The arms smugglers: gold, gems and other war loot are smuggled out of conflict zones and swapped for guns and cash. Wairagala Wakabi exposes the networks of arms dealers, smugglers, merchants, warlords and governments in the Great Lakes region

New Internationalist, May, 2004 by Wairagala Wakabi

FOR many decades the small, dusty northeastern Congolese town of Aru thrived largely on trade with Uganda. Its rich farmlands supplied cassava and beans to the Ugandan town of Arua, which is just 10 kilometres over the border and is the main trading centre in the West Nile region. In the opposite direction, from Uganda to the Congo, came mainly consumer products like clothing, toiletries, beer and biscuits.

Over the past five years Aru has continued to be a trading town. Only nowadays the main trading commodities are no longer sugar and beans but guns, gold and coltan.

'Aru is now one of the area with an open gun market where all the arms dealers are well known and guns go very cheap,' says Levi Ochieng, a researcher with International Crisis Group (ICG), a Belgium-based NGO working in conflict areas. Most of the dealers in Aru provide guns in small quantities but some can organize truckloads, says Ochieng.

According to the United Nations Observer Mission in Congo (MONUC), Aru continues to be the main entry route for arms that fuel massacres and carnage in the eastern Congo, despite the fact that the war has formally ended. The location of the town is ideal: virtually ungoverned, it is approached by gunrunners from some of the hottest war zones in the region.

For one, it is near northern Uganda, where rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) have for 16 years battled the Ugandan Government. Uganda's northern neighbour Sudan has provided the LRA with a large arsenal of arms, some of which eventually find their way into the hands of traffickers and Congolese warlords.

Aru is also close to the southern Sudanese border where the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) have fought the Sudanese Government for close to two decades. Some arms captured by the SPLA end up on the open market, though some rebels sometimes sell their own guns.

'The border between Uganda and Congo is very porous and there is never any serious border monitoring,' says David Avuti, a resident of Muni--a Ugandan town five kilometres from Aru--who regularly crosses to Congo without meeting customs or security personnel from either side of the border. Though Uganda has established two customs points at Vurra and Aliwara, the rest of the long borderline marked by dense green vegetation remains unmonitored, making it easy for goods to flow between Uganda and Congo.

African gun routes

Richard Nabudere, who heads Uganda's national campaign to control the proliferation of small arms and light weapons, says that weapons have reached Uganda all the way from Somalia through Ethiopia and northern Kenya. Somalia has been stateless for over a decade and is now controlled by heavily armed warlords. Kenya's North and Rift provinces, as well as Uganda's northeastern Karamoja region, are all awash with tens of thousands of automatic weapons in easy reach of Aru.

In 2002, Uganda recovered over 10,000 guns in Karamoja, but an estimated 80,000 others are still in civilian hands in an area with 400,000 inhabitants. Karamoja borders Kenya's and Sudan's gun-infested zones, and the gun markets in the region--where an AK-47 goes for about $60--are infamous.

South Africa has been another key source of weapons but Richard Nabudere says most originate from Eastern Europe.

Like many other Congolese towns ruled by warlords and awash with trade in minerals and arms, Aru remains one of the top trouble-spots in the Congo. Warlords often confiscate planeloads of weapons belonging to rivals and visit terror on civilians to raise funds for purchasing arms and maintaining their armies. MONUC has itself confiscated arms and planes in eastern towns which it says enter the country through Aru.

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Smuggler's paradise

Observers say the lucrative trade in minerals like coltan, gold and diamonds is the main cause for the continuation of the carnage in Congo. Congo's marauding militia enjoy a symbiotic relationship with Uganda and Rwanda. The guns and gems trade cannot easily be stamped out because it benefits all the parties that have the power to stop it: the Rwandan and Ugandan governments--including their corrupt customs, police and traffic officers that are bribed to let in the minerals--and the Congolese warlords. While occupying forces physically quit Congo in 2002, they left behind a sophisticated smuggling network that could run for many years.

Goma, which lies just off Rwanda's northern border, was the headquarters of the Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD-Goma)--the main group Rwanda backed in the war. The town still has a heavy Rwandan business and security presence.

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'Before the rebel leaders headed to Kinshasa to take part in the unified government, they had already established their own networks. They operate cargo planes that traverse eastern Congo every day,' says Arthur Asiimwe, a Kigali-based stringer for Reuters. He adds that the rebel leaders' networks are well connected to business entities in Europe and America (see pages 9-12).