Madeleine Albright & Maurice Tempelsman Q&A
Thursday, 4 May 2006, 11:44 am
Article: Suzan Mazur
Regarding Madeleine Albright's Relationship With Maurice Tempelsman
From Suzan Mazur in New York
Following are excerpts from former Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's May 2 address to her first live Mighty and the Almighty book tour audience - at New York's Union Square Barnes & Noble.
Secretary Albright's discussion of her morality & foreign policy book was immediately followed by two questions about her widely-rumored romantic relationship with diamond broker Maurice Tempelsman during the Clinton years, some say resulting in Tempelsman enjoying executive privileges secured through Albright.
Madeleine Albright: This is my first audience about this book and I'm very glad to do it right here. . . . I am not pretending to be a theologian and I haven't turned into a religious mystic. But I really did think that given those things that are going on in the world especially after 9-11, that it was very important to explore the role that God & religion plays in American foreign policy. . .
There are four really basic ideas I explore. One is the importance of morality in foreign policy. I do believe it is important to have a moral foreign pollicy.
The second idea that I look at is basically the result of being in Washington at the moment, which is a horrible place. . . . I have lived in Washington since 1968 and I have participated in many political activities. I have always loved politics. I worked on Capitol Hill. And for Senator Muskie. And then I worked in the White House for President Carter and President Clinton. And I've always loved politics. But now it's a very nasty business.
And what I've been looking at is how to unblock our system and to look at issues that right and left can actually do together. . . .
I had a conference with a peculiar partner for me and that's Senator Sam Brownback. We actually found a number of issues that we could agree on. For starters there are four:
--How to stop genocide
--How to stop trafficking in people
[Brownback has for years refused to address the merchandising of women in polygamy cults up and down the US Rocky Mountains.]
--How to help refugees.
--And religious tolerance.
Osama bin Laden is a horrible evil human being and the people that follow him are really murdering innocents. He would be irrelevant if he were not raising some very important questions about peoples' relationship with God. . .
And what I am recommending now is that we actually have to take religion and God into consideration. That doesn't mean that traditional diplomacy is out the window. . . . But, in fact, we have to recognize the reality that religion plays. . . .
The best part of no longer being Secretary Of State is that I can now answer the questions.
Suzan Mazur: How did you view your relationship with Maurice Tempelsman during the Clinton Administration years?
Madeleine Albright: How did I? Well, I have known Maurice Tempelsman quite a long time. In fact, I saw him last night when I was at the Council on Foreign Relations.
For those of you who don't know him, he is a very interesting businessman in New York. He has been very involved in a variety of political affairs that are part of our political discussion.
And then I'm chairman of the board of the National Democratic Institute and Maurice is a member of my board. And somebody that's been on it a long time. Has very vast knowledge about Africa. So he's a very good friend.
Suzan Mazur: Was it a romantic relationship?
A Blushing Madeleine Albright: With me? No. He was involved with Jackie Kennedy. No romantic relationship.
[Jackie Kennedy Onassis died in 1994; Clinton and Albright left office in January 2001.]
ENDS
*************
Suzan Mazur has traveled through the western US covering the polygamy story, contributing a series on the subject to the Financial Times, writing for the editorial pages of Newsday and the Philadelphia Inquirer, as well as Maclean's, CounterPunch and Scoop. She has been a guest on Fox Television News with Paula Zahn and Bill O'Reilly discussing the issue and on numerous radio shows.
Labels: DIAMONDS, MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, MAURICE TEMPELSMAN, NEOCOLONIALISM, PATRICE LUMUMBA
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A People's History of Congo's Jean-Pierre Bemba
Tuesday, 18 September 2007 13:49
by Keith Harmon Snow
Who is Jean-Pierre Bemba and how did he rise to power in the heart of darkness? Did Bemba order his rebel soldiers to cannibalize pygmies? Or is that another Western myth manufactured to malign an African leader and feed stereotypes of tribal savagery? What is Bemba's relationship to the competitors of George W. Bush and the friends of Bill Clinton? How is Bemba linked to blood diamonds in Africa and mercenary armies in Iraq? Why have troops from Uganda recently re-invaded Congo and why have the United Nations and international press been silent about it? A look at Bemba's infamous history answers these questions and more.
After a decade of war and millions of lost lives in Congo the most basic truths remain hidden. In an August 3, 2007 Al-Jazeera interview held at his villa on millionaires row in Portugal, Congolese warlord-turned-opposition-Senator-in-exile Jean-Pierre Bemba spoke with a coy smile about bringing democracy and freedom to Congo.[1] Asked about accusations at the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague, Bemba insured the interviewer that he was not a candidate for any war crimes tribunal. "I am not of course involved in any of these things," Bemba said. "Check your information," Bemba replied, when pressed, indicating that it's all been fixed.
Like a modern day Pretty Boy Floyd out of Africa, the baby-faced Jean-Pierre Bemba-who chillingly resembles the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin-has behaved like a spoiled brat with a private army. And his great white fathers have protected him.
MWANA CONGO-SON OF THE CONGO
Congolese warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba was born November 4, 1962, less than two years after the assassination of Congolese nationalist Patrice Lumumba, in Gbadolite, a city in what was soon to become Zaire, on the border of the Central African Republic. He attended university in Belgium, traveling back to Kinshasa as a member of Zaire's elites. Congolese supporters have called him Mwana Congo-"son of Congo."
Jean-Pierre Bemba's mother died when he was twelve. His father, Bemba Saolona, was a close confidante of Joseph Mobutu, Zaire's 36-year CIA-backed president, and of Juvenal Habyarimana, the Rwandan president assassinated on April 6, 1994 by Major Paul Kagame and the Rwandan Patriotic Army/Front (RPA/F).[2] Bemba Saolona remarried a niece of Mobutu's main political rival, the infamous Etienne Tshisekedi.
Bemba Saolona is a millionaire tycoon who was jailed by former President Laurent Desire Kabila after the U.S.-backed invasion took Zaire (1996-1997) renamed it the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). By 1999 Bemba Saolona was Minister of Economy and Industry in the new Laurent Kabila government, even while his son Jean-Pierre, head of the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC), was leading a rebellion against it.[3]
At the start of the MLC rebellion (1999), Papa Bemba was concerned about his little boy. "This is a message from Papa," the New York Times quoted Bemba Saolona, then 60, "he should really think hard about what he is doing." [4]
"I'm not a kid any more," replied baby-faced Bemba, then 39. "I can fly on my own wings." [5]
Bemba Saolona is tied to the Central African Republic (CAR) and the criminal networks of CAR President Ange-Félix Patassé (1993-2003). The CAR capital Bangui provides a major economic lifeline for the northern Congolese city of Gbadolite, a stronghold of the Bemba and Mobutu families and a major transshipment point for blood diamonds.
