                          Effect of Resolution

  Under the terms of the Kimberley Process, the international system 
that aims to block conflict diamonds from the legitimate trade, 
conflict diamonds are defined as those embargoed by the United Nations. 
This means that, until the UN imposes sanctions on diamonds originating 
in a war zone, trade in the diamonds that fuel conflict there is not 
checked. The fact that diamonds currently mined in the Congo are not, 
technically, conflict diamonds creates a huge credibility gap for US 
and international efforts alike. The international system of controls 
aims to close that gap, but it would be foolish for the UN Security 
Council to postpone sanctions in reliance on a global system that is 
just now being devised.
  Instead, the United Nations should impose an embargo similar to those 
on Sierra Leone and Angola's diamonds immediately. That would 
contribute needed pressure to regularize the trade in Congolese 
diamonds, combatting the criminal activities that usually accompany 
smuggling and compelling other countries to stop abetting this illegal 
trade. Some 85 percent of Congolese diamonds, worth $854 million a 
year, are smuggled away; if its government collected taxes on them, 
some $40 million could be added to this beleaguered country's coffers 
and used to respond to its people's desperate needs.
  Another benefit of an embargo on Congolese diamonds would be to close 
the enormous loophole that the DRC has become for sanctions-busters. 
Currently, diamonds mined by Sierra Leonean and Angolan rebels, or 
trafficked by Liberia, can easily be passed off as Congolese diamonds. 
To leave so vast a country, which produces significant quantities of 
diamonds, outside scrutiny dooms international efforts to address the 
problem of conflict diamonds elsewhere.
  Beyond these practical benefits, there is a moral reason to act. 
Curbing the smuggling of Congolese diamonds and other resources is 
essential to securing a lasting peace. A cease-

[[Page E909]]

fire has held since April 2001; a small contingent of UN troops is on 
the ground; there are persistent efforts to settle combatants' 
differences through peace talks. But this is not enough. The fighting 
has created huge, no-go areas where disease, starvation and 
malnutrition prey, and combatants I desire for plunder means the 
stalemate and periodic violence is likely to continue. Putting diamonds 
beyond their reach would contribute to work trying to end the Congo's 
occupation and return its people's lives to normalcy and the 
possibility of improvement.


                          Other War Resources

  The war in the DRC is complex: seven nations and several rebel groups 
are fighting for political reasons and over at least nine natural 
resources (coltan, gold, diamonds, copper, cobalt, timber, water, tin, 
and cassiter-ite). That makes it likely that no one approach will be 
sufficient. Unlike the trade in other war resources, though, conflict 
diamonds are the focus of on-going international efforts. While far 
from complete, these may well be a model for work on other resources.
  I sometimes have disagreed with the diamond industry's leaders, but I 
know them to be honorable people. Ending the exploitation of this 
industry's product by those whose crimes mock all it represents is as 
important for Africa and it is for the diamond industry, but it will be 
the industry's continued vigilance that determines whether this effort 
succeeds or collapses. I must reserve my own evaluation of the 
industry's promises until they are tested by practice; however, I hope 
that history will judge kindly its response to this scourge. I hope it 
will prove to be a model worthy for other industries to use and expand 
upon. And I want to take this opportunity to congratulate the diamond 
industry for its commitment to finishing this work.
  In addition to the industry's constructive work on conflict diamonds, 
here is another reason we can be hopeful embodied in organizations like 
Global Witness, which first exposed the trade in conflict diamonds in 
1998. Its recent report on a $300 million conflict timber deal that is 
currently allowing Zimbabwe's military and political elites to log an 
area nearly the size of Montana is compelling. It finds that Zimbabwe 
entered into this deal explicitly to sustain its involvement in the 
DRC's war, which assures it can continue its exploitation of Congolese 
diamonds. In addition to tightening its ruler's grip on power, the 
report found,

       . . . any natural resource exploitation by waning factions, 
     especially foreign-backed ones, will seriously delay if not 
     completely derail the potential for lasting peace and 
     stability in DRC.--From Global Witness's February 2002 
     report, ``Branching Out: Zimbabwe's Resource Colonialism in 
     the DRC.''

