If you can ignore the anti-Nkunda, pro-China spin of the article below, it at least reports what Nkunda says about the Chinese in Congo, something mainstream media seldom reports, other than a few buried mentions, and in a scoffing tone as though there's something wrong with a person who sees something wrong with Communist China taking over their nation's resources.

Here in the Western World the same thing is happening, but we don't have a rebel to speak out or fight for us. Our soldiers are all off fighting United Nations wars directed by mindless bureaucrat Secretary Generals with names like Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Kofi Annan and now Ban Ki Moon.

JFK and Bobby Kennedy were opposed to trade with Communist China, but after their assassinations, President Nixon and Prime Minister Trudeau, in USA and Canada respectively, opened our doors wide to China and our destruction is now nearly complete. And in Australia the same Asian invasion has taken place, with their resources all going to China and Chinese by the millions moving there. See CHINESE TAKE-OVER & CHINADA'S SOVIETIZATION & OZ PM SPIED FOR CHINA

That's what I mean by choosing the old "has anyone noticed there's a 500-pound gorilla in the room?" adage for the title above. I myself took that photo of the gorilla at the top of the page, which means I've actually SEEN the proverbial 500-pound gorilla. ~ Jackie Jura

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."

KNOW NKUNDA CONGO

China's boom hits Congo. Seattle Times, Jul 27, 2009
Here in one of the richest mineral belts in the world, where copper and cobalt almost seem to burst from the rugged earth, the people have grown accustomed to foreign opportunists. Anger is mounting, however, at some of the newest arrivals: businessmen from China. At lunch hour outside the smelters near Lubumbashi, the gritty capital of southern Congo's mining country, workers in fraying clothes and canvas sneakers rattle off complaints about their Chinese employers: wages of as little as $3 a day, backbreaking hours and a lack of safety equipment, which many said had led to severe on-the-job injuries and even deaths. "We don't have a choice but to keep working. Life is hard, and we have to survive," said Andre, 26, whose younger brother died in an accident last year while toiling on the graveyard shift at a private, Chinese-owned smelter. While raking a slag pit early one morning, a sudden noise startled 21-year-old Akahika, who lost his balance, fell into the scorching slag and was burned to death almost instantly. His story and those of other workers offer a glimpse into a little-known — and little-regulated — slice of China's dramatically expanding relationship with the world's poorest continent. As Beijing increasingly looks to Africa as a market for its inexpensive goods and a major source of raw materials, war-torn Congo, which boasts enormous natural wealth yet needs help with almost everything else, has emerged as a key trading partner. As the countries prepare to cement a record $9.5 billion trade deal, however, Congolese activists say that China is turning a blind eye to substandard labor practices at the dozens of small, privately owned Chinese smelters that have cropped up across the southern mining province of Katanga. Chinese officials say that these are private businesses, unattached to the government in Beijing and that they have no power to regulate them. China's trade with Africa soared to a record $107 billion last year, surpassing the volume of trade between Africa and the United States for the first time. If the mammoth China-Congo trade deal is approved, China would win lucrative mining concessions in exchange for building roads, railways and other infrastructure that Congo desperately needs. "They keep their workers in really the bare minimum of conditions," said Jean-Pierre Muteba, a Congolese trade-union leader. "They operate right on the limits of what is legal." Isaac Sesemba, 24, worked last year at Huaxin Mining, a small smelter hidden behind a red gate a few miles outside Lubumbashi. He handled raw metals but was never given gloves, and though a noxious metal dust constantly swirled around the compound, few workers had masks. Sesemba earned $3 a day, but despite working for nearly a year, he was never offered a contract, as Congolese labor laws require. When copper and cobalt prices plummeted last year during the worldwide economic crisis, the company shut down and Sesemba and dozens of other workers were laid off, some of them still owed days' worth of pay. Wu Zexian, China's ambassador to Congo, said he was aware of the allegations but the Chinese government wasn't responsible for the actions of private companies. Others said China did indeed have leverage over private entrepreneurs, most of whom are backed by financing from state-owned Chinese banks. "Any Chinese operation in Congo has a fairly strong level of state ownership in it," said one Western expert who works in Katanga. Congo's mining industry is a rough-and-tumble sector populated by U.S. and European corporate giants and small-time speculators from places such as China, Lebanon and India. In recent years, however, the large Western companies — such as Phoenix-based Freeport-McMoRan — have raised salaries and instituted workplace reforms, often after pressure from domestic politicians and watchdog groups. The small-scale sector, which has come to be dominated by Chinese entrepreneurs, is far less well-regulated. These individuals don't own official mining concessions; they purchase raw metals from individuals and process them for export — often to neighboring Zambia, along a Chinese-built road. While the Chinese government likes to describe its investments as a "win-win" for African nations, a case of developing nations helping each other, many Congolese have grown deeply resentful of the communist country's business practices. "There's a sense of racism between the Congolese and the Chinese, and the dynamic has become very antagonistic on the ground," said Lizzie Parsons, a Congo expert with Global Witness, a British-based watchdog group, "but people are desperate for jobs, so they do it."

