Congo wants Canadian tried for war crimesi

Congo wants Canadian tried for war crimesi

Executive, employees of mining firm 'facilitated' civilian deaths, judge says

Kelly Patterson, The Ottawa Citizen

17th October 2006

Three former employees of a Canadian mining company should face prosecution for complicity in war crimes, a Congolese military judge has ruled.

Canadian Pierre Mercier, former general manager of Anvil Mining Ltd.'s Congolese subsidiary, as well as two South African former employees, are accused of having "knowingly facilitated the commission of war crimes" by the Congolese military when it suppressed an uprising near Anvil's Dikulushi mine, killing at least 70 civilians in 2004.

A report last year by MONUC, the UN peacekeeping force stationed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, found the copper-mining company lent a plane and vehicles to the troops, and that Anvil drivers helped transport corpses after the massacre. The soldiers killed between 70 and 100 unarmed civilians, including women and children; at least 28 of these killings were summary executions, according to the report.

News of the ruling comes just days after the Canadian government wrapped up a set of roundtables in Calgary bringing together human rights roups, government and industry to discuss whether legal standards are needed to ensure Canadian mining and oil firms observe environmental and human-rights standards overseas.

Representatives for Anvil, which is incorporated in Canada, but also has offices in Australia, were not available for comment at press time.

Last year, Anvil confirmed it lent a plane and vehicles to the army, but said it "had absolutely no choice" but to accede to a government request for logistical support. "When the army arrives with AK-47s ... you give them what they want," said Anvil spokesman Robert LaValliere, recalling that troops had commandeered vehicles at gunpoint in a previous clash with rebels earlier that year. He added that companies are obliged by law to comply with Congolese government requests.

But after a long investigation into the killings, torture and rape of villagers by the soldiers, the Congolese military prosecutor found the Anvil employees "voluntarily failed to withdraw" the vehicles, and has asked that the three be formally charged, along with Col. Ademar Ilunga, who led the attack, and eight of his men.

Mr. Mercier is believed to be working in Zambia for First Quantum Minerals, another Canadian mining firm, but First Quantum refused to confirm whether he was an employee. The two South Africans named in the court findings were responsible for security at the copper and silver mine until Anvil contracted out its security arrangements to a professional South African outfit after the killings, according to the British-based watchdog group Rights & Accountability in Development (RAID), which has followed the case closely.

Anvil has said it didn't know what the Congolese troops were planning and has strongly condemned the abuses. An internal investigation found "no credible basis" for allegations of complicity in the massacre, Anvil said, although it has refused to release the report publicly.

On its website, the company says it is working on a protocol with the Congolese federal and provincial governments, military and UN force to ensure such incidents never happen again. It is also building trust in the community by employing area residents, setting up social programs and encouraging dialogue with the government and the community.

But Patricia Feeney of RAID says the company should have hammered out a security protocol with the government immediately after the first incident in which soldiers commandeered company equipment, six months before the massacre. "Anvil didn't even report that incident to MIGA," the World Bank agency that gave the firm political-risk insurance, or to stock exchanges, she says.

"Companies operating in countries where the government is weak or there are conflict zones have an enhanced duty to protect their assets and their employees. But they also have to take into account the vulnerability of the local population."