Congo's Curse

How competition for scarce resources causes grief and instability

A refugee camp in Goma for people displaced during recent violence (Photo by Tony Karumba / AFP)

‘He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision--he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath: The horror! The horror!’

― Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

Conrad’s 1899 novella was a searing critique of European colonialism, but especially the form practiced on the misnamed Congo Free State. King Leopold II of the Belgians had established the area around the Congo basin as a private venture, treating the country’s resources as booty and controlling the population through barbaric practices in a way that was considered shameful even by other imperialists. This set a pattern. The country always seemed to get the worst of whatever was going at the time - colonial rule, corrupt dictatorships, civil wars, and foreign interference. Most of the country’s population still lives in poverty. This year rebels, backed by Rwanda, took over the eastern city of Goma, in a region which has never enjoyed much stability and in which many militias operate.

This is a country that should be enjoying its wealth. What is now the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is Africa’s second largest and fourth most populous country, with a surface area equivalent to Western Europe. It rests on approximately $24 trillion worth of natural resources. Before King Leopold concentrated on ivory and rubber. Now the range of its potential mineral wealth is extraordinary: cobalt (the largest producer in the world), copper (the largest producer in Africa), niobium, tantalum, coltan (80% of the world’s reserves), diamonds (30% of the world’s reserves), gold, silver, zinc, manganese, tin, uranium, and coal. Yet about a fifth of its population of about 100 million rely on aid to survive.

It is one of the most extreme examples of the so-called ‘resource curse’, whereby an abundance of raw materials leads to authoritarian regimes and civil wars. The phenomenon was identified in a report On Economic Causes of Civil War by Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler in 1998. They developed their thesis further in a later article, emphasising the importance of greed as much as grievance. Later academic work has built upon their insights. Grievances still play a part but in resource-rich countries with weak state institutions the impact of greed is painfully apparent. It shows in corrupt governments controlling valuable mines to build up their personal wealth, leaving little to benefit their people or invest in essential infrastructure. It can be seen in civil wars when access to resources means that local warlords can finance their violence and have incentives to perpetuate the disorder to enable them to traffic in commodities, along with weapons, drugs, and humans. It is evident when regional predators see opportunities in a neighbour’s civil war to grab precious assets.

The DRC is a prime example of the resource curse. Deretha Bester observed in 2022:

‘Tragically, Congo’s horror remains unchanged. Foreigners full of lust, rebel groups, and a corrupt government have and are currently ridding the country of its natural resources by exploiting the very people they aim to liberate, govern, or protect.’

From Colonialism to Civil War

When it achieved independence in 1960 from Belgium, no preparations had been made for self-government. Out of 5,000 government jobs only 3 were held by Congolese. There were no Congolese doctors, lawyers, economists, or engineers. Joseph Mobutu, who was arbitrarily appointed as the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, had never been allowed to rise above the rank of sergeant. The resource curse hit immediately when Katanga province, with its copper mines, attempted to secede.

The conflict made for regular international headlines during the early 1960s, competing with Berlin and Cuba for attention. It was caught up in the Cold War, at a time when a key question for newly-independent countries was believed to be whether they veered to the East or the West. It became a test case for a forceful intervention by the United Nations to try to bring peace to a divided country. It revealed how much former colonialists could not quite let go, as the Belgium government sent forces in to rescue expatriates.

The cast of characters became famous: Patrice-Emery Lumumba, the first prime minister, unable to cope with an army mutiny and the Katangese secession, and eventually assassinated; Moise Tshombe, the leader of the Katangese secession; Joseph Mobutu, who helped overthrow Lumumba and later went on to be the country’s supreme dictator until he was defeated in a 1997 civil war; UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold who died in in a plane crash while trying to negotiate a peace; Mike Hoare whose band of mercenaries worked for the government helping put down the Simba rebellion, led by former Lumumbaists.

Mobuto established his dictatorship after a 1965 coup, renaming himself (now Mobuto Sese Seko) as well as the country (now Zaire). His corrupt and brutal regime had no redeeming features. Mobuto nationalised companies and directed the profits to himself and his allies. By one estimate they embezzled between $4 billion and S10 billion of the country's wealth, with little left for either education or health services: in 1982 these represented only 10% of the official budget.