  Ignoring timber's role in sustaining the wars over diamonds undercuts 
global efforts to end them. In February President Bush committed our 
country to tackling the problem of illegal logging around the world; 
and a few weeks ago, the State Department convened a round-table 
discussion to focus on this problem.
  Logging and mining are activities that go hand-in-hand. The roads 
built for one are used to open access to the other; the security and 
labor needs of both commercial activities are well-suited to soldiers' 
capabilities. Zimbabwe's operations in the DRC confirm this approach to 
plunder is a way to maximize profits. Likewise, Liberia has diversified 
its war commerce in a way that exploits both conflict timber and 
conflict diamonds, using exemption of its timber from comprehensive UN 
sanctions to sabotage them.
  A provision in this resolution urges the United Nations to put its 
consideration of sanctions against conflict timber on a fast track. I 
hope the progress made on each of these resources will lead to the 
comprehensive approach to resource exploitation that is essential to 
restoring a lasting peace in the Congo.


                         Humanitarian Dimension

  Sanctions--whether on diamonds or other resources--are an imperfect 
tool, but they have proven helpful in Sierra Leone and Angola and they 
are well worth trying in the DRC, if for no other reason than the 
magnitude of the Congolese people's suffering. Because large swaths of 
the Congo have been too dangerous for journalists, aid workers, and 
others to visit, there has been too little reporting on this battle for 
the valuable resources of one of the world's poorest countries. But the 
exposes that have been done are superb.
  One of the best examples is ABC's Nightline, which did an 
extraordinary, week-long series on the Congo's misery early this year. 
One segment focused on the battle between two allies that demolished 
the Congo's diamond-mining capital:

       Kisingani was, until not very long ago, a city of 600,000. 
     . . . It was a center of trade. . . . [Now,] this is a city 
     surviving on life support, suffocated by a war. . . . What 
     was it then that set the armies of Rwanda and Uganda against 
     one another, grinding the people of Kisangani between them? 
     Diamonds. ----From ABC Nightline's Heart of Darkness,'' Jan. 
     23, 2002.

  Dr. Bob Amot of NBC's Dateline has also done heroic reporting from 
the Congo, bringing home to those of us who must watch from afar the 
tragedy of its forgotten people. The Washington Post also has devoted 
attention to the Congo, including front-page coverage of a study done 
by the respected International Rescue Committee. It found that 3 
million people have died there, but few due to the fighting. As Karl 
Vick reported:

       The vast majority of deaths have resulted from starvation, 
     disease and deprivation on a scale emerging only as aid 
     workers reach areas that have been cut off by fighting and 
     lack of roads. ... Villagers in the [Kasai] region--long 
     renowned for its diamonds mines, but now ravaged by hunger--
     refer to two kinds of gems: white ones and red ones. The red 
     ones are peanuts.
       What makes the Congo surveys exceptional is ... how long 
     the conditions they document have been allowed to persist 
     [Vick reported, quoting a Western epidemiologist, who noted 
     that] mortality rates this high are common in humanitarian 
     emergencies ... but they only last a couple of months ... 
     because there is some sort of intervention. [But in this 
     vast, war-torn country with few roads,] the hugely elevated 
     mortality rates [have been] steadily racking up deaths by the 
     hundreds of thousands. ----From the Washington Post, April 
     2001.