China's copper deal back in the melt. AsiaTimes, Jun 11, 2009
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the People's Republic of China do not make for an easy fit. The most conspicuous clash between the IMF and China is going on today in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with copper the big issue at stake. In 2007, as Congo emerged from civil war, a Chinese consortium concluded a US$9 billion agreement with the government. The Chinese investors would develop mines and infrastructure - including $3 billion in projects over the next four years - and obtain the right to mine 10 million tonnes of copper and 600,000 tonnes of cobalt in return (quantities that are undoubtedly subject to adjustment based on changes in market price for these commodities). The IMF is working to obstruct it. Congo's President Joseph Kabila, who was slotted into his office after a less-than-exemplary election and with no little legerdemain by the Western powers, has shown clear signs of pursuing an independent course by playing off the Chinese against the West. In response, vociferous Western concern over the Chinese deal has extended from the IMF to the US government and even to Rwanda-backed rebel leader and wannabe US asset Laurent Nkunda. Nkunda included examination of the Chinese deal (but not of a contract involving a copper project by Freeport MacMoRan of the United States) as one of the eight demands he made to the UN special envoy last year, when his insurrection was at its height. AFP reported: 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 trying to please the Americans." Nkunda is now staying in Rwanda under mysterious circumstances and ready to return to the fray when his backers consider the moment opportune. How much the DRC government is intimidated by the possibility that Nkunda and his selective brand of economic nationalism will be unleashed from the eastern haven to do battle against the Kabila regime on behalf of the West and against Chinese influence is, for now, a matter of conjecture. The most pressing threat to Kibala's freedom of movement for the time being is the colossal $11 billion debt incurred and embezzled during the reign of his predecessor, Mbuto Sese Seko. The IMF is mediating between the DRC and the Paris Club of creditors concerning resolution of the debt. The IMF is also openly calling for the Chinese deal to be renegotiated. The stated reason is that the IMF is concerned that the Chinese deal increases government indebtedness at the same time that the Congo is executing an agreement to write down its external debt on concessionary terms....

Congo Mining Report Q2 2009. PRInside, May 14, 2009
The big news from the Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) mining industry in early 2009 was the news in March that the country plans to accept US$9-billion in investments from China, to be spent on mining and infrastructure, despite the opposition of the IMF. The IMF has expressed concern that this deal - which was originally agreed at the end of 2007 - will only add to DR Congo's current debt burden. According to a recent report in Bloomberg, the deal will see China build roads, railways, hospitals, and schools in return for metals worth some US$50-billion at current prices. Reuters also reported that negotiations on an initial US$6-billion-worth of public works and mining infrastructure projects have already been finalised, with both sides still discussing the terms of the remaining US$3-billion in funding. It is reported that this US$3-billion will be used to fund Sicomines Sarl, a mining joint venture between state-owned metals producer La Générale des Carrières et des Mines (Gécamines), and various Chinese miners. This new joint-venture (JV) - to become operational in 2011 - is reportedly set to produce up to 400,000 tons of copper and 19,000 tons of cobalt per annum. China's ambassador to DR Congo, Wu Zexian, has denied that the country will be burdened with debt as a result of the deal, saying that the work is being carried out by China Railway Engineering Corporation and Sinohydro Corporation, who have in turn received funding from China Exim Bank and China Railway. DRC is home to vast reserves of a wide variety of natural resources - primary among them being metals such as cobalt, copper, gold, and precious stones, including diamonds.... All mineral deposits in the DRC are state-owned and the holder of mining rights also gains ownership of the mineral products for sale.... It is not just in DR Congo where China is actively purchasing mining assets. On page 8 of this report, BMI examines the phenomenon of increased Chinese activity in the global mining sector and what this means for the industry moving forward....