As the consequential economic mess grew, Mobuto played on anti-communism to get support and debt relief, with the West showing a shameful susceptibility. In 1990 after the end of the Cold War, this no longer worked. The regime was left weak and vulnerable. It had lost control of his vast country, with Mobuto’s authority barely stretching beyond the capital Kinshasa. The unpaid military survived by selling fuel and equipment to the black market. More worried about coups than external enemies, Mobuto relied on paramilitaries rather than regular forces, and officers with absolutely loyalty (preferably family) rather than proven competence. In 1997, against a properly organised rebellion, sponsored by Rwanda, it collapsed quickly.

The Rwandan Intervention

The fractious relationship with Rwanda can be traced back to the regional upheavals of the 1990s. Rwanda, one of the smallest countries in Africa, was another former Belgian colony. A legacy of colonialism was a manufactured tension between Hutus and Tutsis - manufactured because there are no evident differences in language or religion or even genetic makeup. If there has been a difference it has largely been one of class. The Belgians installed a Tutsi King though the majority of the population was Hutu. After the monarchy was abolished in 1959, many Tutsis fled into the Congo and Uganda to escape Hutus out of fear of retribution.

In 1986 Yweri Kaguta Museveni’s National Resistance Army (NRA), many of whose members were Tutsi, toppled the Ugandan government. Museveni is still in power in Uganda. From Uganda a Tutsi army in exile - the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) - invaded northern Rwanda, but was blocked by the Rwanda army, backed by Zairian and French troops. After this setback, the RPA regrouped under Colonel Paul Kagame, formerly chief of Ugandan military intelligence under Museveni.

Three years of civil war from 1990 to 1993 was followed by a tentative ceasefire. This ended when the president Juvénal Habyarimana was killed in a plane crash in 1994 and replaced by an extremist Hutu regime. This was the trigger for the terrible genocide as the Interhamwe (One Together) and other Hutu paramilitaries massacred opposition politicians, moderate Hutus, and mostly ordinary Tutsi, in a horrific frenzy of killing. The estimate of those murdered is normally put at some 800,000.

The RPA, who had stayed safe in Uganda, took advantage of the chaotic aftermath of the genocide to launch a new offensive and seize control of Rwanda. Some 1.2 million Hutus now fled to Zaire, including many members of the militias who had been responsible for the genocide. They took control of the refugee camps and prepared, with Mobutu’s compliance, a counteroffensive into Rwanda. Kagame saw them as a threat not only to the new regime in Rwanda but also to the many Tutsis living in Zaire.

Just as the Rwandans saw the border camps as a base from which new offensives might be mounted against them, the Hutus living in those camps feared vengeful Tutsis. This led to massacres in both directions. The international community was dithering, so Kagame decided that this situation could be addressed only by entering Zaire to take down the Hutu bases and if possible overthrow Mobuto. In this Kagame had support from neighbouring African countries, who were fed up with Mobuto. Though the Zairian was numerically superior, Kagame was correctly confident of the competence and discipline of his forces.

In May 1997 Mobuto, dying of cancer, was at last deposed. Laurent-Desire Kabila, an old leftist, was plucked from obscurity by Rwanda to provide a Congolese face to the government. Zaire now became the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), but a new name could not erase the legacy of a country plundered and degraded by the previous president. Despite the DRC’s economic potential, it lacked strong institutions and Kabila, still lost in Marxist theories from the 1960s, had no idea how to govern it other than to become more dictatorial and follow Mobuto’s bad habits.

Soon Kabila fell out with the Rwandans, uncomfortable with the popular perception that he was their puppet. He tried to dismiss the Rwandans running his army but they would not be dismissed. Instead Kagame sent forces to overthrow Kabila. Thus one war was followed by another. Whereas other African countries were pleased to see the back of Mobuto they were less sure about this crude assertion of Rwandan power, so a number backed Kabila, whose forces were otherwise no match for the Rwandans.

The war became both complex and bloody, as foreign forces clashed with each other on DRC territory. (This sad story is one chapter in my book on Command). Greed kept the war going. The county’s natural wealth drove the conflict – both financing the violence, setting objectives and providing incentives for outside intervention. Zimbabwean troops, for example, supposedly supporting Kabila, congregated around important mining towns. At one point even Uganda and Rwanda, normally allies, clashed over control of the city of Kisangani, and the associated diamond trade. This was one of those wars in which it became impossible to count the casualties. The deaths from combat were more than matched by those caused by the consequential poverty, malnutrition, and disease.

