The east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is once again
involved in a violent conflict and the advance of the Rwandan army and
the M23, the militia supported by Kigali, continues unchallenged. ----
In a few weeks, the two capital cities of the regions of North and South
Kivu, Goma and Bukavu, have fallen under their control. And now the
militiamen are marching on Uvira, which is only about thirty kilometers
from the economic capital of Burundi, Bujumbura. ---- The situation
requires an in-depth analysis of its causes, the interests at stake and
the actors involved.
The DRC, the size of Western Europe, is the largest country in
sub-Saharan Africa. With a population of around 105 million, it is among
the five poorest countries in the world: it is estimated that in 2024,
73.5% of Congolese people lived on less than 2.5 dollars a day. 46% of
the country's population is between zero and fourteen years old. The
average age of the population is 16.7 years (in Italy 46.5 years), one
of the lowest in the world and the prospect is to reduce it even further
since fertility remains very high, around six children per woman. The
DRC is endowed with exceptional natural resources, including minerals
such as copper, cobalt, coltan, diamonds, gold, zinc, uranium, tin,
silver, coal. Among these in particular, cobalt and coltan - from which
tantalum is obtained - are "strategic" raw materials being used in the
mobile phone and electric car industry. The mining sector, which grew by
18.2% in 2023, contributes up to 70% to GDP growth, which peaked at 8.9%
in 2022.
Most Congolese have not benefited from this wealth. Rather, they have
often been employed as a slave labor force for the extraction of those
resources at minimum cost and maximum suffering.
The conditions of the miners (many are very young boys) are at the limit
of survival: they work from dawn to dusk in suffocating tunnels, often
transformed into death traps by sudden floods; they live camped out in
tent cities built with sheet metal and makeshift materials; they are
decimated by disease and without medical assistance. But above all, they
are at the mercy of armed gangs who rob them, kill them and rape women
to ensure control of the mines.
Some data offer the possibility of understanding the unspeakable drama
in which Congo finds itself in the field of child labor exploitation.
These numbers are shared by UNICEF, Action Aid, Amnesty International,
Good Shepherd International Foundation, Bon Pasteur and show how
well-founded it is to talk about the "curse of Congo" when referring to
the enormous mineral wealth of the country. The total number is 40,000;
the average daily working time is 12-15 hours; the percentage of workers
with an average age of 4-6 years is significant (highly sought after due
to their small size that allows them to enter and dig, with their bare
hands, in the tiny tunnels of the "open-pit" cobalt mines).
Mistreatment, beatings and abuse of all kinds perpetrated by "security
guards" are the order of the day, as are deaths "due to accidents at work".
As a corollary, it should be remembered that not many years ago the
giants Google, Apple, Dell, Microsoft, Tesla managed to elude a class
action aimed at holding them accountable for the exploitation of child
(and infant!) labor in the extraction of cobalt and other precious minerals.
As reported on the World Bank website: "Congolese women face significant
barriers to economic opportunity and empowerment, including high rates
of gender-based violence (GBV) and discrimination. Only 16.8 percent of
women have completed secondary school, about half the completion rate of
men.
The female labor force participation rate in the DRC is estimated at
nearly 62 percent, with the majority working in agriculture. While
participation is relatively high, women earn significantly less than men
and own fewer assets."
The history of the DRC, characterized by colonial occupations, coups,
and regional conflicts, is closely related to the economic development
of Western countries that, in phases marked by great inventions or
industrial progress, found in the DRC one of the most important
suppliers of almost every kind of resource: ivory for piano keys,
crucifixes, false teeth, and carvings (1880s); rubber for car and
bicycle wheels (1890s); palm oil for soap (early 1900s); copper, tin,
zinc, silver and nickel for industrialization (1910s); diamonds and gold
for wealth (always); uranium for nuclear bombs (1945); tantalum and
tungsten for microprocessors (since 2000) and cobalt for rechargeable
batteries (since 2012).
The ongoing conflict is part of a cycle of violence that began with the
Congo wars, which followed the Rwandan genocide of 1994. It should be
remembered that one of the largest genocides in history, the one that
occurred in Rwanda between 1990 and 1994 between Hutus and Tutsis,
confirms the true face of European-style colonialism (sometimes
presented according to the canons of edifying culture); and this is
easily found in the role played and in the strategies, sponsorships and
aims of countries such as Belgium, France and the United Kingdom.
Also or above all this justifies the background that allows us to
rationalize the discouraging outcome of many of the "national liberation
struggles" and the sad fragility of the so-called "third world theories".
Since that time, more than 100 armed groups have been active in the
eastern part of the DRC (the indigenous self-defense militias, the
Mai-Mai, the forces of the perpetrators of the genocide in Rwanda, FDLR,
the groups that are supported by Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, the jihadist
militias, the armed forces of the DRC (FARDC) and its neighboring
countries).
