Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-12-16-Speech-4-152"
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"en.20041216.12.4-152"2
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"Mr President, the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the most lethal since the Second World War. The International Rescue Committee reckons that 3.8 million people have now been killed and over a million of those are children. Apart from those killed, 3.4 million have been displaced.
Congolese and foreign military groups continue to use violence to conceal the plundering of gold, timber, ivory, tin and other natural resources. Meanwhile, the fragile and ineffectual transitional Congolese government stumbles from political stalemate to military crisis. Both the transitional government and its international partners have failed to deal with the root causes of the conflict. Natural resource exploitation has funded and fuelled the instability in the country and, indeed, has fuelled instability and violence in the Congo for over a hundred years. What should have been a blessing to that country has turned out to be a source of deep sadness and regret and, indeed, a curse. The Congo's natural wealth has been a source of private funding for military and political elites instead of benefiting the vast majority of the Congolese population.
Our resolution rightly calls for a package of measures to tackle this situation. We must take action to ensure respect for the arms embargo; the UN Security Council must impose sanctions, travel restrictions, a ban on financial services, etcetera, on individuals who have participated in the pillaging of Congolese assets; the EU and its Member States must act against companies involved in exploitation; we need a peacekeeping force in the east of the country; and action must be taken to disarm all illegally armed groups.
Only if such measures are taken can we hold out any hope that the elections due next year will make any difference to the tragic situation in that country. The problem in the Congo is neither ethnic nor racial. It is about economics, and only if we tackle economics will we solve the problems."@en1
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