Development Aggression

Yesterday’s article in The Dominion about debt forgiveness for the Democratic Republic of the Congo reminded me of a recent message by the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, which stated that development aggression is one of the greatest threats to the survival of indigenous peoples. In The Dominion article, it is noted that the IMF debt incurred by colonial and dictatorial rulers of the DRC never benefited the people, but was actively used against them in order to support development aggression by the World Bank and foreign corporations involved in extracting the Congo’s vast mineral wealth.

Canada, long an aggressive promoter of corporate mining on indigenous lands, has a sordid history in the DRC involving numerous prime ministers and other high officials. As The Dominion rightly observes, the copper and other minerals extracted there are tarnished with the blood of the natives.