Bemba Saolona worked for decades with Ugandan elites involved in networks of criminalized and coercive taxation, racketeering and extortion that plundered eastern Zaire/Congo. One Bemba Saolona enterprise is the Enzymes & Raffineries Company (ENRA), based in Beni, North Kivu, where Saolona has a tourist hotel and plantations.[6] Saolona Bemba did not visit ENRA during the war (1996-2005), but maintained regular contact, while ENRA "remained independent" but paid taxes to the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD) rebel army, allied with Rwanda and controlled by Congolese warlord and later DRC vice-president Mbusa Nyamwisi, a long-time Ugandan ally. [7]
Saolona Bemba's private airport at ENRA had one dirt runway with no lights, yet during the war it was buzzing with big and small aircraft landing and taking off with amazing frequency.[8] From 1998 to at least 2002, the Uganda People's Defense Forces (UPDF) used the ENRA compound as a holding facility for interrogation and torture operations.[9] MONUC-the United Nations Observers Mission in Congo-for at least six years (2001-2006) leased landing rights at the private ENRA airport: during the rebellion ENRA territory was controlled by the RCD rebels, making MONUC an indirect financial backer of the RCD rebellion; MONUC payments to ENRA later benefited Bemba Saolona.[10]
From the age of thirty, Jean-Pierre Bemba vastly expanded his private fortune following in his father's footsteps as personal assistant (1992-1997) of Joseph Mobutu, the dictator of Zaire (1965-1997): the Bembas father and son share responsibility for the terrorism sown by Mobutu's Special Presidential Division (DSP) and Military Action and Intelligence Service (SARM), which ran secret torture centers in Kinshasa, massacred students, and raped and pillaged as state policy.[11]
Bemba was a vice-president in the transitional DRC government (2003-2006), while his top military commanders, Brigadier General Malik Kijege and Major General Dieudonné Amuli Bahigwa, were made big chiefs for the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC).
Worth hundreds of millions of dollars, Jean-Pierre Bemba's DRC enterprises have included electronics, aviation and television. Cathy Bemba, Jean-Pierre's sister, married François Joseph Nzanga Mobutu, one of the dictator's sons, in 1994. Like Bemba and most all the others, Nzanga Mobutu paid the $50,000 presidential candidature entry fee in the 2006 elections with funds gained by betraying the Congolese people. After the 2006 elections, Nzanga got his younger brother, Albert Philipe Giala Kassa Mobutu, and eight other individuals, "elected" to parliament (achieved by buying votes and support through sheer financial clout).
The World Bank, International Monetary Fund and European Community financed numerous parastatal entities in DRC involved, for example, in disarmament, demobilization, electioneering or "humanitarian" operations, and more than $600 million dollars of this money disappeared in the past few years. Exemplifying the alleged graft, each of the 600 Congolese parliamentarians received a new car, each purchase passing through Cathy Bemba Mobutu, allegedly bringing her $1000 per car.[12]
MOVEMENT FOR THE LIQUIDATION OF CONGO
Jean-Pierre Bemba commanded the rebel Army for the Liberation of Congo (ALC)-the armed wing of the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC)-from 1998 to 2003. Bemba's military "adventures" in Congo began in partnership with General Kpama Baramoto, former national commander in chief of Mobutu's elite Garde Civile, and Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni. Some 30 former Mobutuist officers of Zaire's national army, the Forces Armée Zairois (FAZ), met with Museveni and Bemba in Uganda in 1999. Bemba ousted several Mobutuist partners who fled with millions of dollars to Europe and Canada, or to luxury mansions under the protection of Nelson Mandela's African National Congress in South Africa, a haven from which they pursued illegal arms and mercenary activities.[13]
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni supplied Bemba's "rebellion" with troops, equipment and training. Museveni's Ugandan People's Defense Forces' (UPDF) 305th Brigade was trained by the Pentagon's Africa Crises Response Initiative (ACRI) in western Uganda, just prior to seizing control of Kisangani in 1998.[14] The Israeli mercenary firm Silver Shadow reportedly supplied the UPDF/MLC alliance.[15] The MLC's primary bases of operations were Gbadolite and Kisangani.
The MLC was supplied from the Central Africa Republic and Uganda, but the political base was in Belgium. Soon after the MLC opened their "rebellion" against the Laurent Kabila government (1998), Jean-Pierre Bemba flew from Gbadolite to Lisala, another Mobutu stronghold with a palatial mansion, where the state bank managers turned all funds over to Bemba; banks in Gemena, Bumba and other cities were also emptied for Bemba. [16] Numerous Mobutu era cronies joined the MLC uprising and collaborated with Bemba, and many of these hold positions of power in Kinshasa today.
The MLC rebels allied with the rebel Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), a movement/army first supported by Rwanda and Uganda, but later split by greed and personalities. Scores of militias in Congo were supplied and trained by both Uganda and Rwanda. The MLC/RCD alliance fought against other RCD factions to control and command plunder, racketeering, and extortion[17], and by early 1999 the MLC "rebellion" controlled the northern Congo, east to west, rich in gold and diamonds, in economic and military partnerships with Ugandan forces commanded by James Kazini and President Museveni's half-brother Salim Saleh, and by Rwandan commanders like James Kabarebe and Laurent Nkunda. The MLC was Uganda's primary instrument to plunder Congo.
Burundi and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (backed by U.S. and Uganda) joined the MLC/RCD rebellion. Their enemy, Laurent Kabila, was backed by Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia, Chad and Sudan (Khartoum). Interests from the U.S. and Canada, Europe, Israel, South Africa, Australia, Russia and China supported one or the other and sometimes both sides.
Bemba also allied with Libya and established military ties with rebels or former rebels of the União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (UNITA), which was led by rebel leader Jonas Savimbi. Senior Ugandan Army officials visited UNITA and Angola between 1996 and 1999, and UNITA officials, including Jonas Savimbi, visited Museveni and Jean-Pierre Bemba in Uganda.
The MLC/RCD alliance shipped products from plantations in rebel-held territory owned by the Blattner Group International: palm oil, coffee, cacao (chocolate), and rubber were shipped up the Congo River by boat from the Blattner Busira Lomami plantations in Isangi, to Kisangani, where raw materials were loaded onto airplanes and shipped to Uganda and/or Rwanda. Planes returned carrying supplies and weapons for the war.[18]
"During the war the security was provided by Bemba" said one Blattner director. "Bemba did not want to destroy the [plantation] company, it was a question of building relationships." [19]
In 2002 and 2003 Jean-Pierre Bemba sent MLC troops to the Central African Republic (CAR) to help President Patassé suppress attempted coup d'etats. General Bozize overthrew his former ally Patassé in 2003 and arrest warrants were issued for Bemba and MLC officers in 2004. Complaints filed in 2006 at the International Criminal Court (ICC) charged Bemba and the MLC with massive war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in CAR from 2001 to 2003; the ICC had taken no action at the time of this writing.
"I defy anyone at that court," Bemba challenged, in 2003, "to say that Jean-Pierre Bemba raped a single girl in Central Africa, and I challenge anybody to say that I gave orders for rape."
