If you want to do something positive for the people of the Congo, join the Heart of Diamonds team at the NY Run for Congo Women on Saturday, September 26. It will be held on Roosevelt Island in New York at 8:30 AM at Firefighter’s Field. Registration is only $25 and funds raised go to support the work of Women for Women International in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

This four-star charity helps women provide for their families by teaching them skills they need to end the cycle of poverty and suffering. It advances funds to help them start businesses and teaches them to protect themselves against the terror around them. Even if you can’t participate that day, donations of any size are very welcome and–what’s more–your contribution will be matched by a wonderful supporter of Women for Women International who has pledged an additional $100,000 for that purpose!

Today in the DRC, people are struggling to maintain peace and rebuild their lives after one of the deadliest wars in all of history. As many as 6,000,000 people have died as a direct result of the ongoing conflict. Perhaps even worse than the loss of life is the staggering number of women and children who have been tortured, mutilated, and sexually violated by forces vying for control of the Congo’s mineral wealth. As you may have learned from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent trip to the DRC, rape as a weapon of terror in Congo has reached epic proportions. The women of the DRC desperately need our help right now.

Won’t you please join us? Invite your friends, too. Even if you can’t participate that day, your contribution will do a world of good for women in the Congo. When you sign up for the run, don’t forget to join the Heart of Diamonds team. And when you’re there, pick up some raffle tickets for a chance to win some great prizes including autographed copies of Heart of Diamonds.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds a romantic thriller about blood diamonds in the Congo.

As the Democratic Republic of Congo celebrates forty-nine years of independence today, it is time to make some hard choices to stop the epidemic of rape that has infected the nation like an insidious disease. Hundreds of thousands of women of all ages have been attacked and mutilated, publicly abused and often forced into sex slavery. They aren’t the only sufferers; their children are scarred by the crime, their husbands humiliated, their villages destroyed.

Some view rape as a symptom of a larger illness that afflicts the Congo, but I believe it is a disease in and of itself—one that threatens to kill the nation. Like many chronic afflictions, it will only be cured when the root causes of the illness are vigorously treated. To eliminate rape in the Congo, three difficult remedies are required.

The first course of treatment is to end the armed struggle for control of mines and other assets in the Eastern provinces of the DRC. Gang rape is used as a weapon to terrorize the populace around the mines that produce gold, tantalum, and tin and it will continue to be employed until someone conclusively defeats the various armed groups that profit from those mines. These include the FDLR (remnants of the Hutu Interahamwe that fled to the Congo after the 1994 Rwandan genocide), local Mayi-Mayi militia, and even rogue elements of the Congolese army itself.

Just as important is disenfranchising the businessmen and politicians both inside and outside the Congo who profit from the chaos. Non-combatant leaders of these groups, whether they be in Kinshasa, Kigali, Munich, Brussels, or Paris, must be charged with war crimes and turned over to the ICC for prosecution. Their ill-gotten gains should be confiscated and returned to the DRC.

Unfortunately, this treatment will require intervention by a well-equipped, professional armed force ready to complete the job. The Congolese army, the FARDC, is a poorly-led collection of untrained men, many of whom were “integrated” into the national army after fighting against it as members of various rebel militias. Congolese troops, upset over lack of pay, recently fired on UN forces with whom they are supposedly allied.

U.N. forces themselves are fettered by a confusing mandate and troops spread too thinly over a huge area. They recently stepped up the campaign against the FDLR, but haven’t shown much success. Retaliation from that action and a joint Congolese-Rwandan campaign earlier this year has actually increased the number of attacks against women in the region.

A competent force from the African Union, European Union, or even the United States, one that doesn’t report to those with economic interests in the region, will be necessary to complete this crucial first course of treatment.

The second stage is to prepare the patient to care for himself. The FARDC must be turned into a professional army. Soldiers need to be paid so they have less incentive to extort the civilian population. They must be taught that rape is wrong and perpetrators will be punished. The command structure must be cleaned out and corrupt officers replaced by competent leaders. Recent statements by Africom Commander William E. “Kip” Ward that the U.S. military will be working with the Congolese to raise the professionalism of their armed forces is a welcome start in that process.