KAGAME ABET KABILA GET NKUNDA

China deal in Congo too big to fail. Economist, Apr 18, 2009
...Since February the Congolese state has been virtually broke. Foreign donors are worrying that a decade of investment in stability, including costly elections in 2006 overseen by the UN’s largest peacekeeping mission, may evaporate in a whirlwind of riots and army mutinies. “There’s not enough money to pay salaries on time, to pay soldiers on time, to pay the costs of running a government,” says a western diplomat in Kinshasa, the capital. “And I don’t think any country has stability if these costs are not met.” It was therefore surprising that, far from tightening its belt as its reserves fizzled, the government should have been confident enough to embark on an expensive and inconclusive military campaign in January against foreign-backed rebels in the east. And yet, at a time when Congo seemed most in need and in the worst negotiating position, its government appears to have gained the upper hand in a row with foreign donors over a mining and infrastructure package worth $9 billion that was agreed a year ago with China. The IMF objected to it, on the ground that it would saddle Congo with a massive new debt, so is delaying forgiveness of most of the $10 billion-plus that Congo already owes. China’s ambassador in Kinshasa has accused the IMF of blackmail. Though Chinese companies have yet to complete a feasibility study of the deal, they have begun infrastructure projects across the country. President Joseph Kabila thinks the agreement with China is the jewel in the crown of his otherwise drab economic policy. “No, we will not revisit this contract,” says the head of his special commission to oversee the Chinese deal. “The Congolese government is making sacrifices to benefit from debt relief, but it is also needs to renew its infrastructure.” For the time being, Mr Kabila looks likely to get his way. In March, the IMF hastily disbursed nearly $200m to boost Congo’s foreign-currency reserves and maintain macroeconomic stability. The World Bank doled out $100m for teachers’ salaries and government utility bills. The European Union and the African Development Bank may chip in too, bringing total emergency aid to $450m or so, perhaps enough to tide Congo over until the end of the year. What is more, Congo’s share of a general allocation of $250 billion in IMF special drawing rights approved at the recent summit of G20 governments in London may secure its foreign reserves for a year or two. This should allow Mr Kabila to limp along until 2011, when he is up for re-election. In the meantime fears are growing that he may be adopting the time-dishonoured technique of Mr Mobutu, who, as a cold-war ally, got billions in foreign aid from the West because, as he used to reckon, “you can’t afford to see us fail.”

KAGAME HELPING NKUNDA NOT

NKUNDA RIGHT ON CHINA WRONGS

NKUNDA SAVED CONGO GORILLAS

NKUNDA SAY CONGO OWNS RESOURCES

NKUNDA GUERRILLA GORILLA TOURS

CHINA'S NEW EMPIRE. Globe Mail, Jan 3, 2009
...China has spun a web of strategic investments in resource-rich countries worldwide diligently cultivating its interests...Western fears have focused on Africa, where Beijing has swiftly become a key player in the oil industry, snagging valuable energy deals and strategic mining concessions. China's trade with Africa has soared from a mere $2-billion in 1999 to an astonishing $74-billion in 2007, rivalling the United States for trade leadership in the continent. Chinese leaders have made dozens of trips there and have sent construction teams to build hospitals, clinics, highways, railways, universities, mines, hydro dams, housing compounds and presidential palaces. Western diplomats in Ethiopia told me about the frustration of travelling to remote corners of the country, only to discover that a delegation from Beijing has just left a local official's office. "The Chinese are everywhere," one diplomat said. The President of Senegal put it bluntly: "The Chinese are more competitive, less bureaucratic and more adept at business in Africa than their critics," Abdoulaye Wade wrote. "China's approach to our needs is simply better adapted than the slow and sometimes patronizing post-colonial approach of European investors." By 2010, China forecasts that its Africa trade will reach $100-billion, making it the continent's most important trading partner. China is already the biggest trading partner of oil-rich but authoritarian countries such as Sudan and Angola. Within the past few days, a Chinese conglomerate announced one of the biggest investments China has ever made in Africa, a $2.6-billion stake in Liberia's main iron-ore mine. China also has signed mining and energy deals reportedly worth $1.6-billion with Zimbabwe, undercutting the international sanctions against Robert Mugabe's regime. China helps keep his government afloat by investing heavily in Zimbabwean farming, in coal, diamond and gold mines and in tobacco factories. "We look again to the East, where the sun rises, and no longer to the West, where it sets," Mr. Mugabe said recently. In addition, China is competing openly with traditional Western donors by offering infrastructure and social services. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for example, China announced a $9-billion plan to build thousands of kilometres of railways and roads, 32 hospitals, 145 health centres, two hydro dams and two airports — all in exchange for access to lucrative copper and cobalt resources. China has forgiven the debts of 32 African countries, and in 2006, it brought more than 40 African heads of state to a red-carpet summit in Beijing, the biggest such summit ever held outside Africa. Thousands of local motorists were ordered to stay home to keep the roads clear for the leaders. At the summit, China announced $5-billion in loans and credits for Africa, along with pledges to train 15,000 African professionals, to build dozens of hospitals and schools and to double development assistance by 2009. "This 21st century is the century for China to lead the world," Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has said. "And when you are leading the world, we want to be close behind you. When you are going to the moon, we don't want to be left behind." Support from African countries has paved the way for China to win key votes at the United Nations and other international bodies, which helped it to gain the hosting rights for the 2008 Beijing Olympics and to neutralize the powers of the UN Human Rights Council, among other victories...)

