Behind capitalism’s so-called ‘green transition’ lie abject misery and poverty for the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Wars and instability have ravaged the DRC while the masses of people suffer the most brutal exploitation for the profits of giant monopolies. The DRC is amongst the most resource-rich countries in the world with a total mineral wealth estimated at $24 trillion. Its wealth has resulted in a drive to carve up the DRC between competing imperialist powers to control the supply chain for green technologies and consumer goods such as smartphones, making the country a battleground for international rivalries.
Colonialism – the root of the DRC’s misery
The division of the DRC began after King Leopold II of Belgium established the Congo ‘Free State’ (CFS), making the country and its people his personal property and granting concessions to British and French corporations. The invention of the rubber tyre created a global demand for rubber that was satisfied with the blood of the Congolese people. CFS became infamous for the use of punishment amputations on forced labourers who failed to meet quotas. 10 million Congolese people were killed under this brutal regime.
The Belgian state took over the running of the colony in 1908, renaming it Belgian Congo. The brutality and exploitation faced by the people did not substantially change, its form only shifted to mineral exploitation for the profit of mainly Belgian trusts. Belgian Congo proved to be an invaluable colony for European and North American imperialism. The superprofits generated from the plunder financed numerous public works, and one third of the colonial wealth produced by Belgian Congo went back to Europe in the form of salaries and profits. The strategic value of the colony was reinforced when uranium from Belgian Congo was used in the atomic bombs used by the US against Japan.
It is no surprise that imperialism could not allow a liberated Congo to exist. In the post-war period, Patrice Lumumba led the independence movement and the masses made the colony ungovernable, forcing Belgium to grant Congo independence on 30 June 1960. Lumumba became the first democratically elected Prime Minister of the country. He had ties to the Pan-African movement and advocated for breaking from the clutches of imperialism. In September 1960, he was removed from power in the CIA-backed coup and imprisoned. He was later handed over to imperialist-backed Katanga separatists, tortured, and murdered on 17 January 1961.
One of the coup plotters, Mobutu Sese Seku, came to power in another imperialist-backed coup on 24 November 1965. He was a stalwart ally to US imperialism and ran the country as an anti-communist dictatorship. In 1992 alone, Mobutu’s kleptocracy had looted 95% of the government’s budget while the masses lived in abject poverty.
The fall of Mobutu came as a result of the French-backed 1994 Rwanda genocide. Mobutu had backed the racist Hutu government and when it was overthrown by the British-backed Rwandan Patriotic Front, a Tutsi party, France helped the génocidaires and 1 million Hutu refugees flee into neighbouring Congo. The new Rwandan government used this as a pretext to lead a coalition of six African countries to invade the country in 1996. With the fall of the Soviet Union and the US and Britain now supporting Rwanda, Mobutu had simply outlived his usefulness and was overthrown within months. Rwanda and Uganda immediately started looting the country and granted concessions to western corporations.
However the newly installed government of the DRC, led by Laurent-Désiré Kabila, proved not to be a willing vassal for imperialist interests, triggering an illegal invasion by Rwanda and Uganda in 1998 with training and backing from Britain and the US. Laurent-Désiré Kabila was assassinated by one of his child soldiers on 16 January 2001. He was replaced by his son, Joseph Kabila, and the war came to a negotiated end in 2003.
The DRC has been invaded by Rwanda at least six times. Today, around 120 paramilitaries operate throughout the country, the most prominent being the March 23 Movement (M23), a Rwanda-backed Tutsi ‘rebel’ group that emerged in 2012.
Bloody minerals – seized at the barrel of a gun
Under the pretence of ‘protecting Tutsis’, M23’s latest ‘rebellion’ was launched in 2021. The real purpose of the war is to enable Rwanda to seize more resources. In August 2024, M23 and Rwandan troops seized the town of Rubaya, a mining town with deposits of tantalum, a mineral used in smartphones and wind turbines. Paramilitaries (DRC government-backed or otherwise) have set up artisanal mines to loot Congo’s minerals, forcing locals to work for as little as $2 a day. Minerals can then be sold to Western corporations (such as British company Afrimex UK) or smuggled to Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda. As a result, despite having few reserves of their own, Rwandan gold exports were worth $555.7m while Uganda’s gold exports totalled $1.9bn in 2022.
7.1 million Congolese people are internally displaced; and since 1996, over six million people have been killed due to wars in the DRC. In 2018, UNICEF estimated that between 5,000 and 10,000 children were recruited by paramilitaries, many used as child soldiers. Paramilitaries have been responsible for innumerable atrocities including massacres, mass rapes and summary executions.
Despite the occasional suspension of military aid and calls to stop supporting militias, Rwanda and Uganda remain outposts of western imperialism in Africa, providing secure investment environments and protecting corporate assets in the region. Since 1998, Britain has provided over £1bn in development assistance to Rwanda and has provided training to the Rwandan military. Rwanda now provides an opportunity for imperialist powers to loot the DRC’s resources. In February 2024, the EU and Rwanda signed a ‘Memoriam of Understanding on Sustainable Raw Material’, the purpose being to ‘nurture sustainable and resilient value chains for critical raw materials’. This is to ensure the EU has access to strategic resources for the ‘green transition’. These will undoubtedly be looted from the DRC.
