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Article: Diamond in the Rough; Can the first free vote in 40 years help save the Democratic Republic of Congo?
- Article from:
- Newsweek International
- Article date:
- November 13, 2006
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Byline: Rod Nordland
Thirteen-year-old kamwala Bijicka wants to be a doctor when he grows up. But right now he's a school dropout digging for diamonds with the rest of his family, working by hand and hoping their pit doesn't collapse. On election day last week in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, his parents took a couple of hours off to vote for a president in the country's first free polls in four decades. Whoever wins, however, isn't likely to lift the Bijickas out of poverty.
The Congo has almost unparalleled mineral riches, including gold, uranium, the world's biggest industrial diamond deposits, and 80 percent of world reserves in a mineral ...