The Democratic Republic of the Congo has been stuck in the midst of one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises for over 25 years, and the worldwide attention this is gaining is underwhelming.
The relentless conflicts in the eastern region of the Congo has claimed over 6 million lives with about half of these casualties being children. Additionally in recent years, Congolese women are being sexually assaulted at alarming rates by volatile armed men. This-in conjunction with natural disasters and ethnic hostility-has displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians from their homes.
So what is going on and how has this conflict continued for so long?
Global foreign agents reporting on this war tend to associate the beginning of this modern conflict with the Rwandan Genocide from 1993-1994. The Rwandan Genocide constituted of ethnic Hutu extremists attacking another ethnic group, the Tutsi’s, and also moderate Hutu’s. The genocide killed about 1 million people and additionally hundreds of thousands of women were raped. Many attackers and victims of the genocide fled to Rwanda’s neighboring country, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. These refugees inhabited many parts of the eastern Congo. As ethnic and tribal tensions boiled within the region, non-state militias grew-such as the Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda, the Allied Democratic Forces, RED-Tabara and M23.
Armed militias like these have terrorized the Democratic Republic of the Congo for decades-raping women and killing children. This is more than tribal tensions and ethnic cleansing though, and unfortunately the story gets even worse.
This eastern region of the DRC is rich in powerful global resources-more specifically Coltan and gold. Coltan is a mineral that holds elements that are used to make modern tech items like cell phones and video game consoles. As technology has continued to advance in the world, the price of Coltan skyrocketed. With the eastern region of the DRC holding the world’s largest Coltan mine, this was looked at as a cash cow for DRC’s neighbors-Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi-and also global foreign agents. As many Congolese in the area left their other work to start mining Coltan, the prospect of profit also attracted rebel groups and militias that reap the land and local people with deadly force.
Many Congolese people have accused their neighboring countries and also the West of trying to colonize the DRC for the second time. Rwanda-which allegedly backs one of the worst non-state militias in the DRC, M23, is known as being the world’s biggest exporter of Coltan-which is ironic because Rwanda itself lacks Coltan mines.
These militias exporting Coltan from the DRC have also been reported to capture and enslave civilians-including women and children-forcing them to mine Coltan for them to sell to the world’s largest tech corporations. Coltan is a radioactive material that is dangerous to touch and ingest-still many civilians forced into labor lack proper training and are touching materials with their bare hands.
Here’s a similar question I’ve been posing when it comes to corruption in resourcefully rich African nations: Why is it that the DRC is insanely rich with elements that contribute to multi-billion dollar global industries, yet the country’s civilians are poor and suffering a silent genocide?
While I understand the DRC is an independent nation now that has to face the choices of its own government, I don’t think we can just overlook the effects global tycoons and the West had on the corruption of this country. I wonder, with Coltan being so valuable for this modern wave of 5G technology, why isn’t there more integrity in the buying process?
Instead there is this intense greed across the nation on all sides it seems for this natural resource. Militias, the DRC government, and neighboring nations are all trying to capitalize off this, but the public is dying at one of the worst rates we’ve seen in modern times.
Additionally, top buyers of Coltan like the U.S., France, China and the U.K. are enabling this corruption because this deal seems to work for them and probably keeps the price of Coltan lower for purchase with the competitive deals Coltan smugglers offer. Western mainstream media is also lacking in reporting this current issue. While we are in a whirlwind of politics and international crises, it’s still essential that we highlight the injustices going on in Africa and more specifically the DRC right now because this is one of the largest modern genocides going on right now and international activists are basically begging the media to bring awareness to this.
Lastly in order to truly understand the depth of corruption in the DRC, we have to look even further beyond the Rwandan Genocide. We have to go back to this nation’s struggle for independence and make note of how the West interferes with this in order to maintain their colonialist grip on the nation. The DRC’s first elected Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba-who pushed messages of nationalism and pan-Africanism-posed a threat to the structures Belgium (DRC’s original extremely ruthless colonizer) set in place for their benefit. Belgium, the West, and the U.S. CIA directly played a role in this man’s assassination. Patrice Lumumba was considered to be one of Africa’s greatest leaders behind Nelson Mandela. Following his death, western backed leaders obtained his position of power-countlessly putting the Congo in crises.
With this in mind-and probably the answer isn’t this simple-would there be more solidarity and righteous business operations in the DRC if the West didn’t interfere with their independence for their own benefit? Since the U.S. officials claim the nation to be world police, shouldn’t there be some sort of help for these people now?
The reality is in Africa, it’s giving dirty cops.
