On its face, nothing seems more benign and positive than “wildlife conservation.” But the Wildlife Conservation Society and the German and US governments have now been implicated in supporting organized violence against Congolese villagers, using mortars, RPGs, indisciminate fire, murder and rape. This is the finding of award-winning investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker Robert Flummerfelt. 

Flummerfelt and his team uncovered a three-year campaign of violence by park authorities to expel Batwa people from their lands, using funding and trained by the West and conservation groups. Investigators were targeted for murder after their report came out. He joined Dispatches with Rania Khalek to discuss his investigation, the history of Western violence in the Congo and the racist settler roots of some of the biggest players in the conservation movement. 

Read the investigation here: https://minorityrights.org/publications/pnkb/ 

TIME CODES

0:00 Intro

1:55 What Robert uncovered in the Congo

9:35 Western-funded extermination 

14:14 Wildlife Conservation Society 

19:41 Racist settler roots of the conservation movement

27:14 Militarization of conservation 

38:59 Germany’s role

42:34 NGOs behaving like settler/occupiers

51:24 History of Western imperialism in the Congo

1:02:11 Rwanda and Uganda collaborate with Western imperialism in the Congo

1:07:23 UN mission in the Congo: Helpful or harmful?

1:19:40 Is ISIS really in the Congo?