Eventually Kabila was assassinated, to be replaced by his son, Joseph. The son was more successful than the father in hanging on to power. A peace deal was signed between the DRC and Rwanda in July 2002. Soon after he left power in 2018, judicial investigations were said to have begun into alleged embezzlement of $138 million by Kabila and his comrades. Nonetheless, this was the first peaceful transition of power since independence. Félix Tshisekedi, also from an established Congolese political family, became President, although the fairness of the election was inevitably questioned. He has already survived one coup attempt.

The Chinese Connection

The most important new factor in Congolese politics has been the arrival of the Chinese. The key moment was the $6 billion Sicomines deal struck by Joseph Kabila with Beijing in 2007, which gave Chinese firms access to the DRC’s natural resources in return for investment in its infrastructure. At the time DRC’s GDP was only $19.79 billion. Two Chinese firms built roads and hospitals in exchange for a 68 percent stake in the Sicomines copper and cobalt mine, one of the largest mines in Africa. Soon doubts set in as it took until 2015 before production began, which was then affected by an unreliable electricity supply.

Despite this unpromising start, Chinese investments surged. From 2015 to 2020 China’s imports from the DRC of cobalt increased by 191 percent, cobalt oxides by 2,920 percent, and copper ore by 1,670 percent. Of the 19 cobalt operations in the DRC, 15 are now owned or co-owned by Chinese entities. All told, 70 percent of world’s cobalt is mined in the DRC, and 80 percent of that DRC output then heads to China for processing. Chinese enterprises refine between 60 and 90 percent of the global supply.

Cobalt is a key component in advanced technologies like batteries and solar-powered vehicles, but it also has significant military applications. So one might have expected that the West would be keeping an eye on all of this. Yet over the past decade US firms have sold their underdeveloped copper and cobalt site to Chinese companies. One of the keys to the Chinese move into mining is the commitment to infrastructure development, necessary to make mines viable and transport minerals out of the country. This was something to which Western firms would not commit. They were also nervous about becoming too associated with human rights abuses in the DRC, something that did not bother the Chinese.

The 2007 deal came to be seen in the DRC as being skewed too much in China’s favour. The mines had been undervalued while fewer infrastructure investments were made than expected. The Chinese enjoyed tax breaks and administered all the mines, increasing their productivity through automation using imported Chinese equipment. All this limited the benefits to the wider DRC economy. Skilled and semi-skilled workers remain in short supply and infrastructure unconnected to mining remains underdeveloped. The Chinese have also been criticized for their lax approach to health and safety.

Even as the DRC sought better terms and more investment, China worked to consolidate its dominant position. In January 2023, Tshisekedi’s government made some progress when agreement was reached on a further $7 billion for infrastructure development, though not so much on DRC control or ownership. The success of Chinese companies in improving productivity, along with a growth in Indonesian cobalt production, led to a glut in supply and the prices declining.

Frustrated by its lack of control, the government sought to pivot away from China’s dominance over its mining industry, and improve its trade connections with North America, Europe and the Middle East. Tshisekedi went on a charm offensive to try to persuade western countries, and in particular the US, to invest in the DRC. He got a response from the Biden administration which noted how Chinese operations were ‘opaque and coercive’ and promised a more cooperative partnership. While Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken made a point of calling in on Kinshasa when in Africa. The US pledged of $30 billon to support special economic zones in the DRC and Zambia , including a local battery industry. The EU then came up with a similar scheme. The World Bank has approved a US$500 million loan to develop socioeconomic infrastructure while the IMF has approved a US$1.52 billion Extended Fund Facility to encourage it to reform the mining sector and review the controversial contracts with the Chinese. This led to the suspension of several contracts with Chinese firms. The US promised more support for local development.

But Western companies continue to see the DRC as a forbidding environment and so have not been rushing back. And the Trump administration is unlikely to be looking for partners in the ‘green energy revolution’. It is already adding to the DRC’s problems. Last year 68.8 percent of all humanitarian aid in Congo came from the United States: it has just been cut by Trump’s executive order directing a 90-day freeze on almost all foreign aid pending review.

