need to add title here

Congo's Gold

November 29, 2009 1:16 PM

Five million people have died in the Democratic Republic of Congo in a war fueled primarily from gold mined in the country by warlords and smuggled out to be sold on the open market. Scott Pelley reports.

How Gold Pays For Congo's Deadly War
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by egiptwakacje December 28, 2010 8:46 AM EST
I was very happy to see this story on 60 Minutes. Thanks you! Considering the horror of the situation, there has been far too little media coverage. Many of those who are buying the products that use the minerals that fund this war are in the United States. Consumer actions can be effectively make change. Currently there is a bill in the Senate that could make it easier for consumers and retailers to avoid products are coming from the Congo. But it is sitting in committee. <a href="http://www.wczasy-egipt.com/">egipt</a>
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by Congolese June 24, 2010 5:31 PM EDT
I'm supporting Marvelle123's words. Let me add saying that the mighties of Europe, America and Asia can stop this turmoil and help out Congo for the benefit of all. But, that is not their intention. They are busy creating problems in Congo and the rest of Africa to benefit them. They will protect their own interests until the end of the world. What does it take them to get a firm that uses all the gold from the Congo, whether acquired through clean or bloody hands, to sponsor or run a national mining firm that will employ Congolese and produce the gold they can benefit from as shareholders? What will it take to end the armed conflict in the Congo? Sadly, Congo is not South Africa where whites' lives are concerned, otherwise Europe and the US would have long come along to protect them and end any conflict there. The UN! What UN? One needs only to go to the Congo today to realise that they are pushing people to kill each other so their mission in the Congo can be eternal. The UN supports those who once killed or continue to kill anyway. They accept those killers to be Presidents, Ministers and more. Gladly, our suffering shall reach them (the US, Europe, Asia...) no matter where they hide. You meet an African today and he produces a US passport, or a European one. Have they got it yet? Well, it is no different from a caucasian who today is called American, for he, not long ago, was French, German, English or South African. We will all follow our Congolese gold (wealth) where it is taken to, unless those mighty nations wake up to let have us have our freedom and wealth back.
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by hogan February 25, 2010 1:10 PM EST
Sadly, the Congo has a history of persecution, dating back to the Belgian occupation, which is why Belgium has so many buildings from the end of the 19th Century - built with African blood and severed limbs.

As with oil, it is in the interests of Europe and America, soon to be joined by China, to keep a part of the world in conflict, so that it cannot organize and force proper prices for their goods. Every country that attempts to gain autonomy and have control over its production and exports is portrayed as a pariah.
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by CONGOGOLD February 20, 2010 5:39 AM EST
A Congolese Company lead by Europeans and trying to make serious changes in DRC's gold industry for the better.

Bringing "fairtrade" and better conditions and pay to the gold mining villages.

We need your support and as much media exposure as possible.

More information can be seen by visiting www.congogold.com

you can also go to youtube.com and type in congogold in the search bar.

We need to make this industry better quickly.
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by ggavich11 December 21, 2009 8:27 AM EST
Do we really have to have a Viagara ad in the middle of this? I am a high school teacher who likes to show these videos in class from time to time, but these ads are quite a nuisance.
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by joachimmbala December 12, 2009 7:37 AM EST
In the Congo and for over 130 years, this country has always been victim of its rich mineral resources. But whenever they show what is happening in the Congo, dictatorship, wars and whatever bad, there is always one thing missing: The masterminders. Western countries through their multinationals have always been the masterminders of whatever war, crime and plunderring that have been going on in the Congo. They don't show them, they only show the idiots they are using, who most are from foreign countries such as Uganda or Rwanda. All the foreigners the same western countries are making the world believe they are from the Congo. But as they say in french: Sin longue que soit la nuit, le jour apparaitra!

the USA, Israel and most of western european countries know who the criminals are, because they don't leave in the Congo, but with them in the western world! Jesus saves us!

Joachim Mbala
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by DanielESocha December 5, 2009 11:08 AM EST
Peace be with you,

I thought this was a fascinating piece of journalism. This is Africa's World War, and we almost never hear anything about it! Thank-you to those at 60 minutes who produced this investigation. 5 million people have been killed in the DRC. That is extraordinarily difficult to even comprehend. I have two comments to make. First, I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in The Gambia and one day I was talking to a Gambian Peace Corps administrator and we were talking about the brutal violence in Kivu. And this educated, very aware man said, "If I was the leader of that country, I would call for it to be re-colonized." This struck me as being so strange. How could this intelligent and patriotic individual really think that recolonization was the only answer to the problems of the DRC? Secondly, I am currently living in Illinois and in a neighboring town there exists a large number of Congolese immigrants. A few months ago there was an event held to welcome some of these immigrants into the community. A soccer game was held and various other activities. I went and talked with a few Congolese young men. Two things struck me. One, these guys were tremendously friendly and nice. They seemed genuinely happy. This is something that I think one finds with many Africans from war-torn nations, that they still have an impressive amount of joy that they possess in their day to day lives. Two, many of these Congolese men were wearing a shirt with the Congolese flag with a caption that read something to the effect of "The greatness of Congo." One man explained to me that this referred not just to the national pride of Congolese people but also to the vast amount of resources present within the country. As cliche as it may sound, it's an absolute pity that so many people have perished over these resources.
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by arenaud333 December 2, 2009 10:19 PM EST
after watching this very enlightening reportage, i feel that a
rectification of some order of magnitude is in order. i nearly bolted out of my chair when i heard Scott Pelley utter that a mere five (5) million people had been killed in the war raging in the CONGO (RDC, Republique Democratique du Congo). although, to be fair, he did say that that many lives had been lost "since 1996", when Uganda &#38; Rwanda (soon joined by 7 other countries) invaded Congo's territory &#38; declared war on its goverment in a bid for the invaluable mineral resources of this country. what Mr Pelley SHOULD have said (because, notwithstanding common wisdom to the contrary, every "African"'s life counts as ONE "human life") is that, since independence, the continuous civil war that has raged for four decades in the D.R. of the Congo (&#38; which has always been a war about who would win control of those resources and extract their wealth for their own personal enrichment) that war [i was saying] has resulted in the loss of no less than 10 million (10,000,000) human lives (give or take a few tens of thousands), by most agreed-upon estimates. in my opinion, this is much like saying that 6 million persons of the Jewish faith died in the nazi concentration camps because of the delirium of one psychopath... with NO mention whatsoever of the further 4,000,000 or so "other" individuals who were euthanised/exterminated/murdered/assassinated because they had the ill-inspired idea of having been borne mentally handicaped, to be of homosexual orientation, of Slavic extraction or to hail from the (then) Soviet Union, or whatever. i feel strongly that it is not merely a question of a sort of macabre accounting, but rather of stating, for all the world to hear and bear witness to,
the actual toll in lives (they were "actual, real, living &#38; breathing"
human beings like you and me) engendered by these two horrific historical events... and, for those of you paying attention when this was mentioned in class - i apologise, but i can't help being a little sardonic in the face of so casual a posture towards History -, yes indeed it IS the case that a quarter as many women, children &#38;
men were massacred in this single regional localized war as died in
a conflict (W.W.II) that engulfed the totality of the known world.
i just thought that, for the purpose of illustration of what this
piece of reportage attempted to convey, the record required that i set it straight..
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by Sky017 December 1, 2009 9:17 PM EST
CBS is the best!
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by DAPAAH December 1, 2009 6:17 AM EST
i love this website
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