Ethiopia: Dr Congo 'uranium Ring Smashed'

Ethiopia: DR Congo 'Uranium Ring Smashed'

The Reporter (Addis Ababa)

10th March 2007

Authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) say they have dismantled an international network set up to illegally use uranium mined there.

Scientific Research Minister Sylvanus Mushi said DRC's top nuclear official and a colleague were being questioned in connection with the case.

The official, Fortunat Lumu, and the colleague were arrested on Tuesday.

The move comes amid reports that a large quantity of uranium has gone missing in recent years in DRC.

State prosecutor Tshimanga Mukeba earlier told the BBC that an "important quantity" of uranium was taken from the atomic energy centre in the capital, Kinshasa, without revealing any figures.

DRC's daily newspaper Le Phare on Wednesday reported that more than 100 bars of uranium, as well as an unknown quantity of uranium contained in helmet-shaped cases, had disappeared from the centre as part of a vast trafficking of the material going back years.

But the BBC's Kinshasa correspondent, Arnaud Zajtman, says that as of yet, no evidence has been made public to support the allegations made by the newspaper.

Mr Mushi said that "a vast network aimed at the fraudulent exploitation of DRC's uranium has been dismantled".

"It was a criminal network," he said, without giving any more details. Referring to earlier reports that the two officials had been arrested on suspicion of uranium smuggling, Mr Mushi said that the prospection and exploitation of DRC's uranium had not yet started.

The UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has expressed concerns over the reports from DRC, saying it was investigating the situation.

Uranium is the basic raw material of both civilian and military nuclear programmes.

A mine in DRC's southern province of Katanga supplied the uranium that was used in the atomic bombs that were dropped by the Americans on the Japanese town of Hiroshima in 1945.

To thank and reward DRC, the Americans funded the creation of DRC's nuclear centre in 1958.

It was established on the university campus and only for research purpose.

But in the late 1970s, a bar of uranium disappeared from the centre, raising concern about security at the site.

Moreover, the site of the centre is facing some erosion problems. And people fear a landslide that could lead to a wider disaster, our reporter says.

In recent years, the IAEA has visited the centre and security was believed to have improved.