MAGAN'S WORLD:Manchán Magan's tales of a travel addict
IWROTE RECENTLY about arranging an outing to Congo for Go readers – a way for us to circumvent the fearmongers and doomsayers who claim this beautiful country will always be too chaotic and cut-throat for tourists.
I argued that although it might be a bit risky, the rewards of experiencing this astounding country would more than make up for any trouble. Its untrammelled fecundity is what’s most intoxicating – the whole country reeks of a heady lushness, a massive display of vaunting virility, with trees soaring into the sky to spread their seed as far as possible and flowers swelling to the size of umbrellas to ensure pollination.
The tone of my initial article and my suggestion of a holiday wavered between wide-eyed optimism and well-meaning intent. But within weeks of publication, Congo was at war once again, as if to prove the naivety of my suggestion.
The plan has merit, nonetheless, and it is wrong to portray the country as a snake’s nest of warring tribes. The truth is that the tribes are at war largely because of us – not just Europe’s past colonial misdeeds, but also our current avaricious plundering of Congo’s resources. As aspiring world travellers, we have a duty to inform ourselves about such things.
Antonio Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said in the Financial Timeslast year that multinational corporations are inextricably linked to the deaths and rapes in Congo. "The international community has systematically looted the Democratic Republic of Congo and we should not forget that."
Congo has the misfortune of being the world’s best source of minerals – cobalt, coltan, tin, chromium, germanium, nickel and uranium – most of which are needed in the production of mobile phones, computers, cars, aircraft and so on.
This abundance should be the key to its success, but the multinationals that extract these find it more profitable to do so in a war-torn country than a stable one that could impose taxes and oversee proper mining practices. From an accounting point of view, funding warlords to keep the country in turmoil makes sense. King Leopold II of Belgium realised the same when he was bleeding the place of ivory and rubber. It’s nothing personal, it’s just accounting.
Not only is Congo teaming with these minerals, but it also has traditional resources such as gold, copper, silver and tropical hardwood, which attract its resource-poor neighbours, Rwanda and Uganda, which send their own militias to Congo to carve out an area of control for themselves. These militias are indirectly funded by their governments, which in turn receive funding from foreign powers. Ireland gave Uganda €44 million last year. So, in fact, you and I are partly responsible for the tribal wars in eastern Congo, wars that have led to the deaths of five million people since 1998 (seven times that of the Rwandan genocide and equal to the deaths in the Holocaust) and the rape of hundreds of thousands of women and children.
I’m not a politician or an economist, but as a traveller who’d like to visit the mountain gorillas in Parc National des Virungas once again, and to climb the brooding Nyiragongo volcano as I did just after my Leaving Cert, it’s worth being aware of these facts – that 1,200 people a day are dying there partly because of us.
And there’s little point in looking to the UN for help. Its €750 million annual budget for the region is pittance compared with what the mining and extraction companies can pay. These companies have direct links to governments in London, Washington and Pretoria, and they will always ensure the UN remains underfunded.
Tourism shouldn’t be so complicated, and yet . . .