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Canada's Little Known History of Impoverishing the Congo

Engler, Yves
http://dissidentvoice.org/2017/07/canadas-little-known-history-of-impoverishing-the-congo/

Publisher:  Dissident Voice
Date Written:  11/07/2017
Year Published:  2017  
Resource Type:  Article

Canadians are ignorant and confused about their country's role in the world.In a recent example of 'benevolent Canada' bias, the Globe and Mail reported uncritically about a trip International Development Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau made to the Congo. In a story last week headlined "Canada commits $97-million to Congo under feminist foreign-aid policy", the Globe reported that "Canada has committed nearly $100-million to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to support women's economic empowerment, protect street children and provide humanitarian assistance."

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:

Ottawa supported Rwanda and Uganda's invasion, which ultimately drove Mobutu from power. In 1996, Canada led a short-lived UN force into eastern Zaire (Congo) designed to dissipate French pressure and ensure pro-Mobutu Paris didn't take command of a force that could impede the Rwandan-led invasion. As Rwanda has unleashed mayhem in the Congo over the past two decades, Ottawa has backed Kigali.

In 2002 a series of Canadian companies were implicated in a UN report titled "Report on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and other Forms of Wealth in the Congo". Ottawa responded to the report by defending the Canadian companies cited for complicity in Congolese human rights violations.

At the G8 in 2010, the Canadian government pushed for an entire declaration to the final communiqué criticizing the Congo for attempting to gain a greater share of its vast mineral wealth. Earlier that year Ottawa obstructed international efforts to reschedule the country's foreign debt, which was mostly accrued during Mobutu’s dictatorship and the subsequent wars. Canadian officials "have a problem with what's happened with a Canadian company," Congolese Information Minister Lambert Mende said, referring to the government's move to revoke a mining concession that First Quantum acquired under dubious circumstances during the 1998-2003 war.

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