The Goma Offensive

This is the context to the latest crisis facing the country, involving the Rwandan-backed Tutsi-led M23 movement. This has been challenging the government since 2012, but stepped up its activity last year. In January it took the city of Goma, the North Kivu provincial capital. According to the UN at least 900 bodies have been recovered from the streets of Goma, and around 2,880 injuries have been recorded, and as many as 400,000 Congolese have been displaced. These numbers are all underestimates of the true toll.

The ‘M23’ reference is to 23 March 2009 when an agreement was reached to end an earlier uprising. This was supposed to integrate Tutsi militias into the DRC army but that did not happen, leaving Tutsis vulnerable to a hostile army ready to work with Hutu militias. In response the M23 group was formed in 2012 by former soldiers who broke away from the national army when the 2009 agreement collapsed. Their first push into Kivu, with Rwanda’s backing, ended when Kagame backed off under pressure from his Western supporters. M23 did not go away, however, and in 2023 joined a rebellious coalition, made up of 17 political parties and several armed groups, known as the Congo River Alliance formed by Corneille Nangaa, a former head of the country's electoral commission. Nangaa’s aim is to overthrow the DRC government.

In principle M23 wants to be part of this. They already have moved beyond demanding compliance with the 2009 agreement to something that looks more like a land grab. They have begun to administer Goma and have got into a position to extend control to more of the region. Security for the Tutsis may be one objective but access to the region’s reserves of coltan, cassiterite, and gold, is certainly another. Coltan is used for components in smartphones and laptops. Before Goma, M23 had already seized an area around the town of Rubaya rich in coltan. According to the UN 150 tons of the mineral were illegally exported to Rwanda and mixed with Rwandan production. This led to the DRC filing a lawsuit in Belgium against Apple, accusing it of using these illegally-mined minerals.

The Rwandan government’s denial that it has any role in all this is not taken seriously. It moved some 4,000 troops to the border and then across it as M23 advanced. The M25 force may be no more than 3,000. The UN claims that the Rwanda army has de facto operational control over M23. Certainly the takeover of Goma appears to have been well planned and executed. M23 is equipped with surface to air missiles, combat drones, and heavy artillery — more evidence of significant state backing. Adding to the suspicions is Rwanda’s ability, although it lacks any great mineral wealth of its own, to become an exporter.

The DRC government refuses to negotiate with M23 and blames Rwanda for the conflict. It has cut off relations with Rwanda, describing its military support for M23 as a ‘declaration of war,’ beefed up its military command in the region, and begun a more general mobilisation. So far it has struggled to cope. The region has been restless and disorderly for some time, with disparate militias (perhaps as many as 100) operating. It is far closer to the Rwandan capital Kigali, than the DRC capital Kinshasa. The army is poorly paid and prone to corruption, with a history of crimes against its own people and being infiltrated by rebels.

Tshisekedi in 2022 ruled out Russian mercenaries. ‘We are not going to use a militia to support our actions,” he said. Given the travails of Russian units in the Sahel and the demands of Ukraine that is anyway not an option now. As an alternative a group of 280 Romanian mercenaries were recruited by the DRC but they all surrendered to M23.

Although they have an enormous stake in the country, China contributes little to the DRC's security. There has been concern that Chinese nationals have been targeted by militias and criminal gangs – partly because they are assumed to have money on them. China’s embassy has warned Chinese to stay away from the eastern provinces, though many are still attracted by possible access to raw materials, including gold, which has been soaring in value. Chinese nationals have in the past been arrested for illegal mining and money laundering.

China has limited its help so far to training. A report in 2022 noted that

The Congolese army has been deployed several times to protect Chinese mining interests in the volatile east of the country. In line with this cooperation, China has also offered training to the Congolese military personnel, as well as security assistance to Chinese companies.

But the Congolese army is not always friendly to the Chinese and is still stretched by the range of security challenges the country faces.

It is Chinese policy, unlike Western countries and Russia, not to get directly involved in military operations in Africa. Instead it has concentrated on supporting UN peacekeeping operations. It is a leading contributor to the UN peacekeeping budget and sends more personnel to operations than any other of the five permanent members of the Security Council. But its contribution to the UN peacekeeping force MONUSCO (Mission de l'Organisation des Nations Unies pour la stabilisation en République démocratique du Congo) is only 233 personnel, out of a total of 15,000 (the major contributors are India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh). Its main contribution is to the force in South Sudan.

