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DR Congo's Nkunda attacks China to boost political kudos: analysts
AFP - Thursday, November 20
KINSHASA (AFP) - - Congolese rebel supremo Laurent Nkunda's call for a review of contracts with China is a populist ploy designed to cash in on resentment over Beijing's tapping up of vast mineral reserves, analysts say.
Nkunda, who holds swathes of the country's war-torn east that is blessed with huge natural reserves, has asked the contracts be reviewed as part of a list of demands put to a special UN envoy.
"The state has sold out its underground resources to China, it's scandalous," said Bertrand Bisimwa, a spokesman for Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People.
"They must be renegotiated so that the Democratic Republic of Congo's mineral resources are not hypothecated and so that we can have a bright future."
The Democratic Republic of Congo, a sprawling country, holds 34 percent of the world's reserves of cobalt. It accounts for 10 percent of global copper reserves and holds huge quantities of cassiterite (tin ore), gold and coltan.
However about 75 percent of its people live on less than a dollar a day.
Nkunda's demand was among eight main demands made to United Nations special envoy, former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, who is trying to mediate peace in eastern DRCongo, wracked by intensified fighting since August.
Beijing has been heavily investing in DR Congo in recent years. In May it lent the central African country an estimated nine billion dollars (six billion euros) to restore its infrastructure and revive the mining industry.
China also made a 35 million dollar (24 million euro) investment into the Congolese post office last January.
The Chinese juggernaut in Africa, where it offers no-strings aid in a contrast to Western donors who impose conditions and link trade sweeteners to human rights and good governance, has rung alarm bells in Europe and the US.
Critics accuse Beijing of sourcing cheap natural resources and minerals from Africa to power its booming economy and dumping sub-standard and cheap goods there.
China, which gets one-third of its oil imports from Africa, however denies exploiting the world's poorest continent with which its says it has a "win-win" and equal partnership.
Aware that many locals feel they see little of the benefits of the deals with China, Nkunda exploited a growing sense of resentment.
Professor James Putzel, director of the Crisis States Research Centre at the London School of Economics, said Nkunda was trying to set the policy agenda.
"Nkunda wants to start a dialogue over national policy. There has been a review of all the mining deals that the Kabila government has done in the past and concern about what he has done since the elections," he said.
"There is a lot of concern on the deals with China, that falls on deaf ears in African countries because the Chinese are bringing in size of an investment not matched by the West."
Rebel spokesman Bisimwa said the "buildings the Chinese want to construct account for peanuts when compared to what they earn."
Francois Grignon, director of the Africa programme at the International Crisis Group -- an independent group trying to prevent conflict -- said Nkunda is "trying to give himself political kudos" with his call.
"But he has zero credibility," said Grignon, stressing that Nkunda -- who operates in the mineral-rich Nord-Kivu province -- had "spent the last 10 years protecting illegal mining."
A Kinshasa-based expert, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Nkunda's tactics had the added advantage of being music to Western ears.
The expert recalled that Washington's top Africa diplomat, Jendayi Frazer, discussed the issue of Chinese contracts with President Joseph Kabila for 45 minutes when she visited Kinshasa.
"Nkunda is trying to put the West in his pocket," the expert said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "He is especially tring to please the Americans."
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