BEMBA GAVE ORDERS FOR RAPE
There are countless documentations and testimonies establishing Jean-Pierre Bemba's reign of terror. War crimes and crimes against humanity included persecution, murder, forced population transfer, torture, rape, sexual slavery, sexual mutilation and extermination. After October 2002, the MLC/RCD forces swept across north central Congo with a killing campaign code-named 'Effacer le Tableau'-'Erasing the Board.'[20]
Land and plunder were attained through sheer terror. Effacer Le Tableau involved cannibalism by MLC and RCD soldiers: interviews with MLC soldiers in MLC territory in 2004 confirm that cannibalism and dismemberment occurred across Northern Congo.[21] The accusations of cannibalism were repeatedly raised against Bemba throughout the transition and electoral process.[22] The International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) also took up the case. More than 350 testimonies collected by the UN confirmed these allegations against the MLC. [23]
"The operation was presented to the people almost like a vaccination campaign, envisioning the looting of each home and the rape of each woman," said a MONUC spokesman in Congo. [24]
Effacer Le Tableau was a covert military operation commanded by Jean-Pierre Bemba and his top officers, and there are allegations that Bemba personally participated in rape and cannibalism. One insider explained, "Soldiers [here] do what their commanders do; no one would commit these kinds of atrocities if they didn't think their commanders supported and condoned them, and they did." [25]
"The very day (January 15, 2003) that human rights organizations accused Bemba of cannibalism," reported Congolese journalist Antoine Lokongo of Congopanorama, "and the UN Security Council condemned these barbaric acts, André Flahaut, the Belgian Minister of Defense flew to Gbadolite, Bemba's fiefdom, and shook hands with him in front of the world's cameras." [26]
Jean-Pierre Bemba is married to Lillian Teixeira, the daughter of Antonio Teixeira, a Portuguese born businessman now residing in South Africa. Recall that during the warlord's battle in Kinshasa from March 22 to April 11, 2007 Jean-Pierre Bemba took refuge in the South African Embassy, and then fled to Portugal as a "tourist" seeking medical treatment.
European, South African and Libyan interests comprise the key pillars of support behind Jean-Pierre Bemba. But behind or allied with these appear to be U.S. interests either [1] closely affiliated with the Democratic National Committee or [2] in direct economic and political competition with the Bush administration and its allies. International arms dealers John Bredenkamp, Billy Rautenbach and George Forrest-untouchables known to hold multiple passports (e.g. South Africa, Zimbabwe, European and U.S.)-have also likely supplied Bemba with weapons.
LIKE FATHER LIKE SON
Bemba's brother-in-law Anthony "Tony" Teixeira deals in blood diamonds, criminal networks and mercenary operations, but the diamonds are stamped as certifiably clean and conflict free by the Kimberley Process, the international diamond certification scheme created by intelligence operatives at Harvard University.[27] Bemba has at times moved some one to three million dollars in diamond sales monthly.[28]
Tony Teixeira is one of three pivotal businessmen who, along with Jacques Lemaire and Victor Bout, were cited in 2000 for sanctions-busting by supporting the UNITA rebels in Angola's war.[29] UNITA (União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola) was covertly backed by the CIA during the Reagan and G.H.W. Bush administrations, but abandoned in the Clinton era. UNITA dealt in diamonds and threatened the interests of the Angolan government of President José Eduardo dos Santos. The Angolan diamond cartels involve Israeli-American tycoon Maurice Tempelsman and Russian tycoon Lev Leviev, both close to the Clintons and their friends, and to the Israeli Mossad, and U.S. corporations were hungry for control of Angola's offshore oil.[30]
Victor Bout runs an air transport company and was also cited by the UN Panel of Experts for the illegal extraction of natural resources from DRC. On November 22, 2006, the G.W. Bush government re-designated the official status of Victor Bout-who previously had a "special" designation apparently reserved for weapons suppliers, diamond dealers, drug lords and other syndicated criminals tied to the elites in the USA-and froze some of Bout's central Africa assets.
The G.W. Bush action supported the Joseph Kabila government and its backers-at the expense of competing interests: Russian arms dealer Victor Bout's ties to multiple combatants in DRC involved interests aligned with the Democratic National Committee that have backed guerrilla warfare in Sudan, Rwanda and Congo. The ascension of Israeli-American diamond kingpins Beny Steinmetz and Dan Gertler displaced the DeBeers and the Oppenheimers monopoly out of South Africa, and Maurice Tempelsman, and these latter interests have likely been using Jean-Pierre Bemba to leverage access to minerals and contracts in the Kasai and Katanga provinces.
Bemba and his brother-in-law Tony Teixeira also profited from Teixeira's dealings with Central Africa Republic President Ange-Félix Patassé through Teixeira's Central Africa Mining Company (CAMCO) and Central Africa Diamond Company (CADCO). [31]
The companies of Tony Buckingham and partner Tony Teixeira operate through a hornet's nest of offshore subsidiaries and joint ventures. One Buckingham diamond, oil and gold firm is Canadian-based Energem, formerly DiamondWorks, whose director/shareholders include Mario and Tony Teixeira, Israeli-American Beny Steinmetz (owns 50%) and J.P. Morgan. [32] Through subsidiary Branch Energy, DiamondWorks has perpetuated war in 11 African countries.[33]
DiamondWorks ha been financed by the U.K.'s Lyndhurst Ltd., a company controlled by a consortium led by Teixeira. DiamondWorks was originally formed from a merger between Robert and Eric Friedland's Carson Gold and Branch Energy. The Friedlands are "friends of Bill" Clinton.[34] Buckingham's Branch Energy works in Uganda.
Buckingham's Heritage Oil and Gas is involved in Kazakhstan, Russia, Iraq, Oman, Kurdistan, Gabon and on Lake Albert-on both sides of the war-torn DRC-Uganda border-where fighting between the Congolese FARDC army and Ugandan soldiers and Heritage Oil guards killed a British Heritage Oil subcontractor on August 3, 2007.[35]
Heritage Oil (Canada) and Tullow Oil (London)- operating around Lake Albert-are using the Bemba-Museveni military alliance to pressure the Kabila government in Kinshasa, partly because Kabila is looking east to China, partly because Kabila is close to Bush and the Israeli lobby, while Saudi Arabian and Omani interests (e.g. Bechtel, Heritage) are closer to Uganda.
By September 5, 2007, UPDF troops-and rebels reportedly aligned with Jean-Pierre Bemba-had occupied the DRC's oil- and gold-rich Semliki Basin on the western shores of Lake Albert. Heavily armed foreign forces occupied the villages of Aru, Mahagi, Fataki, Irengeti and the Ruwenzori mountains.[36] The international press and MONUC remained completely silent about the Ugandan incursions. By September 8, 2007, Ugandan troops were heavily massed on the DRC border while Kabila and Museveni were signing oil and gold sharing agreements in Tanzania. UPDF forces and "rebel" troops alleged to be Bemba's remained in DRC as of September 15.
