PWC’s blood stained ties

In a long, angry but well researched piece in the San Francisco Bay View:

One of the multinational corporations affiliated with UNHCR is PricewaterhouseCoopers International (PWC), a New York “accounting” firm that earned $US 28.2 billion in revenues in 2008. PWC is also a shareholder involved in the niobium/tantalum (pyrochlore) mine at Lueshe, North Kivu, at the heart of the Rwandan “Tutsi rebel” occupation in eastern Congo.[6][7] PWC was the dominant majority shareholder of Somikivu s.c.a.r.l., a company established in Congo (Zaire) in 1984 and controlled in North Kivu for numerous years past by troops under the command of Rwandan warlords Laurent Nkunda and Jules Mutebusi, both wanted war criminals.[8]

“The crimes and war crimes committed by the management of the PricewaterhouseCoopers company Somikivu since the year 2000 up until now will not be quoted here,” wrote the authors of a 2006 letter calling on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to address PWC for violations of OECD guidelines for multinational corporations.[9]

In budget year 2008, PWC offices worldwide collectively “donated” $US 1,511,982 to UNHCR.[10] PricewaterhouseCoopers has also served as the “chartered accountants” for Canadian Banro Corp.[11]

Banro is a gold company with four wholly owned properties that operates only in eastern DRC and was “awarded” gold concessions comprising 5,730 square kms (2,212 square miles). Banro personnel are ferried over the remote and blood-drenched South Kivu landscape by private helicopters. From Dec. 31, 2005, to Sept. 31, 2008, Banro – always declaring a loss – increased its assets from $US 100 million to $US 121 million. In the same period, more than 1,000 Congolese people died daily – roughly 1,000,000 victims. Banro Corp. identifies some 9 million ounces of gold on “their” properties, concessions valued at over $US 7.63 billion – and this is just one of the many foreign companies pillaging Congo.

How does a Canadian mining company come to “wholly own” land in blood drenched eastern Congo? Banro advertises itself as one of Congo’s great benefactors “well-positioned to benefit from the timely economic, social and political recovery of the DRC.”[12] In reality, the ongoing white-collar business operations of Banro Corp. amidst the massive depopulation are crimes against humanity.

[6] http://www.unhcr.org/partners/PARTNERS/483c14692.pdf.

[7] “Conflict and Development: Peacebuilding and Post-conflict Resolution; Sixth Report of Session 2005-06,” Parliament Great Britain International Development Committee, 2006, pp. 247, 251.

[8] You will find an unconscionable propaganda piece favorable to Rwanda’s Gen. Laurent Nkunda published as an “exclusive interview” in the Huffington Post by this writer’s former colleague. See Georgianne Nienaber’s “Congo Rebel Leader Accused of War Crimes Tells His Story,” Huffington Post, Jan. 9, 2009.

[9] Letter titled “Violation of OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises Through
PricewaterhouseCoopers Ltd. New York” by Mag. Thomas Eggenburg, Vienna, March 27, 2006. It is important to recognize that the interested parties who brought the PricewaterhouseCoopers crimes to light are themselves corporate competitors interested in controlling the Lueshe mine: Kroll Associates.

[10] Donations often occur in the form of tax write-offs that provide significant and expeditious benefits to the “donors” due to their timing and amounts, http://www.unhcr.org/partners/PARTNERS/483c14692.pdf.

[11] Banro Corp., SEC Form 6-K 2006; and http://infoventure.tsx.com/TSXVenture/TSXVentureHttpController?GetPage=CompanySummary&PO_ID=1062237&HC_FLAG1=on.

[12] Banro Corp., “Why Africa and the DRC?” http://www.banro.com/s/WhyCongo.asp.

[My emphasis added, references extracted for clarity]

Isn’t there something unethical about all of this?

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Tagged as: Congo, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Pwc, Rwanda, War crime