Mission Congo

Directed By Lara Zizic

A documentary that examines whether a charity organized by Pat Robertson to aid Rwandan genocide refugees was a front for diamond mining.

  • ABOUT
  • BIO
Mission Congo explores how during the massive refugee crisis following the genocide in Rwanda, televangelist Pat Robertson’s for-profit African Development Company used substantial resources, intended for humanitarian relief, for Robertson’s own diamond-mining venture. With an extraordinary cast of eyewitnesses – including foreign-aid workers as well as Operation Blessing workers – Mission Congo takes viewers on a mesmerizing journey exposing how instead of providing humanitarian aid, Operation Blessing cargo planes were most often used to haul diamond-mining equipment hundreds of miles away from refugee camps towards a diamond mine owned and backed by Pat Robertson. Mission Congo provides a deep dive into how Robertson used his organization, Operation Blessing, as a platform to mislead viewers of CBN’s “The 700 Club” into making donations to the group, which it pledged would be used to aid and provide resources for refugees who fled from Rwanda to the Democratic Republic of Congo. The film also raises larger questions over the huge sums of money raised by American religious institutions and televangelists that go untaxed and unregulated.
Lara Zizic received her master’s degree in filmmaking at Columbia University. She directed the short film The Isabel Fish and co-directed the feature Mission Congo.