One Heritage partner is Maurel and Prom, a leading European oil firm "with a strong presence in Africa since French colonial days." [37] Heritage principal Micael Gulbenkian is renowned for his deep ties to Iraqi oil since 1920. One long-time Buckingham partner is Tim Spicer, now running a $430 million Pentagon contract in Iraq, fraudulently awarded, for Aegis Defense Services, a mercenary firm also involved in Kenya-an extension of clandestine U.S. interests sowing terror in Uganda, Somalia, Sudan, Rwanda, Ethiopia and Congo. Bechtel subsidiary Nexant is involved in the oil pipeline being constructed across Uganda to the U.S. military port at Mombasa Kenya.
The UPDF/Museveni government genocide against the Acholi people of northern Uganda is driven by transboundary petroleum and gold concessions linked to foreign corporations like Heritage, Tullow, and Bechtel.[38] Uganda and Rwanda are two of the Pentagon's premier military partners in Africa: some 150 U.S. Special Forces were added to the Pentagon's Uganda arsenal in March 2007 and U.S. and U.K. military have been training UPDF troops.[39]
EXXON (ESSO) discovered oil in Equateur during the Mobutu reign, but-apparently-Mobutu's insistence on domestic refining sidelined the project; the petroleum reserves in Equateur have recently been "discovered" and these reserves-in territory controlled by Bemba and the MLC-were clearly at stake in the wars of 1996-2004. On a 1997 petroleum industry map the huge Equateur Province concession (labeled "Trillion") stretches more than 120,000 square kilometers into the rainforest of the Congo River basin.
There is also a criminal Portuguese connection to the logging sector through concessions granted in areas under Bemba's MLC control to two secretive Portuguese businessmen. Jose Albano Maia Trindade and João Manuel Maia Trindade control four companies SODIFOR, SOFORMA, FARABOLA and Compagnie Forestière et de Transformation (CFT, a subsidiary of NST Sedeada Holdings of Liechtenstein); financing reportedly comes from Switzerland. The Portuguese Trindade brothers reportedly evade all rents and taxes to the DRC government and have been ripping out the rainforest as fast as possible.[40]
"The Portuguese brothers got eight million hectares," said Belgian Georges Somja, owner of Lisala-based SICOBOIS, another Belgian logging company exploiting Equateur province through slavery and theft, near a SOFORMA concession. "They paid money completely under the table. It was all corruption." [41]
"Who supports Bemba?" said one insider in Kinshasa. "That is the question. It is the Democrats in the U.S., because they support Uganda and Rwanda. They are behind the petroleum interests. Portugal supports Bemba. South Africa supports Bemba. They can say what they want but it's very clear that there are some games going on in the back. And businessmen like the Blattners support both Kabila and Bemba." [42]
THE PAGE IS TURNED
Another foreign interlocutor in Congolese affairs is Spanish diplomat Javier Solana, now EU Foreign Policy and Security Chief, and the former NATO Secretary General who ordered the illegal bombing of Serbia to support the "humanitarian" Clinton/Albright diplomacy. In diplomatic talks with Bemba in September 2006, Javier Solana reportedly offered Bemba a buy-out deal to step aside before the October 2006 presidential run-off.[43] Jean-Pierre Bemba refused, and the warlords fought it out like spoiled brats in the Congo's "War of Three Days"-March 22-25, 2007.[44]
On July 13, 2007, EU Commissioners Louis Michel and Javier Solana met with Jean-Pierre Bemba at his villa in Faro, Portugal. The two commissioners praised the baby-faced Bemba after the meeting, noting his commitment to "constructive" engagement, peace and cooperation. "Mr. Bemba," the EU Commissioners announced to the Western press-Jean-Pierre Bemba was himself not allowed to come outside and appear before the press-"wants to engage honestly and loyally in a debate on the future of the Congo." [45]
Like a little boy, the baby-faced Jean-Pierre Bemba received his marching orders and was sent to his room (villa).
"He wishes to examine in greater detail the solutions needed to attain the Millennium Development Goals," said Louis Michel, the great white father from Belgium, "which he deems a priority in his vision of a modern Congo; this includes issues such as gender equality, social cohesion through dialogue between partners, decentralization, the mobilization of the Diaspora, the emergence of a participatory and dynamic civil society and the necessary reform of the security system (Justice, Army, Police). He also intends to lend his unconditional support to the country's unity and to an external policy of good neighborly relations."
The great white fathers had hardly finished outlining Bemba's reformation when reports began to claim that baby-faced Bemba was meeting with President Museveni in Uganda. Soon Congolese survivors in frontier towns saw Ugandan military and their "rebel" allies-believed to be Bemba's boys-marching into Congo with their bombs and their guns and their other deadly toys.
Jean-Pierre Bemba met with Rwandan warlord General Laurent Nkunda during his Vice-Presidency and he is now one of General Nkunda's secret backers in the ongoing bloodletting that claims some 1000 lives a day in eastern Congo. There are reports that Nkunda sent soldiers to Kinshasa to support Bemba in the warlord's deadly battle of March 22-25, 2007-now described as an "attempted coup" by Jean-Pierre Bemba and the Western warlords behind him.[46] Bemba's buying off of high-level MONUC officials-as MONUC sources allege-would partially explain MONUC's unwillingness to challenge or dislodge General Nkunda. [47]
But the Kabila government is looking east: on September 17, 2007 a "resource hungry" China signed an agreement to invest five billion dollars in Congos' infrastructure. Anglo-European interests are now using the military occupation of General Laurent Nkunda-backed by clients regimes in Uganda and Rwanda, by Jean-Pierre Bemba and MONUC-to leverage their position with Kabila. Nkunda earns at least $100,000 a month in extortion and minerals theft, and he is buying officials. Most important, General Laurent Nkunda is the "insurance policy" for the U.S. and German companies preventing Congo's access to the Lueshe niobium mines and other mineral bonanzas, including coltan, cassiterite and, allegedly, uranium, under Nkunda's control.
It is apparent that international capitalism-the warlords behind the warlords-does not care which black face they put on Congo to mask their predatory white enterprises. Like Patrice Lumumba, General Sani Abacha, Thomas Sankara and Laurent Kabila, those who step out of line are removed, one way or another. Chaos and deconstruction are often favored. Atrocities and genocides are selectively declared, selectively punished. Those black leaders who cooperate to further the fictions of Africa controlled by Africans are rewarded, the corruption and atrocities are ignored, and the page is turned.
For more articles by keith harmon snow, visit his website: http://allthingspass.com/
[1] "Al Jazeera Interviews Jean-Pierre Bemba," YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk6xmIuwGEo.
[2] The facts of the double presidential assassination of April 6, 1994 are now very well established.
[3] See: Norimitsu Onishi, "Kinshasa Journal: Papa and a Rebel Son Ask Who's the Betrayer?" New York Times, July 29, 1999, Section A: p. 4.
