Well, IMO, the Chinese are the Major corrupt dogs in this.
Zijin, as a large corporate with large resources, would/ should have performed their level of due diligence when entering into the initial illegal slice of 13359. They would / should have known about AVZ and its status, and then elected to plan their dirty game from a long way out. Their sophisticated corruption then led the DRC to sign a ridiculously unfavourable contract for the North, which could be considered ‘unconscionable conduct’ at best. It was like a large fat corrupt cat toying with a helpless mouse.
Good luck with the ‘playing dumb’ and the false information defence. It is as transparent as the ‘this new Rolex is just a Christmas gift’ routine.
Don’t let anyone tell you they ‘outplayed’ and was ‘too smart’ etc. This was just disgusting, and I hope they are outed on the world stage for the grubby gangsters that they are.
My take on it this
The DRC (Cominiere) violated our FROR, illegally sold 15% of Dathcom to Zijin and then illegally seized our project (Easily proved in ICC and ICSID).
Even though Zijin was part of this collusion they know it was Cominiere who broke the law. It was actually Zijin who released the tape of Kibeya taking the bribe and then made threats to Cominiere if Cominiere broke their agreement.
Since then Cominiere has used Zijin’s lawyers to fight their case because they are broke.
Sama Lukonde, Adele Kayinda, Antoinette N’samba, Athanase Mwamba, JF Mupande, Guy Loando and Simon Cong were involved in various ways in this case.
Tshisekedi thought he could replace Lukonde, Kayinda, N’samba, Athanase Mwamba and JF Mupande and the new ministers etc would take care of the problem.
Unfortunately for them AVZ’s lawyers and shareholders continued to expose the corruption which now includes the new Minister of Mines, Kibeya and the new head of CAMI.
The DRC have been desperately trying to get new investors to invest in their corrupt mining sector for months now, travelling around the world and trying to promote themselves at every forum and failing woefully.
With the US and EU investing billions in the Lobito Corridor, the spotlight is constantly being shone on the DRC’s corruption.
The DRC’s attempt at turning a blind eye to their own corruption has failed and they know Zijin won’t let them off the hook so now they are trying to swing a deal with western investors that would include Zijin getting paid compensation for the illegal work they have done.
There are rumours of a consortium of influential western investors wanting to take over the whole project and Tshisekedi wanting to get this done so that they don’t have to pay penalties to AVZ or Zijin