By Nicholas Bariyo
The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Congo deployed extra
troops in the copper producing Katanga province on Wednesday in an
attempt to quell a worsening insurgency that has threatened the
province's lucrative mining sector.
A unit of up to 120 Egyptian Special Forces has reinforced the
450-strong U.N. force, known as Monusco, to help the Congolese army
fight off a separatist militia group in the province's copper and
cobalt heartlands, Monusco military spokesman, Col, Felix Basse,
told The Wall Street Journal.
A secessionist militia group, known as Bakata Katanga, has
stepped up attacks in Katanga in the past year. Although Katanga
has largely been spared the insurgencies that have plagued most of
Congo's mineral-rich eastern regions since the late 1990s, recent
violence is threatening the province's mining industry, where such
companies as Freeport-McMoRan, Ivanplats Ltd. and Glencore Xstrata
PLC are operating multibillion-dollar copper and cobalt mines.
"The force will soon launch joint military operations with the
government army," Col. Basse said. "Our mandate allows us to
conduct operations to protect civilians."
Bakata Katanga is fighting for the secession of Katanga, which
the U.S. Geological Survey says is believed to hold at least 10% of
the world's copper deposits and a third of the global cobalt
deposits.
In the past three months, militia attacks have uprooted more
than 400,000 people from their homes, according to the U.N., in an
area now called the "triangle of death," which stretches hundreds
of miles between the mining towns of Pweto, Manono and Mitwaba.
In March last year, at least 35 people were killed after
government troops clashed with militants who had attacked
Lubumbashi, the capital of Katanga.
Analysts say that the increase in the attacks in Katanga stems
from the U.N.'s attempts to quell long-standing rebellions in
eastern Congo, which left a security vacuum in the province.
Katanga's mining industry has flourished in the past five years,
and is largely credited for spearheading the turnaround of Congo's
shattered economy. The International Monetary Fund said Tuesday
that Congo's annual copper production hit a record high of 900,000
metric tons, compared with about 600,000 tons a year earlier.
Write to Nicholas Bariyo at nicholas.bariyo@wsj.com
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