Dirty Money - Author: Matthew Benns

Published: 1st November 2011
Author: Matthew Benns

"They put the boys into the Anvil mining truck. They came for my dad. I asked them 'where are you taking him?' and they didn't answer." The Australian mining company trucks had come roaring into the African village and disgorged over 100 heavily armed Government soldiers. The rebels, protesting at the way the Australian company was mining the Congolese silver and copper without giving anything back to the local community, had already surrendered. But their looting of food and fuel from the Anvil Mining depot at Kilwa could not go unanswered. The Australians flew in the Government troops, loaded them onto their trucks and then stood back while they rounded up the rebellion's 'sympathisers'. "We started running but the soldiers caught and searched our belongings, they arrested my dad and two other boys," said Albert Kitanika. The soldiers refused to say where they were taking his father. "They took him 50 metres down the road where they shot and stabbed him to death." A United Nations investigation found Mr Kitanika was one of at least 100 people summarily executed in the Government operation in 2004. Afterwards the Australian company issued a press release praising the Government for its rapid response. Asked about its role in transporting the troops, Anvil's chief executive officer Bill Turner said: "So what"

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