Uranium agreement - ASADHO/Katanga

Press Release N° 05/2009
Association Africaine de Défense des Droits de l'Homme 
African Association for the defence of Human Rights
Lubumbashi,
March 30, 2009

The African Association for the Defence of Human Rights, Katanga section, known as ASADHO/Katanga, has followed closely the steps leading up to the signing on Thursday, March 27, 2009, of an agreement concerning prospecting for and mining of uranium in the DR Congo, following the visit of President Nicolas Sarkozy. George Arthur Forrest, the head of Forrest International Group (FIG), is said to have played a key role in the quasi-secret phase of negotiations, lasting two years, leading to this contract.

This contract, remember, comes at a time when the DR Congo is engaged in an irreversible process of revision of one-sided mining agreements to establish a balance between freeing up the development of natural resources and their impact on the development of the country. A good number of the mining contracts signed up to this point by the Congolese government and its mining partners ought to be modified, because they were signed in secret and amount to pillage of natural resources for the benefit of certain mining industries and political-administrative authorities, but to the detriment of the Congolese people in spite of the fact that this agreement will bring the advantage of developing the Shinkolobwe uranium mine in Katanga[1] industrially.

This mine is on an uranium-bearing vein running from Rwashi Commune, or more precisely the Star mine (formerly managed by Gécamines, then given to the Rwashi Mining Company), passing through Kawama, where the mine is presently managed by Forrest International Group, and reaching as far as the substrata of Lubusha School, with its centre near Shinkolobwe. The Shinkolobwe mine continues to be exploited as an artisanal industry by clandestine miners in complicity with some soldiers from the Congolese Armed Forces, (FARDC), and members of the Mines Police based at Likasi, Mura, and Kambove, as the politico-administrative, military, and judicial authorities all know.

ASADHO/Katange would have liked to have seen the contract go to tender, in concern for transparency and objectivity, and in conformity with Article 32 of the Congolese Mining Code. That method of proceeding would allow the Congolese government to evaluate contract proposals, which were advantagious and not one-sided, and to choose one or several potential investors, with experience and established reputations in Africa with respect to the principles of Human Rights and the Social Responsibilities of Mining Companies, implying a mining management with a visible impact on the sustained development of local communities.

ASADHO/Katanga notes that the nuclear AREVA Group has been exploiting uranium from Niger, through COMINAK and SOMAIR for more than 40 years, under two contracts signed on February 2, 1968, and September 7, 1974, which had no clauses referring to sustainable development of the mining areas and the protection of the environment.

• The AREVA Group has continued to pollute the environment and to practise a discriminatory policy with respect to employment and remuneration.
• The population in the mining zones should be concerned about possible ionising radiation and the pollution of the aquifers.
• Against this dubious background for Niger interests, negotiations have taken place on the revision of the price per kilogram of uranium during the course of 2007
• by signing a contract for mining exploitation at Imouraren, the Niger authorities have again given in, accepting 33.5% of the company’s capital instead of the 40% that the government asked for. [2]

ASADHO/Katanga believes that the Congolese government ought to take all these above considerations into account, and make sure their signing is done transparently, to get mining agreements from the multinationals which are truly win-win proposals for the public treasury and the interest of local communities, and which respect the norms and principles of Human Rights applicable to these companies.

With respect to all the preceding, ASADHO/Katanga demands :

• That the contract signed between the D R Congo and AREVA be made public ;
• In the case that this contract does not respect the need for and/or the principles of transparency, equity, and the clauses on the Social Responsibility of Companies with respect to local communities, that additional clauses relative to this be agreed
• That from now on AREVA actively support the Initiative for Transparency in the Mining Industries in DR Congo.

Released at Lubumbashi,
March 30, 2009

ASADHO/Katanga
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Notes:

1. A non-political NGO for the defence and promotion of human rights ; affiliated to the International Commission of Jurists (CIJ, Geneva), to the World Organization against Torture (OMCT, Geneva), to the International Federation of Human Rights Leagues and Associations (FIDH, Paris), to the Coalition for the International Criminal Court, member of AFRONET and SAHRINGON (networks of NGOs from Southern Africa), of the InterAfrican Union for Human Rights (Ouagadougou) ; granted observer status at the African Commission for Human and People’s Rights, with a  liaison office with International Institutions in Geneva,/Switzerland.
2. The Shinkolobwe mine is known throughout the world because from its uranium-bearing deposits the uranium (U235) was extracted, which allowed the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 during World War II to be made, the toxic, radio-active effects of which are still visible in Japan today.
3. ROTAB Publish What You Pay NIGER : Declaration on the occasion of the working visit of the President of the French Republic to Niger, Niamey, March 26, 2009, pp. 1-2.

ASADHO/KATANGA,
B..P.909,
Tél : 0995351549, 0814709184 ;
E-Mail : asadhokat@ic-lubum.cd  

Commune de Lubumbashi, 
Avenue KAPENDA, N°565 
Angle MOBUTU

ASADHO/KIN.
AV. De la Paix, N°12,
B.P. 16737, KINSHASA 1
Kinshasa/Gombe,
tél./Fax : 243.12.21653, 

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