[4] Norimitsu Onishi, "Kinshasa Journal: Papa and a Rebel Son Ask: Who's the Betrayer?" New York Times, July 29, 1999.
[5] Op cit.
[6] Saolona Bemba is the main shareholder in ENRA, though ENRA describes itself as a "public" company. ENRA also manufactures fine finished furniture sold to European customers, and produces a rare powdered papaya enzyme, papaine, used in European pharmaceutical, beer and food products. The RPA/F seized huge stocks of coffee and papaine in 1996 and stored them in Kigali for two years. The RPA/F forced ENRA agents in Europe to buy back the papaine because all other potential European buyers balked. Private communication, Robert Ducarme, ENRA, August 16, 2007.
[7] Nyamwisi was allegedly involved with DARA Forest, a pirate Ugandan-Thai logging firm, connected to the Museveni regime, which cut-and-run widely in Oreintale and North Kivu; some DARA Forest logs ended up at ENRA. Private inspection, ENRA, keith harmon snow, Beni, DRC, 2005. One partner in DARA's war-based plunder of DRC's timber was DARA Tropical Hardwoods, Portland, OR. DARA Forest timber was sold to international buyers and shipped to Belgium, China, Denmark, Japan, Kenya, Switzerland and the USA: see Report of the Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of DR Congo, UN Security Council, 4/12/01. See also: http://www.edcnews.se/Reviews/DRC-UNReport010412-C.html.
[8] Private interview, Beni, DRC, 2004; also "DRC: North Kivu destabilized by rebel infighting," IRIN ReliefWeb, 11 September 2001.
[9] Research in DRC, 2004-2007, keith harmon snow; see also: Uganda in Eastern DRC: Fueling Political and Ethnic Strife, Human Rights Watch, Vol. 13, No. 2, March 2001.
[10] MONUC spokesman Kemal Saiki did not respond to August 2007 requests for clarifications on the MONUC relationship with Jean-Pierre Bemba.
[11] See e.g. Zaire: Repression As Policy, Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, 1990.
[12] Private interview, Kinshasa, DRC, April 2007.
[13] Wayne Madsen, Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa, 1992-1999, Mellon Press, 1999: p. 422-423. Baramoto is in Belgium today, there are rumors that he has some relationship with General Laurent Nkunda. According to an International Crises Group report of 13 August 1998, North Kivu Into The Quagmire, Mobutu generals Baramoto, Mavhe and Nzimbi reportedly organized the RCD movement. However, the Mobutuists were apparently excluded by Kigali. Private interview, PG, December 2006.
[14] Wayne Madsen, Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa, 1992-1999, Mellon Press, 1999: p. 463. ACRI was apparently the work of Susan Rice, Undersecretary of State for African Affairs, in the Clinton Administration. As a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Susan Rice is today one of the most vocal advocates for decisive military action to "Stop Genocide!" and "Save Darfur!"-again, by any means necessary.[79] ACRI's Uganda trainees also worked with the SPLA in South Sudan. Susan Rice reportedly has close ties with ex-National Security Council staffer Shawn McCormick who went to work for BP, one of the oil companies (formerly Amoco) with concessions interests in Somalia today; Rice is also very close with Roger Winter of USAID.
[15] Op cit.
[16] Private interview, Lisala, DRC, keith harmon snow, 2005.
[17] Private interviews, Kisangani, 2004-2007; see also e.g., Peter Tygesen, "Abandoned and Neglected," Dateline ACT, ; and Congo: Kisangani Residents Again Under Fire, Human Rights Watch, .
[18] Research in DRC, 2004-2007, keith harmon snow.
[19] Private interview, Blattner firm director, Equateur Province, DRC, 2005.
[20] Erasing the Board, Minority Rights Group International, 2004, .
[21] Personal interviews, Equateur Province, keith harmon snow, 2004.
[22] "Congo candidate calls for calm, denies cannibalism," Reuters, July 28, 2006; also "Congolese rebel denies cannibalism," BBC, January 14, 2003.
[23] "DR Congo Rebels Go On Trial," BBC, 18 February 2003, < http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2775569.stm>.
[24] "Congo cannibalism claim provides first challenge," Guardian Unlimited, March 10, 2003.
[25] Personal interview, Kinshasa, 2006, keith harmon snow.
[26] Antoine Lokongo, "Keeping Congo Bleeding: How British Mercenaries are 'Fueling' Africa' First World War," Congopanorama, Spring 2005, http://www.congopanorama.info/documents/mag-mercenary.shtml .
[27] See: keith harmon snow and Rick Hines, "Blood Diamonds: Doublethink and Deception About Those Worthless Little Rocks of Desire," Z Magazine, June & July 2007, published in full at .
[28] Christian Dietrich, Diamonds in the Central African Republic.
[29] "Hain turns up international heat on Savimbi," Angola Peace Monitor
, ACTSA (Action for Southern Africa), No. 6, Vol. VI, 23 February 2000; .
[30] See: keith harmon snow and Rick Hines, "Blood Diamond: Doublethink and Deception over those Worthless Little Rocks of Desire," Z Magazine, June and July 2007.
[31] Christian Dietrich, "Blood Diamonds: Effective African-Based Monopolies," African Security Review, Vol. 10, No 3, 2001, .
[32] Officers: Antonio Teixeira, President & CEO; Robert G. Rainey, CFO; Brett Thompson, COO, Mining; Dimitri (Jimmy) Kanakakis, Vice President, Corporate & Legal Affairs; Bernard Poznanski, Corporate Secretary; Board Members: Brian Menell, Richard Dorfman, Bruce Holmes, Robert Rainey, Antonio Teixeira, .
[33] See: "Africa/Diamonds: Rough diamonds," Africa Confidential, 5 March 2004, Vol. 45, No. 5; and "Equatorial Guinea: All Theft is Property," Africa Confidential, 17 Nov. 2006, Vol. 47, No. 23: p. 12.
[34] Wayne Madsen, Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa, 1993-1999, Mellen Press, 1999.
[35] See: keith harmon snow, "Northern Uganda: Hidden War, Massive Suffering: Another White People's War for Oil," and "Tullow, Hardman and Heritage Oil Concessions Map," .
[36] Private communications from Eastern Congo, August and September 2007. See also: Apollo Mubiru, "Uganda might be forced to enter Congo," New Vision, August 16, 2007.
[37] See: analyses by Sam Keiri, "Heritage Oil Corporation," eResearch, April 24, 2006.
[38] See petroleum maps and story: keith harmon snow, "Northern Uganda: Hidden War, Massive Suffereing: Another White People's War for Oil," .
[39] See Indian Ocean Newsletter, March 2007, and "Uganda: A glimmer of Hope," Africa Confidential, Vol. 41, Number 9, 2004.
