One of the most explosive wikileaks published late last year escaped the attention of many in the international media – though it was quite widely covered elsewhere, as in this article by Julio Godoy of Inter Press Service (IPS).
In this particular instance, leaked US diplomatic cables alleged a raft of recent serious safety violations at uranium mines and nuclear facilities in a number of African countries. One of these cables, dated September 2007, is from Roger A Meece, the US Ambassador to DR Congo. It identifies Finnish, British, Congolese and South African companies as likely to have been complicit in the illicit trading of uranium (if not copper and cobalt as well).
In its summary of this wikileak, Godoy indicts an outfit called Malta Forest for illegally “mining and exporting” DRC’s uranium from the Luiswishi deposit in Katanga province. However, Meece’s cable is considerably more circumspect about this company’s role than Godoy’ article suggests. Ambassador Reece raised the serious possibility that it was actually a UK company, Brinkley Mining, that tried to secure this lucrative uranium contract.
See http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=10634.