2015-07-16 18:04:00

European logging companies help fund war in CAR


(Vatican Radio) According to a report just released by an international campaign group, European businesses making lucrative deals with local militias in Central African Republic are actually helping to fund the war there.

Alexandra Pardal, Campaign leader for Global Witness, a group that works to expose human rights abuse and global corruption, explained to Linda Bordoni how European timber companies pay millions of euros to rebels groups in CAR, mainly for protection services and end up fuelling the conflict.

Listen to the interview

Alexandra Pardal says the report shows that European companies have been trading with logging companies in Central African Republic who in turn pay millions of euros to rebel armed men so that they can continue logging illegally for significant profit.

She explains that CAR is home to the second largest rainforest in the world where thousands of indigenous and forest-dependent people live, “but since 2013 they have been terrorized by an awful war and logging companies have been complicit in the crimes committed by rebel groups”.

Referring to a 700-strong European peacekeeping mission to CAR, Pardal says “it’s ironic that we are spending so much money to try to restore peace but at the same time European countries – and China as well – are also consuming vast quantities of timber which is actually serving to fuel the conflict further”.

She says that this trade also results in much abuse of human rights with thousands dying in the conflict and hundreds of thousands forced to flee their homes.

Following the release of the report, Pardal says “we hope that the international community will take action to investigate and enforce laws that prevent trading in illegal timber”.

She also says that UN-mandated bodies need to investigate the companies that are complicit in the war crimes of these groups, and that the CAR government needs to take action against logging companies that are illegally logging a vast and precious rainforest.

Pope Francis has announced his wish to travel to CAR later in the year. Political corruption and exploitation of natural resources are issues he has often spoken about calling for transparency and respect for creation and environmental justice.

Pardal says that hopefully he will be able to make this journey also because his presence in CAR would be a huge support for the people there whose rights continue to be unrecognized.          

“These are amongst the poorest people on earth who have suffered immensely because of this conflict” she says.

She expresses hope that militias put down their arms and that the companies that have collaborated with them be brought to justice.

Pardal says the voice of Pope Francis is immensely important in highlighting the predicament of the poorest of the poor and in setting in motion new policies that will help put into practice more justice,

She says the people in CAR “are bearing the brunt of environmental destruction. They have precious natural resources in the country but they have never benefited from them. Their environment and their rainforest is being destroyed and that requires a voice to speak out that is an internationally respected authority such as that of Pope Francis in order to bring to light what is happening in Car and support the people there”.

For more information on the Global Witness report click here.
    

 

 

 








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