The criminal justice system in the DRC needs to be strengthened as well. Steps have been taken in this direction, but much more has to happen before women can safely come forward to press charges against rapists without fear of retribution and with some hope that justice will actually be meted out. The 2006 national law criminalizing rape sounds good–the maximum penalty was doubled to 20 years and rape investigations are to be given priority–but that’s just on paper. Until there are sufficient trained policemen and women to enforce them, rapists will continue ravaging society.

The third stage of treatment will perhaps be the hardest of all. A culture of impunity has been created during the years of the rape epidemic and it will probably take many more years of interdiction and education to eradicate it. An entire generation of young men have grown up seeing violence against women as normal. They’ve been taught that it is perfectly all right to demand sex from any woman at any time and to take it by force if refused. With eighty percent of all children in this generation denied an education by the war in Congo and a million refugees still homeless while the fighting continues, there is no social infrastructure to teach them otherwise.

Support services for the victims of rape have gained traction in the last couple of years and the spotlight on their suffering grows brighter and brighter with films like “The Greatest Silence: Rape In the Congo,” “Lumo,” and Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, “Ruined.” Organizations like Women for Women International and Heal Africa are doing wonderful work to give these women back their lives.

But little or nothing is being done to instill a sense of shame and a core of decency to the men who commit these horrors. Until they are treated, the disease will never be cured.

The Congo that achieved freedom from Belgium in 1960 should have become the beating heart of Africa. With $25 trillion dollars in mineral wealth, more than enough potential hydroelectricity to power the continent, and vast regions of fallow land that could feed hundreds of millions of people, the DRC should be a vibrant, booming nation. It teeters instead on the brink of failed statehood; a sad shell of a nation that survives mainly due to the indomitable spirit of its people.

That spirit has survived more than a century of colonial oppression, war, and kleptocracy, but it is threatened now by the debilitating disease of rape. Unless that sickness is cured, the future of this should-be great nation is in serious doubt.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds a romantic thriller about blood diamonds in the Congo.

The open letter I published here and on Daily Kos last week convinced computer chip giant AMD Corporation to change a product code name, according to an online report on technology site CNET News. I had complained about the company’s recent decision to name a new computer chip “Congo” because of the connection between conflict minerals used in electronic devices and the brutal war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In the letter, I pointed out that nearly six million people have died in the Democratic Republic of Congo since 1998 and the death toll continues to mount as fighting over the country’s mineral resources continues. Currently, more than a million Congolese have been driven from their homes and farms by the fighting in the Eastern provinces. It is estimated that 250,000 women have been brutally raped and mutilated by armed groups seeking to control communities where mines are located.

While use of the term “Congo” was certainly inadvertent and many, especially in the tech world, felt I was making a mountain out of a mole hill, the company recognized that the code name was ill-chosen. Here’s what they told CNET News reporter Elinor Mills:

Contacted for comment this week, AMD spokesman John Taylor said the company “truly regrets” causing any offense, even unintentionally. “It was an oversight not to see that (the code name) could be viewed in an entirely different context,” he said.

AMD began using the name “2nd Generation Ultrathin Platform” instead of Congo as part of a natural pre-launch naming transition, Taylor said. “The Daily Kos blog helped finalize and expedite a process that was already in motion,” he added. “We’re striving for that codename to be retired.”

I appreciate AMD’s response to the naming issue. What’s equally important is their statement that AMD adheres to the Electronics Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC) Code of Conduct, which is researching extractive metals supply chains for tin, tantalum, and cobalt.

Thanks to all who joined in the complaint to AMD by communicating with the company in response to the original post.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds a romantic thriller about blood diamonds in the Congo.

I recently spoke about Why Congo Matters at the Westchester Library System’s 18th Annual Book and Author Luncheon. Here’s the video of my full remarks.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds a romantic thriller about blood diamonds in the Congo.

