Congo’s misfortune lies in its mineral wealth
By: Rita Farhat Mukand
People in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo are undergoing the deadliest conflict since World War 2. Today, an explosion of opinions points fingers at Africa saying, “It’s their fault, Africa brought it on themselves, because they don’t know how to manage their own country.” Is it true?
Behind the scenes:
Congo, a country in Central Africa, the second-largest country in Africa is a land rich in mineral abundance, a country the size of Western Europe whose wealth is worth over two trillion dollars which is worth the USA and Europe GDP combined.
Most of the raw mineral deposits remain untapped and are worth an estimated $24 trillion. These deposits include the world’s largest coltan reserves. Congo is rich in diamonds, gold, minerals, and metals that are used by mostly Western countries to make electronics, and their major mining metal is coltan used to make iPhones and other commodities.
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is by far the world’s biggest producer of cobalt, accounting for roughly 70 percent of global production. Cobalt mining in the DRC is associated with rampant human rights abuses and child labour, due in part to the large presence of unregulated artisanal mining.
The history of unearthing Congo’s wealth goes back to the eighteenth century. King Leopold II discovered Congo was rich in resources. He used Henry Morton Stanley to help him lay claim to the Congo, the present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo. He laid a stake in the country as the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free State, a private project was undertaken on his own behalf as a personal union with Belgium.
He got access to Congo by faking concern about the poor conditions of the Congolese and during a Berlin Conference of 1884–1885, the colonial nations of Europe authorized his claim by committing the Congo Free State to improving the lives of the people. Right from the start, Leopold ignored improving the people’s lives and ruled the Congo using the mercenary Force Publique for his enrichment.
Reining from 1885 to 1908advancing his personal interests and amassing immense wealth from the region, his was a reign of terror. He initially focused on getting ivory by killing elephants and later, with the surge in natural rubber prices during the 1890s, extracted rubber.
During 1891 and 1906, the companies were allowed free rein to exploit the concessions, with the result being forcing the locals to work for them, with violent punishments inflicted to use them to tap out rubber from the trees at the cheapest rates and maximize profits. The cutting of workers’ hands if they did not meet their targets achieved international notoriety. Individual workers who refused to participate in rubber collection could be killed and entire villages burnt to ashes.
Who is being impacted? The run for the wealth of the Congo has never stopped ever since. Strangely, while being one of the richest countries in the world, it is one of the most economically deprived countries. Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda rebels keep fighting the Congolese people and weakening the country. Almost seven million people have been internally displaced in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) amid an escalation of fighting in the country as the M23, a proxy force backed by Rwanda, continues its offensive in violation of a ceasefire.
All this goes with having suffered twenty-five years of war, taking six million lives which is called genocide. There are forty-eight women raped in Congo every hour, not sparing children, and over seven million Congolese are estimated to be displaced by this ongoing conflict according to the United Nations.
They are facing death, a freezing winter, shivering and starving in tents as icy flood waters swarm into their tents. At this moment, they are getting hot tea served to them from bathroom mugs. The food is never enough for them The number of people displaced in DR Congo has never been so high with 400,000 children facing starvation. Without urgent food assistance, the risk of catastrophic levels of hunger is on the horizon for millions of people in Africa.
The key factors leading to the plunge into hunger involve heightened conflict and escalating intercommunal violence, a macroeconomic crisis, escalating prices of food, fuel, and essential commodities, along subpar agricultural production.
It is often the civilians who are hit during the run for riches by the affluent class. In May 2022, nearly a hundred people were killed in a string of brutal attacks. ADF fighters are accused of killing civilians with machetes and victims include young children.
“The same oppression that’s happening in Palestine has roots in Dem Rep of Congo” is opinioned by some experts.
In the upcoming elections in DCR, there is heavy documentation of the corruption cases on one of the candidates Moise Katumbi, revealing his mining assets, how he used the state’s contacts to make himself wealthy, and his ties with Israel. There is no peace, no justice and there is going to be an election that will be rigged so there will be a popular uprising as predicted by Kambale Musavuli.