Carving up the heart of Africa
Cobalt is used in almost every lithium-ion battery, and therefore critical for electric vehicle (EV) production as well as technologies to store renewable energy. Global demand for refined cobalt stemming from nickel, cobalt and manganese batteries is expected to increase from 20,236 tons in 2020 to 253,392 tons in 2030. The DRC produces 70% of the world’s cobalt output.
A renewed scramble for the DRC is already underway. Real GDP growth in the DRC was 7.8% in 2023: 70% of this growth was driven by the mining sector which itself grew by 15.5%. In 2022, foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows to the DRC were $1.8bn and total FDI stock was 49.3% of the DRC’s GDP. The mining sector has driven most of this investment.
Canadian and Chinese corporations have the largest cobalt and copper mining interests in the DRC, although other major players such as London-listed Swiss multinational Glencore operate two mines and British company Anglo-American is reportedly ‘scouting out opportunities’ in the country. In 2022 Canada had eight mining companies operating in the DRC. Ivanhoe Mines, a Canadian company, owns the Kamoa-Kakula mine – the largest copper mine in Africa. Copper is another crucial component in EVs and demand for the mineral will only increase.
Chinese corporations, backed by the Chinese state, have managed to secure shares in or ownership of 15 out of 19 industrial cobalt mines in the DRC and have effectively squeezed the US out of the market. The last cobalt mine owned by a US corporation was bought by China Molybdenum in 2020. As a result, Chinese corporations control over 70% of the DRC’s cobalt output, which is refined in China and sold to battery manufacturers. This has caused panic within the US ruling class, resulting in the Biden administration attempting to catch up; it recently announced a $20m grant to encourage private sector investment in the DRC’s natural resources and quadrupled tariffs on Chinese EVs to over 100%*.
The rivalries and competition for access to the DRC’s resources have allowed the Congolese ruling class to secure a greater share of the loot for themselves. In January 2024 Chinese investors and the Congolese government renegotiated their deal over the Sicomines copper and cobalt joint venture which will now see $7bn invested in infrastructure (up from $3bn when it was originally signed), the Congolese state-owned mining company Gécamines retain a 32% stake in the project and royalties paid to the state.
The growth of mining and the importance of the country’s minerals have encouraged all kinds of profit-seeking and corrupt dealings between the state, corporations and imperialist powers. A 2016 report by Global Witness found that secretive dealings occurred between the Congolese state, Glencore, formerly London-listed company Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation and Israeli oligarch Dan Gertler over the ownership of copper and cobalt mines. The British Virgin Islands, a tax haven, was used to keep the details and beneficiaries of these deals hidden. The loss to the Congolese state was estimated to be at least $1.36bn, twice the country’s annual spending on health and education.
Abject misery for the masses
Behind the wars and deals are the masses of Congolese people who live in abject poverty. In 2023, about 74.6% of the Congolese people lived on less than $2.15 a day. One in every ten children born in the DRC will not live to see their fifth birthday.
Hundreds of thousands of Congolese people are forced to work as artisanal miners in desperation. 20% of the DRC’s cobalt is supplied in this way. Artisanal mining is often carried out on or near the sites of large scale industrial mines. Conditions are dangerous, with mining tunnels dug manually and toxic cobalt washed by hand. Approximately 40,000 children as young as three work in these mines. Workers being killed or maimed are regular occurrences due to collapsing shafts. The cobalt is bought by traders at low prices and mixed with the supply chain from the regulated, industrial mines. The majority of workers in artisanal mines earn less than the DRC’s minimum wage of $5.00 a day. The prices of manufactured commodities such as iPhones remain cheap thanks to intense exploitation further up the supply chain.
The state deploys military and security forces to clear villages by brutalising local people in order to make room for mines or their expansion. The environmental and health effects of mining have been devastating, resulting in polluted rivers, lakes and the poisoning of the people. While bad press has resulted in corporations making a big deal of ‘due diligence’, ‘clean supply chains’ and ‘avoiding conflict minerals’, the bloody logic of imperialism will ensure that such initiatives remain a low priority.
The scale of the devastation inflicted on the DRC has led to protests in several imperialist countries, including Britain, led by Congolese diaspora groups. These protests have targeted corporations profiting from the DRC’s exploitation such as Apple, advocating boycotts of the latest smartphones. However, this erases the role of imperialism and the ruling class and reduces the issue to a handful of corporations acting unethically. It is British imperialism that supports Rwanda economically and militarily as it loots the DRC; it is British imperialism that ensures corporations can cheaply purchase resources looted from the DRC; and it is parasitic British finance that facilitates the robbery of Congolese people. Furthermore, it is global monopoly capital that has turned the DRC into a new front for global rivalries in order to enable the ‘green transition’ for the imperialist heartlands. We must confront our own ruling classes who have subjugated and exploited the Congolese people for over a century.
Kotsai Sigauke
* FRFI 300 ‘US-China trade war: Globalisation in retreat’
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 302 October/November 2024