The newly-announced “Congo” microchip from AMD will reportedly be used to power laptops built by Hewlett-Packard. I conveyed my outrage to HP CEO Mark Hurd in the following letter:

June 9, 2009

Mr. Mark Hurd
Chief Executive Officer
Hewlett-Packard Company
3000 Hanover Street
Palo Alto, CA 94304-1185

Dear Mr. Hurd:

You may not realize it, but your company has decided to use a new AMD microchip that links your products to the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. I’m referring to the recently announced “Congo” chip from AMD, which I understand is slated to be introduced in an HP laptop this year.

Nearly six million people have died in the Democratic Republic of Congo since 1998 and the death toll continues to mount as fighting over the country’s mineral resources continues. Currently, more than a million Congolese have been driven from their homes and farms by the fighting in the Eastern provinces. It is estimated that 250,000 women have been brutally raped and mutilated by armed groups seeking to control communities where mines are located.

Among the prizes that fuel this conflict are gold, tungsten, coltan, and cassiterite. Coltan, as I’m sure you know, is a source of tantalum, a mineral used in the manufacture of capacitors widely used in many electronics including ultra-thin laptops like the ones destined to be powered by AMD’s “Congo” chips. Tin, a key material in the production of many electronic components, comes from cassiterite. Both ores are mined under horrific conditions in the DRC from deposits controlled by various militias and rebel groups. The Enough Project estimates that these groups generate some $144 million from the illicit trade in these and other minerals. Those profits buy weapons that have killed millions of people and threaten to destroy the nation known as “Congo.”

While the new AMD chip may not include these minerals, connecting the product to the conflict is an incredibly bad idea. Your statement of corporate responsibility reads in part:

“We fulfill our responsibility to society by being an economic, intellectual and social asset to each country and community where we do business.”

On behalf of the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo, I urge you to fulfill that promise and ask AMD to change this product name. I also call on you to commit to policing your supply chain to ensure that your company’s purchases do not contribute to the abuse and deaths of innocent people.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Dave Donelson
Author of Heart of Diamonds

This entire affair may seem like a small marketing faux pas, but the term “Congo chip” is already being used as a generic term and will evidently be adopted by other manufacturers to describe the technology. According to Brook Crothers of CNET:

Other vendors will follow with low-power dual-core Congo chips later this year, according to AMD. The new silicon will be used in 24 designs across 11 different PC makers–though AMD says this list is expected to grow.

What’s next in the totally tasteless world of technology marketing, “Holocaust” chips?

Yesterday, I provided a link to AMD. If you would like to email this letter (or your own thoughts) to HP CEO Mark Hurd, the company provides a convenient form for that purpose.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds a romantic thriller about blood diamonds in the Congo.

The recent decision by AMD to name a new computer chip “Congo” has to go down in marketing history as one of the cruelest decisions ever made. Here’s the letter I sent in response:

June 8, 2009

Mr. Dirk Meyer
Chief Executive Officer
AMD Corporation
PO Box 3453
Sunnyvale, CA 94088-3453

Dear Mr. Meyer:

Your company’s recent decision to name a new microchip “Congo” is astoundingly heartless and ill-informed. Did you really mean to link your product to the world’s worst humanitarian crisis?

Nearly six million people have died in the Democratic Republic of Congo since 1998 and the death toll continues to mount as fighting over the country’s mineral resources continues. Currently, more than a million Congolese have been driven from their homes and farms by the fighting in the Eastern provinces. It is estimated that 250,000 women have been brutally raped and mutilated by armed groups seeking to control communities where mines are located.

Among the prizes that fuel this conflict are gold, tungsten, coltan, and cassiterite. Coltan, as you know, is a source of tantalum, a mineral used in the manufacture of capacitors widely used in many electronics including ultra-thin laptops like the ones destined to be powered by your “Congo” chips. Tin, a key material in the production of many electronic components, comes from cassiterite. Both ores are mined under horrific conditions in the DRC from deposits controlled by various militias and rebel groups. The Enough Project estimates that these groups generate some $144 million from the illicit trade in these and other minerals. Those profits buy weapons that have killed millions of people and threaten to destroy the nation known as “Congo.”

