How should the world take the news that processes are underway to carry out bidding and other activities leading to large-scale prospecting for oil and gas in the Democratic Republic of Congo? Much more importantly, how should the people of the DR Congo take that news?
Reports of the bidding around oil and gas prospection in the Congo basin is important, to say the least, because of the huge interest that so many constituencies will have on matters such as this one.
My interest is no less than that of an average citizen of the world, tempered by history and humoured by the many bitter experiences of our peoples and countries down the centuries, and the fact that our people do not seem to have the capacity to learn from what has passed and affected us so badly!
Congo. The mere mention of that name evokes memories of Leopold ll, the bandit king of Belgium who stole a country 80 times larger than his country and proceeded to pillage, rape and massacre the luckless people of that unfortunate piece of geography that he treated as his personal property.
Leopold’s agents became the perpetrators of the first genocide known to the world, in which 10 million Africans were massacred through a systemic programme of killing, flogging, castration, mutilation and starvation.
I have never been able to erase from my mind the horrifying pictures of severed hands displayed by the Congolese as punishment for not satisfying rubber collection quotas set by Leopold. These pictures are enough to make anyone’s blood boil with anger at the barbarity of the Europeans who enacted this behaviour, which even animals are not capable of.
In 1960, Belgium gave Congo “independence” in the circumstances that we all know, and soon a black Leopold arrived on the scene in the person of Joseph Désiré Mobutu, and later by another Mobutu-like figure of Laurent Désiré Kabila. In the two people, it is the root-word “desire” that is the evident denominator in the continuation of the plunder of the country’s resources.
It is this kind of history that makes one cringe every time one hears of another large-scale programme to exploit Congo’s resources.
One is more likely than not to have a lingering suspicion that we are about to be treated to another episode of monumental plunder and despoliation.
The fact that hardly anything of value has accrued to the people of Congo proceeding from the huge natural resources that the country boasts thus far, and that its rulers have somehow managed to mirror Leopold at every turn.
It is not for nothing that every time the term “resource curse” comes up, the name Congo casts its silhouette on our consciences.
Several commentators around this development this month have hinged around the importance of Congo’s tropical forest and the role it plays on behalf of all humanity in preserving the world’s environment, and the possibility that any intensive mining may lead to the destruction of the good that Congo gives to the world.
It is estimated that the tropical forest helps to absorb about 1.5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide annually, making Congo effectively one of the important “lungs” of the world.
Doubts have been expressed as to whether intensive exploitation of hydrocarbons can take place without endangering this benefit the whole world is currently enjoying.
This is supported by speculation as to whether the economic benefits reaped by DR Congo will be necessarily sufficient to offset the environmental loss, and whether, indeed, all these projects will turn out to be profitable.
It becomes worrisome when reports suggest that impact assessment on the environment has not been carried out, and that is apart from the fact that illegal logging has always been going on apace in the basin.
The vast flora and fauna represented here is extremely important. The survival of these animals and plants, side by side with the wellbeing of millions of people and communities who live and work there, must concern all the world.
But, at the same time, we must be thinking about the immediate economic needs of the people of Congo who, willy-nilly, have to act as keepers and protectors of the forest on which the whole of humanity depends for survival.
Keepers and protectors
This moves me to ask why the United Nations and other global bodies are not doing something to ensure that the keepers and protectors of these “lungs” — here one gets to think globally to include such places as the Amazon, the forests of Borneo and Sumatra and the Australian Daintree Rainforests — are compensated in economic terms for the commercial gains they forgo by desisting from certain economic activities that are inimical to our common environmental health.
Such a global initiative would fall squarely within the purview of the concerns severally expressed in different corners and fora a across the world regarding climate change.
The task is huge and grim, especially taking into consideration recent statements by Congolese authorities suggesting that the fate of the world’s environment may not be their priority.
The carcass lies prostrate, and in the sky the vultures are circling!
Jenerali Ulimwengu is now on YouTube via jeneralionline tv. E-mail: [email protected]