Recently, President Kabila of Congo asked all the people to arm themselves against the M23 Rebels who were all set up for a deadly new war. In May 2000, America and Sudan entered into a bilateral dialogue on counterterrorism. Sudan has provided concrete cooperation against international terrorism since the September 11, 2001, terrorist strikes on New York and Washington.
Sudan itself faces extremely severe levels of human rights abuses particularly regarding children, disabled people and women. Sudan, once called East Africa’s future breadbasket, is grappling with an escalating hunger crisis as the ongoing conflict enters its eighth month. Nearly 18 million people across Sudan are facing acute hunger, more than double the number at the same time a year ago. The food security situation is rapidly worsening.
Kambale Musavuli, one of the leading political and cultural Congolese voices and a human rights advocate says there is change all over Africa. In West Africa, some are questioning how Africa can be controlled by France when they don’t have a military base in France while the French have their military forces all over West Africa. It is often seen that rigged elections are followed by coups and they are expecting more trouble in the near elections on December 27, 2023.
In early 2022, Belgium gold dealer Alain Goetz was sanctioned by the USA for smuggling hundreds of millions of dollars worth of gold from the DRC which is used to arm the militants which Goetz denied.
Armed groups in the hundreds also play a role in the destabilization. Violence by the armed groups is worsened by ethnic divisions in a country with more than 200 tribes.
Kambale Musavuli explains the current situation in the DRC. Comparisons are drawn between the Palestinian oppression and the Congo with its roots in the Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler who made his billions exploiting the Congolese people and some of the money that he has made out of DRC is used to build settlements in Palestine. While there were US sanctions on him, there was pressure on the Biden administration to remove these.
Who are the key players behind the scenes of destruction in the Congo? Behind every conflict, usually, land or money is the source of the agony. The wealth of the Congo is the main source of a large part of the conflict in Africa.
These two Congo neighbors, Rwanda and Uganda who are allies of Britain and America invaded the Congo and occupied their territory. Ironically, in around 2001, Rwanda and Uganda supposedly allied countries fought each other on Congo territory over a diamond mine. They dropped 4000 bombs on the city called the Six-Day War and up until today; the victims of that conflict never received any justice despite strong documentation of human atrocities inflicted on the Congolese people.
The West has severely been exploiting Congo for coltan used for iPhones, electronicsand diamonds where poor people and children are working in harsh deadly conditions a lot of times against their will.
The M23 rebel groups actively killing the Congolese people are from Rwanda, Uganda and other neighbouring countries while politically powerful nations such as Britain, the USA, France, China and Israel all benefit from this exploitation because they continue to extract the mineral resources from Congo.
The American government has covered their allies in the region and every year, the US government backs Uganda and Rwanda militarily according to Kambale Musavuli. While Rwandan soldiers are all over Mozambique, the Central African Republic, and the USA continue to give millions of dollars to this military even after knowing these countries are committing crimes in DRC.
From the American corporate side, there are numerous reports of American corporations and other international corporations who have illegally pilfered Congo’s minerals. In 2002, there was a report published by the United Nations group of experts that there were 85 companies with black money illicitly extracting and trading Congo’s minerals, but up until today, no action has been taken on this.
Sources believe that the Ugandan and Rwandan militias are paid to destabilize the DRC so that the mineral-rich country can easily be exploited and their treasures stolen swiftly. With over seven million displaced, living in unhygienic conditions, starving, and without adequate water, many children are enslaved and forced to mine cobalt to power Western technology, who would have time to stop their illegal extractions.
America, Europe and Israelhave major interests in the Congo. Israel is the most important trader of diamonds in the world though is mysteriously without any diamond mines! The destabilization of the Congo is affecting other parts of Africa as well. The world’s second-largest continent, rich in wealth, could have been the wealthiest country had it not been for the greed of other nations extracting their riches, exploiting them, and leaving them like beggars.
Just think about this, if Congo was a poor country without any economic interest to the Western countries, perhaps, they would have been left alone in peace, and would not be starving, bleeding or dying today, and would have been one of the wealthiest countries in the world.
(The author is an Independent writer and freelancer)
KV News