While your new chip may not include these minerals, connecting the product to the conflict is an incredibly bad idea. Your statement of corporate responsibility reads in part:

“Our success in business is built on a core value of respect for people. From our employees around the world, to our customers and partners, to the families who live in the communities where we operate – people come first and foremost.”

On behalf of the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo, I urge you to fulfill that promise and change this product name. I also call on you to commit to policing your supply chain to ensure that your company’s purchases do not contribute to the abuse and deaths of innocent people.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Dave Donelson
Author of Heart of Diamonds

If you’d like to email this message (or your own) to AMD, feel free: Investor.Relations@amd.com

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds a romantic thriller about blood diamonds in the Congo.

Chouchou Namegabe Nabintu testified recently before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs and the new Subcommittee on International Operations and Organizations, Human Rights, Democracy and Global Womens Issues, moving the audience with her eloquent appeal for US help in stopping terror rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Senator Barbara Boxer said after Chouchou’s testimony that “In the Senate today, the silence on this issue has ended.”

The hearing was titled “Confronting Rape And Other Forms Of Violence Against Women In Conflict Zones Spotlight: DRC and Sudan”. Also testifying were Melanne Verveer, US Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues, Esther Brimmer, US Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, Phil Carter, Acting Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of African Affairs, Eve Ensler, founder of V-Day, Robert Warwick, Country Director of Southern Sudan International Rescue Committee, Neimat Ahmadi, Save Darfur Coalition, and John Prendergast, founder of The Enough Project.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds a romantic thriller about blood diamonds in the Congo.

The recently-announced copper/cobalt mining contract between the Democratic Republic of Congo and China–widely proclaimed as bringing $9 billion in development aid to the DRC–looks like another unfortunate deal for Congo. According to my back-of-the-envelope calculations, it is probably even more one-sided than American multinational Freeport McMoRan’s arrangement for Tenke Fugurume that I examined recently.

Last year, the Congolese Ministry of Mines announced that it had signed an agreement between China’s Exim Bank, the Kinshasa government, Congolese state mining company Gecamines, China’s Sinohydro Corp, and China Railway Engineering Corp forming a joint venture to develop the Mashamba West and Dikuluwe copper and cobalt deposits, concessions originally scheduled to be developed by Katanga Mining Ltd through a joint venture with Gecamines. The deposits are believed to hold ten million tons of copper and two million tons of cobalt.

While complete details of the contract are yet to be announced, what is known doesn’t look particularly profitable for the Congolese. On the surface, the deal sounds fine, with the Chinese agreeing to build $6 billion worth of roads and railroads and another $3 billion in mining infrastructure in return for rights to operate the mines. Gecamines is to own 32% of the venture, too, or nearly twice as large as the share it has in Tenke.

Using recent prices for copper ($4500/ton) and cobalt ($30,000/ton) and spreading production over the 25 year term of the deal, annual gross revenues of the mine will be $4.2 billion. Using the same operating cost assumptions as at Tenke, profits will be approximately $2.6 billion annually. Gecamines share could be $832 million.

The devil, though, is in the details. First, the $9 billion from the Chinese is not a gift—it’s a loan secured by the mines and to be repaid from the Congolese share of the operation’s profits. Generously assuming that the loan will be for the 25-year life of the project and carry an interest rate of only two percent (much less than I expect it will be), Gecamines will be on the hook for $540 million in annual debt service. That leaves only $292 million as the Congo’s share of the mine’s profits. By comparison, Gecamines’s deal with Freeport annually yields $100 million more.

Additionally, Gecamines has agreed to either give Katanga Mining deposits carrying nearly four million tons of copper and 200,000 tons of cobalt or pay the company $825 million as compensation for giving up the Mashamba West and Dikuluwe concessions. This additional cost, of course, further reduces the DRC’s take from the deal with China.