UN has failed at peace keeping role. UgandaNewVision, Nov 30, 2008
....While Gen. Nkunda is ready to talk peace, Kinshasa is more belligerent despite losses at the frontline. Nkunda asserts he wants a role in the military and integration of his officers in the national army. He also wants the agreement on mineral exploration between China and Kinshasa scrapped. The later condition for talks gives a pointer on things in Congo and China. The geo-political configuration makes Congo the trigger to regional conflicts as the mighty resort to proxy wars to inflame conflicts in the region as they wrestle for control of mineral resources.

UN Congo mediator did illegal deal with China. Guardian, Nov 27, 2008
FORMER Nigeria President, Olusegun Obasanjo, has maintained that the $8 billion railway project signed by his administration and which recently came under the critical lens of the Musa Yar'Adua administration will not be revoked. Obasanjo, speaking in New York disputed the position of the Federal Government on the controversial railway contract his administration awarded to a Chinese firm, while answering reporters' questions on his new role as United Nations Special Envoy on the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). According to Obasanjo, the railway contract that he awarded "was thoroughly discussed and approved." But Obasanjo did not respond to the counter argument that the contract was not appropriated by the National Assembly. The former President noted that the Yar'Adua administration had not said it would not go ahead with the contract, but only said, "they are looking for additional funds." The question had been asked by a UN Correspondent that there was a conflict of interest in Obasanjo's new role as UN Special Envoy to Congo. According to the Inner City Press report "the UN's envoy to the Congo, former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, appears to have a conflict of interest. One of rebels, General Laurent Nkunda's main critiques of the Congolese government of Joseph Kabila is the $9 billion resource deal Kabila signed recently with China."....Obasanjo said that his own government's deal with China has "no bearing whatsoever," to his new role as UN's Special Envoy to mediate the crisis in Congo. But while Obasanjo was denying that the Nigerian Federal Government might revoke the $8 billion railway contract awarded to a Chinese firm by his administration, an official of the Yar'Adua government, the Chief Economic Adviser to President Umaru Yar'Adua, Mr. Tanimu Yakubu, recently hinted that the contract may be revoked because it had been found to be illegal. Yakubu claimed that since Obasanjo did not present the project and its budget to the National Assembly, the existing administration would not condone it because of its stand on rule of law. "For an administration that prides itself on the rule of law, I don't see how an illegality will be strictly adhered to in the name of continuity," he said. The $8 billion contract was awarded to Chinese Civil Engineering and Construction Company in 2006 as a turnkey package entailing the design, construction and maintenance of about 1,315 kilometres of standard gauge double track railway line from Lagos to Kano. In 2007, the contractor received $250 million as advance payment for the project.

MUGABE & KABILA FIGHT NKUNDA ("Brutal atrocities in Goma town were designed by Kabila government troops in a bid to put blame on our advancing Nkunda rebel army (CNDP)....The international community sees this but does not act. Recently Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary General, simply condemned the Kabila government army for – indiscipline. Such type of killing and he merely calls it indiscipline?"...)

CONGO FORCES AGAINST NKUNDA

DR Congo's Nkunda attacks China to boost political kudos: analysts. Agence Free Press, Nov 20, 2008

UN is part of an international plot says Nkunda (UN in Congo for something else, not peace). Uganda Monitor, Nov 16, 2008