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Democratic Republic of Congo: Celebrating 50 Years of Independence! June 29th, 2010

On 30th June 2010, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will celebrate the 50th anniversary of its independence from Belgium. The DRC has been described as the ‘heart of Africa’ and is home to enormous natural wealth and resources. However, for the last two decades, Congo has been caught up in armed conflict described as one the world’s deadliest. The fighting in the eastern DRC is fueled in large part by conflict minerals which include coltan (columbite-tantalite), cassiterite (tin ore) and wolframite (tungsten). These metals are used in consumer electronics such as cell phones and laptop computers. The Congo conflict has left millions of people dead. Thousands of women have been victimized by rape and countless children have been kidnapped to serve as child soldiers.

Marking the 50th Independence anniversary during the annual meeting of the Catholic Bishops, Bishop Nicolas Djomo, President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Congo, said that the independence anniversary is an opportune time to offer prayers of thanks to God for a sense of belonging to a united nation and to ask God’s forgiveness for omissions and opportunities lost. He went on further to say that the anniversary is a time to renew a commitment to promoting the common good and national solidarity.

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Transparency on Congo Conflict Minerals Folded into the Financial Regulatory Reform Bill May 25th, 2010

With the passage of the Restoring American Financial Stability Act (S. 3217) in the United States Senate, the Congo Conflict Minerals and the Energy Security through Transparency (ESTT) amendments have made it into legislation. However, as neither amendment was in the House version of the financial reform legislation, both amendments will be taken up by the House/Senate Conference committee which will work to reconcile the differences between the two bills. Both amendments were agreed to during the passage of the Restoring American Financial Stability Act in the Senate.

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Congo Bishops Call for an End to Africa’s Deadliest Conflict December 30th, 2008

Catholic Bishops from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) toured the the United States and Canada in December with an urgent appeal on behalf of the millions of Congolese people caught in a deadly war between Laurent Nkunda’s militia and DRC government forces. The Bishops are asking the U.S. Government to support an initiative to send more U.N Peacekeepers into Congo because the current 17,000 U.N forces are poorly trained and have been implicated in atrocities. The troops reportedly failed to stop the recent mass killings at Kiwanja in the Eastern part of the Congo.

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A FAIR SHARE FOR THE CONGO IN MINING CONTRACTS March 21st, 2007

The people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo held their first democratic elections on October 29th 2006 which resulted in Joseph Kabila being installed as Congo’s first freely elected President in thirty years. Civil society groups are now pressing for mining contracts to be re-written with better terms for the people of the Congo.

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