[40] Personal interviews with Belgian and Congolese logging principals, DRC, 2004-2006. Where concession taxes or rents are paid the Congolese state earns about one cent ($US 0.01) per hectare. Concessions rights, granted for thirty years, have been taken from Congolese villages in exchange for compensation totaling less than $200. Logs of the precious dark wood Aformosia species sell at Congo's Matadi port for $US 7000-10,000 each. Logging firms operating all over Congo have been ripping out timber as fast as possible. Besides the World Bank, the World Wildlife Fund and other "conservation" organizations have facilitated this thievery. See: Georgianne Nienaber and keith harmon snow, "King Kong: The Curious Activities of the International Monkey Business," Parts 1-7, and .
[41] Private interview, Georges Somja, SICOBOIS, Lisala, 2005. One of the Portuguese companies, SODIFOR, is apparently headed up by Evariste Boshab, a Congolese Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Kinshasa and the principal private secretary of president Joseph Kabila during the transition period; Boshab is also described as EU Commissioner Louis Michel's "right hand man."
[42] Private interview, Kinshasa, April 5, 2007.
[43] "Tshisekedi, Kingmaker," Eye on Africa, September 28, 2006, .
[44] See: keith harmon snow, "Behind the Scenes: Warlord's Deadly Battle in Congo," Toward Freedom, August 9, 2007, .
[45] "Louis Michel has meeting with Jean-Pierre Bemba in Faro (Portugal) and is soon to visit the Democratic
Republic of the Congo," EUROPA, Press Release, IP/07/1102, Brussels 13 July 2007.
[46] Private communication September 12, 2007.
[47] See: keith harmon snow, Behind the Scenes: Warlord's Deadly Battle in Congo, Toward Freedom, August 9, 2007, .
Labels: DRC, HILLARY CLINTON, JEAN-PIERRE BEMBA, MAURICE TEMPELSMAN
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COMMENT - I wonder what Secretary of State Clinton is going to do about the
pillage of the Congo's natural resources by her contributor, Maurice Tempelsman and others.
Clinton to take fight against rape to east Congo
Written by Sue Pleming
Tuesday, August 11, 2009 5:20:47 PM
KINSHASA (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the use of women as "weapons of war" in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo must stop and that Kinshasa should do more to stamp out rape. Clinton planned to meet President Joseph Kabila and U.N. peacekeepers on Tuesday in the eastern Congolese city of Goma, capital of North Kivu province which aid groups say is the most dangerous place on earth for women and children.
She was also due have a private meeting with women who have suffered rape and other atrocities as part of her goal to raise international awareness and get both Congo and the United Nations to punish those responsible.
"It is truly one of mankind's greatest atrocities. This country has seen humanity at its worst," Clinton, a long-time advocate of women's rights and the first U.S. secretary of state to visit Goma, said before travelling to eastern Congo.
Kinshasa and the U.N.'s biggest peacekeeping force, consisting of about 17,000 troops, are struggling to stabilise the east of the vast central African country after decades of dictatorship and a 1998-2003 war.
Clinton planned to raise the question of the illegal trade in minerals such as cassiterite and coltan, which are dug up in eastern Congo for use in consumer electronics like mobile phones and whose sale funds armed groups in the region.
"A central focus should be on the fuel that drives the violence -- the contest over the conflict minerals extracted from the eastern war zone and helping to power our electronics industry," said Africa expert John Prendergast.
"Until the trade in minerals becomes legal and transparent, there will be no peace in Congo," he said.
MINERAL WEALTH
Clinton has said she wanted corporations exploiting mineral wealth to understand that it was in their interests to help end the conflict.
In Goma, tens of thousands of displaced people are packed into camps and vulnerable to attacks.
The United Nations has accused all sides of human rights abuses in Congo, including mass killings, rape and lootings.
Last month, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that at least 200,000 cases of sexual violence had been reported in eastern Congo since 1996 and aid workers said the numbers were not abating.
"I hope in (Democratic Republic of Congo) there will be a concerted effort to demand justice for women who are violently attacked and to make sure that their attackers are punished," said Clinton.
She is on a seven-nation, 11-day trip to Africa. After visiting Goma, she is due to head for Nigeria where the focus will be on fighting corruption, a key theme of her trip, particularly in Kenya and in Angola.
Her final stops are Liberia and Cape Verde before returning to Washington on Aug 14.
Labels: DRC, HILLARY CLINTON, JOSEPH KABILA, MAURICE TEMPELSMAN
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COMMENT - The notion that Zimbabwe represents: "a continuing unusual and extraordinary threat to the foreign policy of the United States" is bizarre, to say the least. A more rational explanation is that Zimbabwe presents a threat to the diamond interests to certain large donors to the Democratic and Republican parties, to be specific, Maurice Tempelsman and Danny Gertler. Tempelsman is a donor to Hillary Clinton, who co-sponsored the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001.
Obama extends Zimbabwe sanctions
Our reporter
Fri, 06 Mar 2009 02:09:00 +0000
UNITED STATES President Barack Obama has extended for another year economic sanctions on Zimbabwe unapproved by the United Nations. Obama has completely ignored calls to have the sanctions lifted.
The punitive sanctions have been denounced by 118 member states of the Non Aligned Movement, 53 from the African Union and 15 from the Southern African Development Community.
Former President George W. Bush first imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe in 2003, then expanded them in 2005 and 2008. They would have expired on Friday if Obama had not extended them.
The extensions placed on Zimbabwe ban more than 250 Zimbabwean individuals and companies from doing business with the U.S. Obama's announcement came on Wednesday after Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai had called for an end to Western sanctions.
A statement issued by the White House said: "The crisis constituted by the actions and policies of certain members of the government of Zimbabwe and other persons to undermine Zimbabwe's democratic processes or institutions has not been resolved,“
Obama added in a statement. "These actions and policies pose a continuing unusual and extraordinary threat to the foreign policy of the United States.“
The Prime Minister’s Office declined to comment last night when approached by the Zimbabwe Guardian.
A statement from the Government of Zimbabwe said: "Through this action, Obama — who campaigned on a mantra of change — followed his predecessor, George W. Bush’s policy of destructive engagement with Zimbabwe."
Labels: BARACK OBAMA, MAURICE TEMPELSMAN, SANCTIONS
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Chloe's Blood Diamond - Angola Rock sold for $16 million to GUESS Jeans Founder
By Keith Harmon Snow
November 24, 2007
allthingspass.com
A huge flawless white diamond was sold on November 14 for nearly 18.2 million Swiss francs ($16.21 million) to Guess Jeans founder Georges Marciano, who named it the “Chloe Diamond” after his daughter, Sotheby's auctioneers said.
While the hot Chloe rock is certified as a “clean” diamond, it was purchased from Angola’s state mining company, Endiama, a company involved in blood diamonds. No rock of desire of this stature—84.37 carats—comes out of Africa without organized bloodshed and suffering behind it.
“For the past 20 years, bloodshed and diamond mining have been two sides of the same coin,” said Rafael Marques, a human rights activist from Angola, “violence being explained either in the name of war or of combating illegal activities.”
Marques gave a lecture titled “Rinsing the Blood from Angola’s Diamonds” at Oxford University Africa Society in January 2007. “Today, I am here to share with you a reality of blood, and contempt for human rights, in the diamond fields [of Angola].”