  The sad truth is the Congolese now rank among the most miserable--and 
most endangered people--in the world. In all, at least 2.5 million 
people have died, another 2 million have been driven from their homes; 
and one in three is in critical need of food. Among children, the 
problems are staggering: 75 percent of children born since the war 
began dying before their second birthday; 66 percent of school-aged 
children are not being educated; and large numbers of children are 
forced to serve as soldiers or prostitutes.
  Diseases also stalk the populace, whose chaotic lives make 
precautions against HIV/AIDS and other deadly illnesses virtually 
impossible. As Mr. Vick described,

       ... horror stories continue to emerge from a country no 
     longer defined only by war, but also by pestilence. Untreated 
     malaria remains the main killer, accounting for half of 
     reported deaths. But health workers have also documented 
     outbreaks of polio, whooping cough and even bubonic plague, 
     near the center of Congo's rich diamond-mining area, one 
     child out of 25 suffers from cretinism, an iodine deficiency 
     that leaves the child half the normal size and severely 
     retarded. ----From the Washington Post, August 2001.

  Other independent observers have reached similar conclusions:

       The belligerents have no interest to see an end to the 
     current situation in eastern Congo. There is a level of 
     violence they can tolerate because the violence is targeting 
     civilians. ... The end result is that the Congolese will 
     continue to die as [leaders] line their pockets with gold and 
     diamonds. The Congolese are not only facing material losses, 
     they are being crushed in the exploitation of natural 
     resources.--From an interview with a Human Rights Watch 
     expert, November 2001
       A Oxfam's primary concern is the humanitarian impact of the 
     war, which has caused the largest number of conflict-related 
     deaths anywhere in Africa in the last four years. While 
     different actors have justified their involvement in the war 
     on the basis of security, it is clear that one of the driving 
     forces behind the conflict is a desire by the warring parties 
     to have access to, and control over, the DRC's vast natural 
     resources. This wealth is not being used to reduce poverty, 
     either in the DRC or in other countries involved in the war. 
     In fact, wealth from natural resources is sustaining the war 
     and bad governance. Such military activity has been described 
     as military commercialism. Natural resource exploitation has 
     become a key factor in determining military deployment, 
     perpetuating the cycle of violence. --From Oxfam's report, 
     ``Poverty in the Midst of Wealth,'' January 2002
       The choices facing children in the eastern Congo today are 
     to join the military, become a street child, or die. _ The 
     war-affected children of the eastern Congo have no 
     opportunity for education and eat one meal per day, if they 
     are lucky. Many are homeless, forced to flee because of acute 
     poverty. Some have witnessed horrible atrocities committed 
     against their families or their neighbors. Unaccompanied and 
     traumatized, they roam into the big towns or cities.
       The brutal war in the Eastern Congo, which has contributed 
     to millions of deaths, driven thousands of people from their 
     homes and helped impoverish a resource-rich country, will not 
     end until the fighting factions learn that they have more to 
     win from peace than they do from war. _ The most vulnerable 
     in this situation are the children, and they are exploited 
     both as child soldiers and prostitutes.--From the report of 
     Refugees International, ``Eastern Congo--A Slow Motion 
     Holocaust,'' and a discussion of it.

               The United States Should Continue to Lead

  Mr. Speaker, this Congress has been at the forefront of efforts to 
end the trade in conflict

[[Page E910]]

diamonds. Two years ago--before American human rights activists began 
their campaign against conflict diamonds, and even before the diamond 
industry moved to protect its self-interest--Mr. Royce and Mr. Payne 
began taking a hard look at this problem.
  Then, six months ago, this House passed compromise legislation 
designed to begin severing the link between diamonds and war. During 
negotiation of that bill, H.R. 2722, the President's trade and 
diplomatic representatives assured us that, if Congress would use the 
Kimberley Process's definition of conflict diamonds, which are those 
sanctioned by the United Nations, the Administration would press the UN 
Security Council to extend its embargo to diamonds mined in other 
conflict zones, like the Congo.
  Today, I urge our colleagues to call that commitment due. Please join 
me in pressing our government to continue to lead this work--by 
insisting that the United Nations act against a blood trade that is 
helping to fuel the world's most deadly war. Please support H. Con. 
Res. 410.

                          ____________________