Hammer Anvil And The World Bank Out Of Congo, The I Told You So Edition

At last the World Bank's insurance policy with Anvil Mining is being spoken about in the media (well, only the ABC) and officially investigated by the World Bank.

This website was the first asking questions as to why the World Bank approved their insurance deal with Anvil.

In an unpublished(!) letter to The Age on June 7, I wrote:

"Anvil's building of a small primary school and health clinic in the Democratic Republic of Congo, bragged about by the Anvil president, Bill Turner in the 4 Corners report are mandatory to ensure their newly approved insurance policy taken with the World Bank insurance agency, MIGA."

More importantly asked:

"Why and how did this arm of the World Bank approve "Political Risk Insurance" to Anvil only last month? (May). Surely the World Bank would have had some intelligence there was a question mark on the West Australian's potential link to the killings in Kilwa, last year."

And argued:

It is irresponsible for the World Bank to encourage any further mining in volatile countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Only today, over three months since my unpublished letter, the deal between the World Bank and Anvil is being looked at and an investigation asking my exact questions is being described as Paul Wolfowitz's first great challenge in his new role as World Bank chief.

I rewrote and published my letter here at The Nightwatchman, where I'm proud it was read by a couple of hundred of people from around the world including people based in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the ABC.

It only took a couple of hours of googling and reading Anvil and the World Bank's websites to make the connection between the two bodies. I find it quite surprising journalists and especially those at The Age who had access to my letter not to make the connections between them.

I've written a TOLD YOU SO letter back to The Age.

Let's see if that gets published.