In a report published in 2023, the NGO Amnesty International sounds the alarm about the impact of mining on the population of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Entitled “Fuelling change or the status quo? Forced evictions in industrial cobalt and copper mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo”, this report describes how people living in mining areas have been evicted from their villages by mining companies.
Kolwezi, a town in Lualaba province in the Democratic Republic of Congo, is home to 4 mining companies.
A housing estate known as “Cité Gécamines” has been built to the west of Kolwezi town centre in the form of a residential area. It was originally built to house mine employees. In 2017, it housed nearly 39,000 people.
Since 2012, the residents of Cité Gécamines have begun to suffer waves of evictions. “We started putting up crosses and barriers to scare people. We were patient, we saw it, we wondered about it. All they would say to us was: ‘Wait a minute’“, recalled Michel Ndoni, one of the residents evicted by the COMMUS mining company. “COMMUS had not announced its plans to expand the mine or published any impact assessment it had conducted or commissioned before it began its first wave of evictions, which affected 56 families in 2016,” the Amnesty International report reveals.
The report also explains that the provincial authorities allowed COMMUS to carry out the evictions without properly informing or consulting those affected. In addition, the company claims to have compensated the people, but several of them deny this. “All we are asking (COMMUS) is simply to respect us; to take account of our houses, our plots of land, our fruit trees… and above all to pay us decently”, said the collective of evicted residents.
COMMUS defended itself. Its legal attaché said that it had given a memorandum of understanding to the villagers and asked them to read and sign it. But Crispin Mwenda, a victim, recalled that those evicted had not been allowed to keep a copy of the document. He explained: “In the memorandum of understanding, there was no amount (specified for compensation), and then there were legal terms that were beyond us. They hadn’t given us a copy. Even though I’m an educated man, I didn’t understand much of it. They refused to answer my questions or give me a copy”. 13 residents wrote to COMMUS to say that they had not understood the terms of the agreement they had signed, or the method of calculating the compensation they received.
In response to these findings, COMMUS wrote that it is currently working to improve its disclosure practices.
Evictions in several villages
Mukumbi is also an informal village of more than 1,000 inhabitants located around 5 kilometres north-east of Kolwezi. It was inside a copper and cobalt mining concession called Mutoshi, acquired in 2015 by CHEMAF, a mining company registered in the DRC. Former residents of the village have accused soldiers of destroying their homes, with the involvement of the mining company. “At around 8.30am, I was surprised by the children who said to me: ‘Dad, come and see, they are burning down the houses'”, said Ernest Miji, chief of the village of Mukumbi. Three former residents also claimed to have seen a high-level executive from CHEMAF in Mukumbi at the same time as the soldiers were burning the houses and other buildings. These people said that the Republican Guard soldiers had destroyed their property and physically attacked the residents who were trying to protect their property and themselves.
CHEMAF acknowledges that it gave the order to burn down the homes of residents who refused to leave. However, although the conciliation agreement concluded under the supervision of the provincial authorities does not indicate how the evictions were carried out, it does state that CHEMAF, without “formally acknowledging” any fault, “evicted the occupants of ‘Mukumbi village’ without compensation” in 2016. Following protests organised by former residents in 2019, CHEMAF paid them the sum of more than 900 million FCFA. But several victims said they had received only 180,000 FCFA, which, according to the Amnesty International report, is insufficient in view of the damage suffered.
Samukonga and Tshamundenda are two of the villages in Kolwezi affected by the evictions. Thousands of people lived or owned farmland in the area. In these villages, the mining company METALKOL has been carrying out waves of evictions (since 2019) with the help of the military once again.
Metalkol believes that it has applied all the human rights measures required by international standards. However, the people interviewed said that they had received between 4,000 and 62,000 USD in exchange for several hectares of cultivated land and after being forced by the military to sign a register that they did not understand.
Contested compensation
The Kamoa-Kakula mining project is located around 25 kilometres south-west of Kolwezi. Kamoa is home to more than 40,000 people. According to the report, more than a thousand of these people have lost access to their homes, businesses or fields as a result of Kamoa’s mining activities.
According to Kamoa, “each family received a house […] on the basis of what had been decided by the committee (resettlement working group) according to the agreed plans attached to the individual transfer deed”. However, several members of the community complained about the size and basic amenities of the homes built by the company.
“None of the houses made available for resettlement were equipped with a shower, running water or electricity. The company confirmed that the holes it had dug to serve as latrines for the residents were not connected to any sewage system. The families moved to Muvunda in 2017, but it was not until 2021 that the primary school built by Kamoa opened its doors, and it was not until 2023 that the health centre was completed,” reads the Amnesty report.
Kamoa also stated that in 2017, “its relocation standards were in line with international best practice (…)”, adding that “the UN principles are laudable, but difficult to apply when electricity is not available in the region”.
It should be noted that this Amnesty report on the injustices suffered by people in DR Congo is based on research carried out jointly by the Initiative for Good Governance and Human Rights (IBGDH), based in Kolwezi.
Georges Youl
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