Dollars for Dictators - A lawsuit alleges Oil for Food-like corruption in the Congo Republic

Since 2004, the IMF has taken the lead in administering a package aimed at greatly easing Congo's debt burden--a move more likely to help Mr. Sassou-Nguesso's government than the people who live under it. Debt relief has a nice ring, plays well at charity rock concerts, and keeps the IMF busy.

The irony is that that for the people of Congo--as opposed to the regime-- the most useful debate may be inspired not by the poverty professionals, but by the likes of private creditors, who far from offering official aid or debt forgiveness are seeking to collect on Congo's old debts.

This past May, one of these private creditors, Kensington International Ltd., filed a civil suit in federal court in New York, seeking damages under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (known as RICO) against the national oil company of Congo; its former president, Bruno Jean-Richard Itoua, now Congo's Minister of Energy and Hydraulics; and a French bank involved in financing Congo's state-owned oil business, BNP Paribas.

...under Mr. Itoua's leadership, the Congo national oil company, Societe Nationales des Petroles du Congo, or SNPC, from 2001-04 used a dizzyingly complex series of sham transactions and front companies to plunder the national oil wealth. The alleged intermediaries include a corporation registered in the British Virgin Islands with "its only identifiable place of business in a private residence in Monaco." The complaint further alleges that the result has been "the impoverishment of the people of Congo, a total and continuing default on all pre-existing unsecured Congo debt, the destruction of Congo's access to credit through legitimate sources" and "an increased burden upon the world community to aid Congo through debt forgiveness and the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries program...

"A lawyer for Kensington, Robert Cohen, comments that in Kensington's attempts to follow the money, "the striking aspect has been the extent to which we found the same names that are prominent in the Iraqi Oil for Food scandal directly involved in the flows."

So, like is this country angling for debt relief despite their windfall of natural resources? More importantly - is the rest of the world waiting for them to indulge in semi-civilized behavior before communicating with them on an official line?

Tribalism is the antithesis of true civilization.

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