Angola’s state firm Endiama is tied to the Lazare Kaplan diamond company owned by the Israeli-American Tempelsman diamond cartel. Maurice Tempelsman’s diamond interests were established in the Congo in the early 1960’s with the help of the CIA.
Sotheby's luxury conglomerate identified the seller of the “Chloe” diamond as Ron Cohen, chief executive officer of Los Angeles-based company Clean Diamonds Inc. “The stone was from Angola,” Ron Cohen reportedly told Reuters. “It has gone through the Kimberley Process and has all the certificates, it is a clean diamond.”
Most media reports described Ron Cohen “as CEO of Clean Diamonds Inc. of Los Angeles,” but Reuters identified Cohen as an Israeli diamond dealer. The company “Clean Diamonds Inc.” is not found in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission database. Clean Diamonds Inc. also lists New York and Belgium operations on its web site.
“The Kimberley Process is an organization set up by the diamond industry expressly to police trade in gems,” reported Reuters, “to prevent so-called ‘blood diamonds’ used to finance rebel groups and civil wars from coming on the market.”
However, Reuters is a mainstream international news service that supports the diamond industry by covering up crimes and structural violence that keeps Africa poor. Reuters de-links the suffering and bloodshed caused by diamond cartels in major diamond producing countries like Angola, Sierre Leone, Congo, Namibia, Botswana, Liberia, Central Africa Republic, and South Africa.
At the 2007 Oxford event, Rafael Marques described the response of the diamond industry to accusations of atrocities. “There have been shifts by the central and local authorities to address the accusations, either for damage control or simply to make more sophisticated the methods of abuse by outsourcing violence to private security companies,” he said.
The brilliant-cut “Chloe” diamond, which weighs 84.37 carats, is the second most expensive stone ever sold at auction. Sotheby’s press releases describe how Cohen held the 385-carat rough stone in his hand two years ago, before it was cut, when he allegedly bought it from Endiama.
BLOOD DIAMOND CARTELS
Sotheby’s is another company involved in blood diamonds. In 2005 Sotheby’s partnered up with the Israeli-American Steinmetz Diamond Group to form Sotheby’s Diamonds. Beny and Danny Steinmetz of the Steinmetz Group are partnered with Dan Gertler, a new White House insider considered the unofficial “Ambassador” to the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country cursed by diamonds and other minerals, where at least seven million people have died since 1996.
Sotheby’s sold 385 gems at the auction, for a total of 64 million Swiss francs, many being diamonds from the blood diamond economy. With the “Chloe” diamond sale the 2007 total for “Magnificent Jewels sold at Sotheby’s Switzerland” hit $106,019,622. French billionaire Francois Pinault owns Christie’s (London) and Sotheby’s (Delaware).
The Steinmetz/Gertler partnerships between them have controlling interests in Dan Gertler Industries, Steinmetz Global Resources, Nikanor and Global Enterprises Corporate (GEC), companies with massive diamond concessions in Kasai, and copper/cobalt concessions in Katanga, two provinces in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Israeli-American diamond cartels involved in Congo are seeking to displace the diamond interests in Angola run by Israel-American Lev Leviev and Maurice Tempelsman, top-level partners of the Angolan state diamond companies.
Belgian-born Maurice Tempelsman has a long and bloody history in Africa. When Congo’s first Premier, Patrice Lumumba, pledged to return diamond wealth back to the newly independent Congo in the early 60’s, Tempelsman, who began with De Beers in the 1950’s, helped engineer the coup d’etat that consolidated the dictatorship of 29 year-old Colonel Mobutu, and the coup against Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah; diamonds were at stake in each.
“I believe this was the beginning of what we now know of as conflict diamonds in the Congo,” says blood diamond expert and investigative journalist Janine Roberts, author of the book Glitter and Greed: The Secret World of the Diamond Cartel. “From then on diamonds would be extensively used to discreetly fund wars, coups, repression and dictatorships, in Africa.”
Maurice Tempelsman is Chairman of the American Jewish Congress, a Zionist pressure group that claims it works closely with the Israeli military. SEC filings show that LKI directors are high-rolling Zionist lawyers and investment bankers: one director belongs to the law firm that once represented President Kennedy—another Tempelsman friend. LKI is also connected to the euphemistically named United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
The Tempelsman empire remains rock solid behind Leon Tempelsman & Sons, De Beers, and Lazare Kaplan International—supplier of Tiffany’s and Cartier’s diamonds.
THE KIMBERLEY SCANDAL
In 2003 the “international community”—a conglomeration of Group of Eight (G-8) executives “partnered” with the diamond industry—established a formal mechanism ostensibly to control the flow of conflict diamonds. The United Nations mandated Kimberley Process is a voluntary self-regulation scheme where the industry crafts ‘passport’ documents certifying all stones as conflict free.
Also in 2003 the international World Diamond Council was created by the diamond industry and the U.S. Congress passed the “Clean Diamond Act.” These three formal processes falsely assure consumers that more than 99% of rough stones today come from conflict-free sources.
Since at least 1996, the campaigns of Russ Feingold (D-WI), who co-sponsored the Senate version of the U.S. “Clean Diamond Act” passed in 2003 have been heavily funded by Leon Tempelsman & Son.
Late in 2006, as the Christmas diamond rush was approaching, the film Blood Diamond starring Leonardo DiCaprio provoked the World Diamond Council to launch a blitzkreig advertising campaign—full-page ads in the New York Times, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, the International Herald Tribune—touting the self-policing successes of the Kimberley Process. The campaign was presumably coordinated to counter the supposed “negative publicity” of the Blood Diamond film.
The Kimberly Process was launched under the narrow definition that “conflict diamonds” only originate from conflicts between ‘rebels’ and ‘governments’: it refers to smuggling by militias antagonistic to ‘legitimate’ member governments.
After the film Blood Diamond opened in the U.S., diamond sales were never been better.
“I'm wearing diamond ear rings today because they are conflict free," actress Jennifer Connelly, who stars in Blood Diamond, reportedly said. "It would be fantastic if some of these natural resources benefited more people but until that can happen we can certainly make a stand and insist that the diamonds we wear are conflict free, which doesn't mean boycotting diamonds. It just means making sure we support a more accountable Kimberly Process."
ENDIAMA’S BLOODY DIAMOND FIELDS
Artisanal diamond miners in Angola called artisanos or garimpeiros are forced into ‘illegal’ mining because Angola’s mining security companies push people off their own land. While agriculture and commerce in the region require the direct authorization of the Provincial Governor, not one artisano has been granted a license for diamond exploration or subsistence agriculture. The ‘legitimate’ government of Angola forces desperate people to resort to ‘illegal’ activities to survive but according to Rafael Marques, garimpeiros contribute more to the profits of some of the state diamond mining firms than big industrial operations.
