“Everyone sees the massacres in eastern Congo. But everyone is silent. Use the same energy that you put into talking about the CAN (African Cup of Nations) to highlight what is happening here, there are no small gestures. » This is how Cédric Bakambu, one of the star players of the Democratic Republic of Congo football team, spoke on Monday, who faced Ivory Coast on Wednesday in a match followed by millions of people at worldwide.
A small gesture can start with a critical reflection on one of the main taboos of the “green economy”: so-called renewable energies depend on the extraction of numerous minerals, such as cobalt and coltan, essential for lithium batteries and all kinds of essential parts for everyday technologies. The electrification of transport, too often presented as a magic solution to the production of greenhouse gases, is exploding the demand for these minerals, which had already increased tenfold since the popularization of smartphones. Unless we envisage an end to absolute dependence on individual cars, the “green economy” presented by our leaders as a panacea will only replace dependence on fossil fuels – and the geopolitical conflicts linked to it – with a dependence on these critical minerals, accompanied by a new generation of geopolitical conflicts.
I used the simple future tense, but the present tense would be more appropriate: the crisis in Congo is not hypothetical. The Democratic Republic of Congo is responsible for 70% of global cobalt mining production, and the country alone contains 60% of the world’s coltan reserves. Without Congo, our daily lives would collapse. And yet, nearly two-thirds of Congo’s population lives on less than $2 a day. Not only does the country’s wealth not benefit the population, but it brings war, death, rape and exploitation of children.
Coltan extraction methods are particularly problematic. In the regions of North Kivu and South Kivu, where the majority of mines are located, the population is made to work in the conditions of the pre-industrial era. In fact, in many cases, we are talking about modern slavery: this is the vocabulary used by the World Labor Organization to describe the practices used by several companies in the region. Many NGOs have also already denounced the appalling working conditions for children, who still account for a significant proportion of the local workforce. If Apple and a few other large American companies responsible for the increase in global demand for coltan have committed to avoiding doing business with mining companies where the declared conditions are the most problematic, it is clear that the situation has only little progress in the field for several years.
But that’s not all. The mineral resources of eastern Congo are also coveted by neighboring countries, such as Uganda and Burundi, but especially Rwanda. The Congolese government estimates that it loses about $1 billion a year in cobalt revenues to Rwanda, which exports far more than it owns. Rwandan authorities, of course, deny the allegations. If it is difficult to put an exact figure on the contribution of the wealth stolen from Congo to the Rwandan “economic miracle” of recent years, Kigali’s involvement in the war which is decimating the population of the two Kivus is undeniable.
UN reports have shown that the Rwandan government was responsible for the creation and then support of the rebel group March 23 Movement (M23), a militia whose activities are decimating the population of the east of the country. . The Congolese government, for its part, responds to the threat by calling on militias whose human rights abuses are also very well documented. The clashes for control of territories and resources also play out along ethnic lines: if the leadership of the pro-Rwandan M23 is mainly Tutsi, Kinshasa’s response is based in particular on Hutu figures.
We are often wrongly presented with the Rwandan genocide of 1994 as an atrocious event on which the page has been definitively turned. However, since the mid-1990s, eastern Congo has been the scene of inter-ethnic clashes, where the cycle of intergenerational trauma and revenge between Tutsis and Hutus certainly plays a key role. The question was not resolved, but moved, with the greatest indifference of the international community.
First there was the invasion of eastern Congo by Rwandan President Paul Kagame in 1996, with the support of the United States. The goal was to pursue Hutus who had played a role in the genocide. The price to pay for the local populations was atrocious. Then there was what was called the Kivu war, where different militias, supported by different interests, clashed. Now there is war between the M23 and its adversaries.
Over this period, the number of Congolese deaths is estimated at around six million. Yes, six million. The United Nations also estimates that 6.9 million Congolese have had to leave their homes to flee armed conflicts. The country is now dotted with internal refugee camps that stretch as far as the eye can see. And if the Dr Denis Mukwege won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2018, notably for drawing the world’s attention to the systematic use of rape of women and girls as a weapon of war by the various armed groups involved.
This, in 2024, is the price of the “green economy” built on extractivism. There cannot be a “responsible energy transition” unless the world, finally, begins to take an interest in the fate of the Congolese population, and demand solutions.