Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.
GOMA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO — A few hours after rebel fighters swept into Goma last week, a mysterious convoy of six trucks rumbled up to the Rwandan border on the edge of the city. They were loaded with “conflict minerals” – including tin and tantalum – from warehouses in Goma.
The potholed streets of this sprawling, refugee-filled city, built on volcanic rock, were largely empty. Most people were huddled inside their shacks or high-walled compounds as the rebels seized the city. But at about 5:30 p.m., just before the frontier closed, the trucks reached the border and the guards allowed them to cross from Congo into Rwanda.
“A convoy of six trucks at the same time is unusual,” said Fidel Bafilemba, a conflict-minerals researcher in Goma who received a flood of calls from witnesses when the trucks crossed the border. “Rwanda knew the city had fallen to the rebels, yet they allowed those trucks to enter. They should have stopped them.”
The M23 rebels have been promising for several days to withdraw from Goma, although the pullout was delayed on Friday when United Nations peacekeepers refused to allow the rebels to take a cache of army munitions and equipment from Goma’s airport.