The Anvil allegations

In October 2004, Australia and Canada-listed Anvil Mining was the scene of one of the most brutal massacres in the strife-ridden Democratic Republic of Congo.

The incident was sparked when an unknown, ill-equipped group of rebels led by Alain Kazadi Makalayi (20), a fisherman, occupied a town called Kilwa, about 50 km from the copper and silver mining company’s Dikulushi mine.

Kilwa, peopled mostly by farmers and fishermen, was taken with no bloodshed.

According to rights group Global Witness, Anvil Mining’s security personnel spoke to the leader of the ragtag group, who assured them they had no intention of taking over Dikulushi. Nevertheless, the mine was shut down for several days, costing the company millions of dollars.

But, just hours after the rebels had staked their claim on the town, FARDC soldiers from the 62nd Brigade of the Congolese armed forces were flown in from Lubumbashi on chartered Anvil planes.

A UN report issued a year later reported that Anvil Mining “acknowledged that [its] planes were used on 14 and 15 October to transport approximately 150 soldiers in the area of operation.”

When the military brigade arrived, Anvil’s vehicles took the soldiers to the occupied town.

The soldiers, led by the notoriously bloodthirsty Colonel Ilunga Ademar, descended. Ademar (64) a father of 20, was reported by witnesses as saying: “Kill everything that breathes.”

The rebels offered no resistance, but were either shot or captured. Locals found in the town were accused of supporting them. Two days later 73 men, women and children were dead, some as a result of being gang raped, others from wounds inflicted by torture that in some cases went on for days.

Global Witness describes the attack as including “summary executions, sexual violence, torture, arbitrary detentions, pillage and extortion”.

Though Anvil disputed much of what eyewitnesses told the UN or Global Witness, these eyewitnesses said around 30 detainees were taken off in four Anvil vehicles and executed.

Colonel Ademar stayed on after the massacre for two weeks in Anvil’s guest house. The company also provided him with a vehicle and a driver.

Yet Anvil’s 2004 quarterly report made no mention of the massacre or the company’s part in it. One short paragraph mentioned only that mining had been suspended at Dikulushi “following the incursion of a small number of rebels in the Kilwa area”, saying government’s response had been “rapid and supportive of the prompt resumption of operations”.

In June 2005, Anvil released a statement saying it had been given no option by the military, which had demanded access to its air services and vehicles to facilitate troop movements.

Rights groups and critics claimed the company was trying to “retrofit” the facts to suit its defence. But multiple investigations into the event exonerated Anvil.

Former Anvil CEO Bill Turner was this week unavailable for comment. However, he told the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists that “there have been multiple government inquiries in a number of countries . . . None of those inquiries has found that there is any substance whatsoever to the allegations.”

In June 2007, Anvil Mining’s employees and nine Congolese soldiers were found not guilty of war crimes or other crimes relating to the incident. The Congolese military court accepted Anvil Mining’s defence that it had acted in the framework of a requisition from the governor of Katanga.

Anvil sold the Dikulushi mine to Minmetals Resources Ltd, another Australianbased operation, in 2012.