Painting by Cheri Samba

Lokuta eyaka na ascenseur, kasi vérité eyei na escalier mpe ekomi. Lies come up in the elevator; the truth takes the stairs but gets here eventually. - Koffi Olomide

Ésthetique eboma vélo. Aesthetics will kill a bicycle. - Felix Wazekwa

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Stories to watch

Some of the stories I haven't been blogging on but should have:
  • The South Korean government is considering a minerals-for-infrastructure deal with the Congolese government worth $1 billion. Korean companies would build a deep water port on the Atlantic and a waste water treatment plant for Kinshasa in return for copper mines, including the Musoshi mine in Katanga. Investors seem undeterred....
  • The United Nations is investigating the reported rape of 650 women who were expelled from Angola since September. While some reports seem to indicate that they were detained and abused in Angola, the UN has said they it does not know where they were abused nor by whom. What I cannot understand is Minister of Information Lambert Mende's position: ""We're not informed. We don't know, these figures are not confirmed," he said. "There are expulsions, perhaps there are rapes but we have received no complaints and we don't want to launch a dossier." He has outdone himself.
  • On the Angolan front, its ambassador to the Congo announced this past week at a press conference that the Congolese government has submitted their dispute over offshore oil rights to the UN for arbitration. According to this article, Angola pumps 500,000 barrels/day from the disputed area - around 30% of its total production.

5 comments:

andrea.trevisan said...

Jason, thanks for all this interesting posts.
I have a serious protection issue to discuss, how can I privately contact you?
Thanks, a lot

andrea, bukavu

Jason Stearns said...

Sure. jason.stearns@yale.edu.

blaise said...

You should not be surprise by mr Mende position. If you can answer the question:"who made you king?" regarding the congolese's regime you will better understand why they do this and not that. Beside since when a congolese government gave a damn about killings or rapes. As long it doesn't concern their families it just doesn't matter.
I'm more surprise that Angola allowed kinshasa to submit anything to the UN. There will be some a punishment for sure.

Unknown said...

A deep water port at Banana is today a white elephant that might turn indispensable in couple years as Inga dam has became nowadays, but it's still too big project to go with it right now!

With that kind of money, you can have some brand-new dredgers, floating docks...and enough tools to manage more efficiently the meagre goods handled by Matadi and Boma compare to Abidjan or Lagos.

And have enough money to update the railtrack between Matadi and Kinshasa that it's essential even for the case of Banana harbour, and why not money to self finance the feasibilty study for the railtrack link Kinshasa-Ilebo instead waiting for ADB.

Anonymous said...

It probably doesn't hurt that Jaynet Kabila has served as as Seoul's Honorary Consul in the DRC.

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