Congo profits 'used in campaign'

Katanga is one of the world's richest copper and cobalt producing areas

Profits from the Democratic Republic of Congo's mines are being used in campaigns for this month's polls, says a report by lobby group Global Witness.

Mines in the mineral-rich southern Katanga province have provided few benefits for the people of the region, the report says.

Katanga is one of the world's richest copper and cobalt producing areas.

Since the war in DR Congo broke out in 1996 the country's mineral wealth has been systematically plundered.

The elections to be held later in July follow the official end of DR Congo's five-year war in 2003.

Selling mining rights

The Global Witness report highlights the situation in Katanga, pointing to 150,000 artisanal miners, who scrape a living from digging the minerals with simple spades and pickaxes.

People don't see their standards of living improving at all. They just see all these minerals flowing out. Global Witnesses' Carina Tertsakian

Pits often collapse, and the miners are ruthlessly exploited by government officials at every level, who demand payment to allow the work to go ahead.

In recent months Global Witness says it has evidence that politicians have been selling off mining rights to multinational companies from around the world. "There is a feeling among the Congolese people that the riches are being sold off and there are huge profits to be made," the report's author, Carina Tertsakian, told the BBC.

"But almost all of it is going out of the country and nothing is coming back in. And meanwhile, the economy is in a disastrous state.

"People don't see their standards of living improving at all. They just see all these minerals flowing out."

Global Witness says the mining is funding people in the president's office, and funding political activities in the run up to elections later due to be held later this month.

But it is companies in China, South Africa and Canada that have reaped most of the benefits from the ongoing trade.

The UN, and its 17,000 peacekeepers, are helping to organise what are hoped will be DR Congo's first democratic elections in 45 years.

After years of conflict and misrule, holding the vote will be a major challenge - there are no roads or railways linking one side of the country to the other.