The IMF has objected to the deal on the basis that Congo is simply trading $11 billion in current debt (which the DRC hopes to have canceled) for $9 billion to the Chinese, and that the state guarantees of those loans are ill-advised at a time when the government can’t fund basic services, much less invest in the country’s growth. The IMF has said it might go along with the deal pending a study to make sure the mine’s reserves cover the cost of the infrastructure and if the terms are renegotiated.

The Chinese stand to gain in several ways from the deal as announced. In addition to their nearly $1.8 billion in annual profit from the mine, they’ll earn perhaps $4.5 billion in interest on the development loans—more if they carry an interest rate higher than two percent. There also looms the very large question of who will get the profits from the contracts to build the promised infrastructure. My assumption is that China’s Sinohydro Corp and China Railway Engineering Corp will be awarded those contracts on a no-bid basis, which means they’ll take home another billion or so in profits on the project.

It would seem to me that a better deal for Congo would be a straight-forward mining concession with the Chinese along the lines of those typically negotiated by Zambia and South Africa, where the parastatal companies get 51% of the operation. The infrastructure could be financed from those revenues, open-bid contracts for the roads, railroads, and power facilities let to the lowest bidders (maybe even Congolese companies), and funds would still be left over for the state general revenue coffers.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds a romantic thriller about blood diamonds in the Congo.

If you haven’t yet seen “Ruined,” Lynn Nottage’s Pulitzer-prize-winning play about rape in the Congo, make sure to attend the June 14 matinee in New York. Proceeds from that performance will go to support women in the Congo through the work of Friends of the Congo and Congo Global Action. I saw the play early in its NY run and can’t say enough about it’s importance in understanding the terrible effect of terror rape on the victims and society in the DRC.

Following this special performance, filmmaker Lisa Jackson will moderate a panel of Congolese women who will speak out about the continuing violence. The participants include Amini Kajunju, Georges Malaika Foundation; Marie-Claire Faray, Common Cause UK; Marie Mossi, National Network of Women; Gorethy Nabushosi, Congo Restoration; and Maman Jean Kasongo, Fondation Shalupe. In addition to Friends of the Congo and Congo Global Action, the panel is sponsored by the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women & Gender in the Arts and Media Columbia College Chicago.

This video underscores the importance of this event:

The play and panel discussion will be at the Manhattan Theater Club, New York City Center at 130 West 56th Street. Tickets are available through the box office or Friends of the Congo.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds a romantic thriller about blood diamonds in the Congo.

Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles
by Richard Dowden

As an author and activist, I am generally optimistic about Africa’s future, but Richard Dowden tempered my hope with a sobering dose of reality based on his decades of reporting on the continent. His powerful guide to sub-Saharan Africa is a must-read for anyone who hopes to understand why Africa is the mess it is.

Dowden is the director of the Royal African Society and spent two decades as Africa editor of the Independent and the Economist. His book is filled with both studied thoughts on the forces that have shaped Africa’s history and pertinent personal tales of his experiences there. His message is ultimately fairly simple: Africa’s problems can only be solved by African people.

The depressing counterweight to that conclusion that I drew from Dowden’s accounts is that corruption is so ingrained throughout the power structure of most nations in Africa that it is unlikely that solutions can ever be implemented.

Having set my latest novel in the Democratic Republic of Congo, I was particularly interested in his conclusions about that beleaguered nation:

“In December 2005 a new constitution was confirmed by a referendum and elections were held in July 2006. The assumption of outsiders was that, forced to govern together, the warlords would check each other’s theft and violence. The opposite happened. They keep the country divided, cut deals with each other and filled their pockets.”

Dowden makes another observation which mirrors my own experience:

“Despite the politics of theft, violence and patronage, Congo still inspires great patriotism among its long-suffering citizens. They may have little loyalty to institutions or a ruler, but Congolese believe desperately in the Congolese nation and a few are prepared to fight its looting bosses.”

Africa – Altered States, Ordinary Miracles reveals Dowden’s great love for the continent he has spent his life discovering. It is no dewy-eyed romance, however. He reveals all his lover’s warts and blemishes, bad breath and occasional frequent bouts of ill-temper in a paean to her beautiful potential.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds a romantic thriller about blood diamonds in the Congo.