Three private military companies (PMCs) have been targeting garimpeiros in Angola. The mercenary firms Alfa-5, Teleservices, and K&P Mineira defend Angola’s big name diamond firms like Sociedade de Desenvolvimento Mineiro (Sodiam), Sociedade Mineira de Cuango, and Sociedade Mineira Luminas. Human rights researcher Rafael Marques has recently documented more than 50 cases of PMCs arresting, beating and torturing garimpeiros. They stop garimpeiros from fishing in their rivers, growing their own food, or living traditional lives; they have forced sexual relations on family members, including same-sex rape and sodomy.
The PMCs operate behind Angola’s public diamond company, Endiama, and have exclusive rights to Angola’s diamonds. Endiama owns 99% of shares in Sodiam, which has a joint venture with Lazare Kaplan International (LKI) of the Israeli-American Maurice Tempelsman family.
Sodiam works with the Russo-Israeli Lev Leviev Group. Endiama owns part of Alfa-5, one of the PMCs that exploit and torture garimpeiros. Alfa-5 and K&P Mineira provide security for ASCORP—the Angola Selling Corporation—another Angolan monopoly.
One of ASCORP’s controlling investors, Lev Leviev, runs a global commercial empire that includes: Leviev Group of Companies; Lev Leviev Diamonds; Africa-Israel (commercial real estate in Prague and London); Gottex (swimwear) Company; 1,700 Fina gas stations in the Southwest U.S.; 173 7-Elevens in New Mexico and Texas; a 33% stake in Cross Israel Highway (Israel’s first toll road); and more. Leviev partner Arcady Gaydamak, an arms dealer, also reportedly works with Danny Yatom, a former MOSSAD (Israeli secret service) chief and security advisor to former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Leviev is connected to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and to Sandline International, a U.K./South African mercenary firm operating in the war-torn areas of Eastern Congo and Uganda.
While participants in the Kimberley Process complained of the criminality of UNITA, the infamous rebels once supported by the CIA, but they gave the “legitimate” Dos Santos government a sparkling bill of health. Angola exemplifies the process whereby an international certification scheme enforced by the United Nations rubber stamps boxes of rough stones according to their ‘country of origin.’ Stamped ‘Angola’ the public is assured that these diamonds are now ‘conflict free,’ because these nations are members of the Kimberley certification.
The Kimberley Process was partially instituted through the work of Robert Rotberg at Harvard University. Maurice Tempelsman chairs the International Advisory Council at the Harvard AIDS Institute (HAI) of the School of Public Health. Rotberg and Tempelsman shared a panel at the Council on Foreign Relations with people like Walter Kansteiner, National Security under Bill Clinton and current director of a gold company involved in Congo’s bloody eastern zone.
Maurice Tempelsman was for decades the unofficial ambassador to Congo/Zaire; Dan Gertler has usurped that role. In 2000 Gertler was named Honorary Consul to the Congo. Beny Steinmetz may be the biggest De Beers “sightholder”. Africa Confidential called President Kabila’s 2003 visit to the Bush White House a “coup” for Gertler and Steinmetz. Gertler’s best friend is Brooklyn-born Chaim Leibowitz, a personal friend of Condoleeza Rice.
BLOOD DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER
Tempelsman and Steinmetz bought diamonds from both sides during Angola’s thirty-year war. Israeli diamond tycoons Gertler and Leviev are reportedly jockeying for power with Isabel Dos Santos, the high-rolling diamond-studded daughter of the President of Angola.
The Israel Diamond Exchange in Tel Aviv, which today brings Israel $13 billion annually in commerce, and is the country’s second-largest industry. Israel buys some 50% of the world’s rough diamonds, and the U.S. buys two-thirds of these.
Diamonds are Israel’s top export. In 2005 figures, exports to the EU totaled $10.7 billion in 2004, including $2.5 billion in diamonds (23.3%); exports to the US totaled $14.2 billion in 2004, including $7.3 billion in diamonds (51.4%); exports to Asia totaled $7.1 billion in 2004, including $3.2 billion in diamonds (45.0%); exports to the rest of the world totaled $6.6 billion in 2004, including $800 million in diamonds (12.1%).
Dan Gertler’s grandfather, Moshe Schnitzer, is known in Israel as “Mr. Diamond,” founder of the Israel Diamond Exchange in Tel Aviv. Moshe Schnitzer’s son and Dan Gertler’s uncle is Shmuel Schnitzer, Vice-Chairman of the Belgian-based World Diamond Council—the entity that promotes the false image of “clean” or “conflict-free” diamonds.
In June 2002, as the Kimberley Process was unfolding, Daniel Horowitz, CEO of IDH Diamonds, gave a speech at the 3rd World Diamond Conference titled “Rough Diamonds in a Brave New World.” IDH works with Endiama, BHP-Billiton and De Beers, another of the big diamond cartels.
“Ladies and gentlemen, it would be irresponsible to circumvent the fact that it is highly problematic, if not unfeasible, to work out a system in order to control the flow of rough diamonds around the world,” Horowitz said. “The reality is that once diamonds are mined there is almost nothing one can do in order to prevent them from reaching the market. No certification scheme can truly be reliable, not only because war-torn areas are by definition disorganized, but mainly because it is intrinsically impossible to distinguish between good and bad diamonds. Misguiding traders and consumers with untrustworthy guarantees would inevitably be demystified over time. As opposed to this, it is critical to publicize that the mainstream diamond trade is legitimate. It needs to be said again and again that conflict diamonds are an irrelevant portion of world production. And as far as humanitarian issues are concerned, the added value the industry generates worldwide particularly benefits the developing world.”
Angola remains a war-torn country selling billions of dollars worth of diamonds annually. In the past four years the government of Angola has waged a permanent war against poor people, destroying thousands of homes and taking the land in mass forced evictions. People were beaten, tortured and arbitrarily arrested. At least 1000 people die in eastern Congo every day.
Millions of blood diamonds from past and current wars remain locked in the vaults of the Belgian, Russian, New York, London and Israeli diamond bourses to insure the artificially high, monopoly-fixed, prices of diamonds.
Rafael Marques outlined cases torture, brutalization and assassinations—cases of personal brutality he investigated—that characterize diamond mining by state firms in Angola today.
“Should one, after this brief explanation,” Marques asked, “say that the extraction of diamonds in Angola is OK? What the Kimberley Process, which was designed to drive blood diamonds out of the market, is doing is to rinse the blood from the gems, extracted in [Angola] and certify them as clean.”
Related Articles
Keith Harmon Snow and Rick Hines: “Blood Diamond: Doublethink and Deception Over Those Worthless Little Rocks of Desire,” Z Magazine, June and July 2007, and Blood Diamonds at .
Rafael Marques, Rinsing the Blood from Angola’s Diamonds, Oxford University Africa Society, January 26, 2007.
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Labels: BENNY STEINMETZ, BLOOD DIAMONDS, DAN GERTLER, DIAMONDS, DRC, KIMBERLEY PROCESS, MAURICE TEMPELSMAN, NEOCOLONIALISM
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