MONUSCO has been operating in the DRC since 1999. Although it is the UN’s largest peacekeeping operation, it has been ineffectual, rarely doing much to protect people from militias. Before the M23 offensive, it was scheduled to be withdrawn but for now the government wants it to stay. It has been bolstered by the arrival of a mission from Southern African Development Community (SADC), with troops from South Africa, Tanzania, and Malawi. A number of SADC troops were killed in the fight for Goma.

Pressure on Rwanda?

Although Western countries, including the US, EU and UK have condemned M23 and urged Rwanda to pull back, this is seen in the DRC as half-hearted and has triggered some violent protests in Kinshasa. Rwanda has worked hard to develop good relations with the West. Kagame has turned himself into an autocratic leader for life, known to be ruthless, but his development model is seen as more successful than most. The New York Times described him as a ‘Donor Darling.’

‘Rwanda, with a population of just 14 million people, currently contributes the second-highest number of peacekeepers to the United Nations. Starting in 2021, its troops beat back a jihadist insurgency in an area of Mozambique where a French oil giant has a $20 billion gas project. Rwanda has also shown a willingness to take asylum seekers from Europe, offering to help tackle an issue that has fuelled that continent’s far-right movements. And for years, Rwanda has been seen by Western donors as the textbook example of how to get aid right, using the aid to leverage economic growth and development while styling itself the Singapore of Africa.’

Yet Rwanda depends on aid for 12% of its budget. The US is Rwanda’s biggest bilateral donor, providing over $188 million to the country in 2023. It is however currently also a victim of Trump’s decision to pause all aid. The immediate effect may be to remove one possible lever in exerting pressure on Kagame. The European Union signed a strategic minerals deal with Rwanda last year, providing infrastructure support from the EU's €300bn global alternative to China's Belt and Road initiative. This prompted immediate accusations that it was fuelling the conflict. Demands to suspend the support have grown since the start of the fighting. The Economist, pointing to the similarities between Rwanda’s action in eastern DRC and Russia’s in eastern Ukraine, has urged a tougher stand to get Kagame to pull back. With peace talks imminent Western countries are waiting to see whether any progress can be made before toughening their stance.

Kagame is keener on talks than Tshisekedi, as he has the stronger current position. Tshisekedi is determined not to acknowledge M23 as a legitimate interlocutor. On 3 February the Congo River Alliance, including M23, said it had declared a humanitarian ceasefire, and also had ‘no intention of capturing more territory, at least for now. The DRC was sceptical, saying this was not genuine, and just a device ‘to put the international community to sleep on its feet.’ As yet there are no signs that the fighting has stopped. The announcement followed an agreement between the East African Community (EAC), sympathetic to Rwanda, and Southern Africa Regional Community (SARC), sympathetic to the DRC, to hold a joint summit in Tanzania to discuss the conflict, which both Tshisekedi and Kagame say they will attend.

Kagame may well want to take three heat out of the current situation while using a truce to help M23 consolidate its position in Goma and the surrounding area. He can push the blame back to the DRC if the talks fail. There are risks in pushing on with the current offensive. Already South Africa is furious because a number of its peacekeepers were killed. As serious, the M23’s next target is Bukavu, South Kivu’s provincial capital, 200 km from Goma. The DRC Army has moved into defensive positions along the road connecting Goma to Bukavu. Yet another complicating factor is that Bukavu is already seeing clashes between Burundian rebel groups and the Burundian military. Burundi, is another former Belgian colony with a comparable history to Rwanda, but in this case it currently has a Hutu-led government. This is one reason for anxiety that this could escalate into a much wider war.

As always in these cases it is natural to hope there’s a real ceasefire and it holds. Calming the DRC’s eastern provinces would be welcome. But they have been violent and unstable for many years, and even if some groups agree to a ceasefire others could undermine it. Over time the priority should be to strengthen the DRC’s state capacity. A different US administration, less interested in picking fights with allies or in suspending foreign aid, might use this as an opportunity to take a look at the wider context to this conflict, and the opportunities this could offer to improve relations with the DRC. This is strategically a far more important country than Rwanda, whatever Kagame has achieved. It might even be possible to wean the DRC away from dependence on China. This should fit in with the grand strategic vision of the Trump administration, to the extent it has one, which is to push back on Chinese global influence. By reducing China’s control over vital raw materials that are essential for the US’s own future supply lines, and helping the DRC get more benefit from its mineral wealth, it might even do something to free Congo from its curse.