Photo via the United Nations
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Since the beginning of February, Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), has witnessed a series of demonstrations targeting Western diplomatic missions. These protests, notably in front of the British and French embassies, as well as United Nations facilities, have been marked by the burning of American and Belgian national flags. The catalyst behind these public expressions of dissent is the perceived complicity of Western entities in the ongoing conflict in the DRC’s eastern regions, a situation exacerbated by the resurgence of the M23 rebel movement. The M23, primarily composed of Congolese Tutsis—and historically linked to Rwandan support—represents a continuation of the complex web of rebel factions in the Congo. Having first emerged in April 2012, the group briefly captured Goma, a major city in eastern DRC, in November of the same year before its initial defeat in 2013. The recent reactivation of M23 in late 2021 follows the persistent geopolitical frictions between the DRC and Rwanda, leading to the group’s significant territorial acquisitions. This backdrop of regional instability and external influences has fueled the protests in Kinshasa, spotlighting the intricate dynamics of international relations and local grievances in the DRC.
The prevailing portrayal of the DRC within international media as a chaotic, ungovernable space—a narrative steeped in notions of inherent violence and perpetual underdevelopment—demands critical scrutiny. Such representations, often reductive and misinformed, obscure the external influences shaping the country’s current predicament while perpetuating stereotypes of a ‘cursed’ nation. By challenging these narratives, this issue aims to unveil the complex governance structures and economic activities that persist in the eastern DRC, particularly within the volatile Kivus region. The discourse on the DRC’s crisis, dominated by themes of illegal mineral exploitation and sexual violence, overlooks the structural complexities of the conflict, thereby necessitating a more comprehensive analytical framework.
The illegal mining sector in the Democratic Republic of Congo embodies merely one facet of the diverse survival strategies adopted by the populace to mitigate adverse effects of household financial risk amidst escalating economic insecurity. As the region witnessed a decline in traditional agricultural production and trading patterns, artisanal mining emerged as a pivotal source of livelihood for the rural poor, displaying the multifaceted nature of economic adaptation in the context of conflict. In the contemporary landscape of technological advancement, smartphones, computers, and electric vehicles represent the pinnacle of modernity. However, Siddharth Kara, a distinguished fellow at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Kennedy School, unveils a grim reality behind these symbols of progress in his latest work, “Cobalt Red.” Kara, who has dedicated two decades to researching modern-day slavery, human trafficking, and child labor, exposes the dire conditions in the DRC, where the majority of the world’s cobalt—a critical component in rechargeable lithium-ion batteries—is mined.
Despite the DRC’s dominance in global cobalt reserves, Kara argues that the notion of a “clean” cobalt supply chain from the region is a fallacy. He highlights the plight of “artisanal” miners, independent laborers engaged in perilous work for minimal compensation who utilize rudimentary tools to extract cobalt under dehumanizing conditions. These miners, including young mothers and children, are exposed to toxic cobalt dust, contributing to a public health crisis amidst environmental devastation marked by deforestation, polluted air, and contaminated water sources. Kara’s findings also challenge the distinction often made between industrially mined cobalt and that extracted by artisanal miners. He reveals a pervasive “cross-contamination” within the supply chain, where cobalt mined by hand is integrated with that from industrial operations, blurring ethical lines and complicating efforts towards responsible sourcing.
While the eastern DRC, particularly Kivus, remains a tumultuous region, it is inaccurate to describe it as devoid of governance. The simplistic binary of ‘pillage’ and ‘plunder’ falls short of capturing the genesis and persistence of violent conflict in the region, or understanding its current socio-economic dynamics. Instead, the present state of the DRC is the outcome of intricate, intertwined mechanisms involving a wide array of actors engaged in various economic, social, and political endeavors. This requires a move beyond the oversimplified discourse of conflict motivated by ‘creed, greed, and booty.’ The conflict is closely associated with the extraction of natural resources, yet it would be reductive to view these resources as the primary cause of the war. Instead, the war has been significantly perpetuated and facilitated by the commodification of minerals, transforming the conflict into one sustained by the trade of natural resources. The prevalent view that actors engaged in this economy are driven solely by greed or profit maximization fails to acknowledge that the majority are motivated by necessity, seeking to navigate and survive within a devastated economy. For the small-scale farmer, activities such as mining coltan, logging, or agriculture are essential elements of a survival economy. For landowners who lease their lands for mineral extraction, these activities are part of a shadow economy. For militias and military factions involved in the trade, these resources fuel a war economy. Hence, commodities like gold, diamonds, timber, or coltan are seen simultaneously as legitimate goods, illicit commodities, and vital means of survival, with perceptions varying among the actors involved in their extraction and trade. As noted by Stephen Jackson is his 2002 article “Sons of Which Soil? The Language and Politics of Autochthony in Eastern D.R. Congo,” while the socio-political landscape of the Congo reflects enduring patterns of survivalist economics, it also signifies a radical shift in livelihood strategies as a response to the cumulative effects of conflict, colonial exploitation, and subsequent neglect.
In this context, the activities such as mining coltan, logging, or agriculture embody varying facets of the economy: they represent coping mechanisms for impoverished farmers, components of the shadow economy for landowners capitalizing on natural resources, and elements of the war economy for militias and military factions leveraging resource trade. Views on natural resources are contingent on the perspective of those involved in their extraction or trade. During the Second Congo War, mineral profits notably underpinned the actions of certain participants, such as the Zimbabwean army’s appropriation of mines in Katanga; a move quietly sanctioned by Laurent Kabila—the third president of the DRC—in exchange for Zimbabwe’s military backing. Mineral revenues have remained a crucial financial stream for many, both throughout the conflicts and in their aftermath. However, despite international efforts to regulate conflict minerals since the mid-2000s, the DRC’s extensive mineral wealth has continually failed to yield significant developmental outcomes, echoing a longstanding pattern in Congolese history.
These insights underscore the need for a more robust and enduring peacebuilding strategy that not only acknowledges but is also shaped by the nuanced realities on the ground. Efforts to rejuvenate the Congolese state demand a critical examination and rectification of its historically exploitative interactions with its citizens. The characteristic features of what are termed failed states, or scenarios of state collapse, are not merely the absence of state governance—since the state may well exert influence in certain domains of daily life—but the erosion of distinctions between official and unofficial realms, as well as between the interests of the public and private sectors. It is within these realms of ‘blurred sovereignty’ that the complexities of disorder coexist with the possibilities of order. The paths to Congo’s future, therefore, hinge on navigating these spaces, where the intricate dynamics of power and survival strategies are constantly being renegotiated. Addressing such concerns, particularly in the West, is an initial step towards unpacking and elucidating the complex interplay among various stakeholders within these contested spaces, aiming to contribute to a deeper understanding of Congo’s current predicament and potential pathways forward.
