Editor’s Note
This investigation traces a complex web of financial and political interests linking Europe to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, raising critical questions about accountability and the true cost of resource extraction.
A mine occupied for weeks by overexcited local miners, demanding recognition of their rights, claiming its operation. If, faced with the pack, Glencore retreats, the multinational concedes nothing… Evo Morales is not fooled. Accusing the giant of having acquired the mining site by illegally paying the country’s former president Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, the president integrates the mine into the public group Comibol. A group sued in France for causing the bankruptcy of the Metaleurop Nord plant (lead, zinc, rare and precious metals); left behind in the Pas-de-Calais department, in northern France, a vast polluted wasteland; refused to assume the slightest environmental commitment, nor the slightest local social and health situation; was, last but not least, qualified as a “rogue” by the French right-wing Minister of Environment Jocelyne Bachelot… In Zambia, the same crimes perpetrated with the same violence: environmental degradation, endangering populations, plundering mineral resources, tax evasion, illegal transfers to tax havens,… In Kankoyo, a poor neighborhood of the copper city of Mufulira, its subsidiary Mopani Copper Mines (70% Glencore and 30% First Quantum Minerals Ltd Canada) managed by intermediary companies based in tax havens, there is only pollution upon pollution while at the same time, Glencore deprives the host country and local communities of tax revenues. Half of the workers have neither salary nor health care… In Colombia, the multinational razes a village, expropriates inhabitants, burns graves. Helped by the authorities and the army! In Bahia Portete, it chases the Indian people, massacres the population, expels families. In South Africa, the mining group is at the heart of the Oil Gate scandal. Newspapers denounce fraudulent maneuvers in collusion with Petro SA, the parastatal company. In South Sudan, Iraq, Libya, etc., Glencore does business, without conscience, in these war-torn countries. In the oil-for-food affair, a report pins it. The multinational paid hidden commissions to… Saddam Hussein.