The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC/DR Congo) is one of the most resourceful nations in Africa and the world. The country’s capital sits close to its separated part, the Republic of Congo’s capital, Brazaville. To the country’s east, neighbours, Rwanda and Uganda undertake destructive and illegal occupation and exploitation of its democracy and nature.

The DRC faces a power struggle over its own minerals such as cobalt, lithium, and gold with Chinese companies sourcing for large tech and auto companies like Apple, Samsung, Tesla, and many others. At the same time, the Congolese people face a corrupted government, which is led by former President Kabila as a puppet master of current president Tshisekedi. Civil liberties do not exist in practice for citizens and with this, security for the population remains absent because of the level of human rights violations aided through militias like M23, rebels and government-led violence.

Resources

Although this African country is abundantly blessed with natural resources like diamonds, gold, copper, cobalt, cassiterite (tin ore) and coltan, as well as timber, coffee and oil, true potential revenue benefitting the people remains missing. It is estimated by the World Bank that approximately 64% of the population survive on around $2 a day, while their natural resources continue to be at the centre of human rights abuses, conflict and political unrest. Congolese cobalt production accounts for 70% of the world’s production total which is used in lithium-ion batteries, serving a significant purpose in the high-profit industry of automobiles. It is also used in computers and smart devices which are powered electrically. The mineral resource often sits under the Southern Congo province of Lualaba and is produced through small-scale mining by the hands of the Congolese. This type of mining raises issues on human rights violations, child labour, dangerous work incidents and overall violence involving the miners and supervisors of large-scale mining companies.

The Mapping Report

In 2009 the Mapping Report set a plan of action as a response to 617 alleged violent incidents between 1993 and 2003 in the DRC. Many of the crimes reported underwent a complex framework which also took into account the two wars of 1996 and 1998. During Mobutu’s rule, natural resource exploitation in Zaire was characterised by widespread corruption, fraud, pillaging, bad management, and a lack of accountability. The government’s political/military elites put systems in place that enabled them to control and exploit the country’s mineral resources, thereby amassing great personal wealth all while they prevented the country’s sustainable development.

Who is M23?

Moreover, the recent events of violence committed by the M23 militia have enticed destabilisation in the eastern region which borders Uganda and Rwanda. To contextualise, the M23 was formed by former members of a Tutsi militia group known as the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) and both Rwanda and Uganda once supported it. The rebel group became integrated within the Congolese army as part of the peace agreement signed on March 23, 2009. However, in 2012 they rebelled and renamed as the March 23 militia (M23), which now are reportedly funded by Rwandan and Ugandan politicians.

As well as the violence caused by the M23, the Congo faces further peace-masked threat from the East Africa Community (EAC) which acts as an economic bloc with control over so-called Congolese armed groups of Ngomino, Twingwaneho and Android (these are in fact Rwandan founded militias). What makes the situation in the DRC complex and hidden from the rest of the world is because of the EAC masked Congolese strategies for resolving instability and the exploitation of the people and resources as Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda plot a strategic military plan to the east.

Justice Congo Group

The Justice Congo Group expresses the need for the international community to condemn business and political elites involved in exploiting the DRC’s people and resources. Mass rape and systematic sexed violence against women and young girls remains heavily committed by armed groups with unknown true figures as reporting is tabooed by local communities.

These issues that the Justice Congo Group raise appear to be linked with the root problem of inner and outer political and military power which seizes control of mining and other local communities. The United Nations’ work should centre around the DRC’s reoccurrences of mass violence, rape and killing perpetrated by armed militia groups. Investigation into the external direct influence on militia groups by Eastern neighbours must take place in order to uncover the reality of territorial exploitation and government corruption.

Future threats to the stability of DRC’s capital of Kinshasa is anticipated through the Rwandan investment into the Republic of Congo’s Maloukou industrial region which is in proximity. This is viewed as a further plan of destabilisation of the capital that has been controlled by Rwandan-held principal positions in the DR Congo’s military and state administration since the late 1990s.

Awareness on the struggles faced by the Congolese people ought to be at the forefront of humanitarian conversation and through this blog and other reporting this may open the necessary conversation for louder recognition.

The Justice Congo Group welcomes all to the screening of Thierry Michel’s informative film, Empire of Silence, which captures the essence of Congo’s decades of complex history.

 NOVEMBER 29 | 7:00 PM 

BLOOMSBURY  CENTRAL  BAPTIST  CHURCH 

    235  Shaftesbury  Avenue  London, WC2H 8EP 

Free tickets are available through this link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/london-premiere-of-thierry-michels-2021-film-the-empire-of-silence-tickets-443988219717