Among these armed groups, the one that has managed to establish itself
the most in recent years is the March 23 Movement, known as M23. It is
historically considered a pro-Rwandan group due to the presence of Tutsis.
The M23 is composed of former rebels from the National Congress for the
Defense of the People (CNDP) integrated into the Congolese army
following the peace agreement signed on 23 March 2009 between the CNDP
and Kinshasa, which mutinied in April 2012, considering that the
Congolese government did not respect the terms of the agreement. On 6
May 2012, the rebellion adopted the name of the 23 March Movement, in
reference to the peace agreement.
In the Kivu regions, there are also some groups of foreign mercenaries
hired through two private companies that have signed contracts with the
DRC army: the first, which several newspapers identify as the Agemira
company, employs former soldiers of various nationalities; while the
second, identified by BBC News as the Asociatia RALF company, managed by
a Romanian citizen, mainly employs former Romanian soldiers, including
many who had served in the French Foreign Legion.
The DRC is once again torn apart by civil war, with over 7,000 victims,
thousands of displaced people who join the 6.4 million already present
in various parts of the country and a strong advance by the M23 rebels,
supported by Rwanda, who have gained control of important mining regions
along the eastern border. Kinshasa has always denounced the smuggling of
raw materials through Rwanda, which often also serves to finance the M23
guerrillas.
The United Nations Security Council has taken action against Rwanda,
unanimously approving a resolution on 21 February last that demands that
"the M23 immediately cease hostilities, withdraw from all areas under
its control" and "completely annul the establishment of illegitimate
parallel administrations in the territory of the DRC" (source Nigrizia).
As Siddharth Kara writes in his book "Cobalt Red": "Electric vehicle
batteries require up to ten kilos of refined cobalt each, more than a
thousand times the amount needed for a smartphone battery. As a result,
demand for cobalt is expected to increase by at least five hundred
percent from 2018 to 2050, and there is nowhere else on Earth where that
amount of the mineral can be found outside of the DRC".
Among the absolute protagonists of the infinite "sack" of the DRC's
resources are the multinationals dedicated to the exploitation of the
subsoil.
In an ever-growing list, Glencore, CDM, Randgold, CMCO (formerly China
Molybdenum) stand out; the first, Anglo-Swiss, alone represents an
incredible 35% of the entire world production.
In recent years, other industries have carved out a space for themselves
to insert themselves into the general contest for the country's
formidable mineral resources; Among them Volkswagen, Apple, Microsoft,
Huawei and Tesla.
Chinese influence on Congo's mines became a reality in 2008, with the
so-called "deal of the century": a 25-year concession extended by the
country to the Chinese consortium Sicomines for the extraction of 10
million tons of copper and 600 thousand tons of cobalt. Today this
consortium owns between 40% and 50% of Congolese cobalt.
The mining group CMCO Group, formerly China Molybdenum Corp, is now the
undisputed king of cobalt (and copper) in the Democratic Republic of
Congo, where its compatriots Huayou Cobalt and Zijin Mining also
operate. CMOC controls in particular the mega mines Tenke Fungurume and
Kinsanfu, now renamed TFM and KFM, through shares that it acquired from
the US Freeport McMo-Ran, which no longer considered them "strategic"
assets. Under CMOC, the development of operations has exceeded all
expectations. Last year, the Chinese miner more than doubled its cobalt
production, "thus putting another 60,000 tonnes of the metal on a global
market where supply is just over 200,000 tonnes," notes Andy Home, a
specialist analyst at Reuters.
China controls three-quarters of the cobalt refining capacity.
In recent years, the United States has been trying to get back into the
game: the "Memorandum of Understanding" signed in 2022 with Congo and
Zambia to support the electric car battery supply chain is a symbol of
how the US is trying to forge new and belated trade partnerships in Africa.
The United States, in addition to the European Union, recently announced
its investment in the Lobito Corridor, a sub-Saharan mine-to-port
railway (The total estimated cost of the Lobito Corridor is between 1
billion and 2.3 billion dollars. The African Development Bank will
contribute approximately 500 million dollars and the United States will
invest 250 million dollars). The initiative plans to upgrade 800 miles
of existing track from the DRC to Angola, with the possible construction
of new tracks in northern Zambia. The Lobito Corridor aims to improve
the West's access to cobalt and limit its dependence on the Chinese
supply chain. The railway alone, however, cannot address these objectives.
The material difficulties and the heavy repression that affects anyone
who expresses dissent towards the ruling elites represent a brake on the
development of social and trade union realities that can express a mass
movement capable of starting a process of emancipation and liberation.
Some attempts to build civil society movements inspired by the values of
social justice and democracy are bloodily crushed and many of the
activists are still locked up in prison. In response to the intimidation
that multinationals exercise on workers by denying the right to join a
union, there have been some legal actions to claim union rights. In
2022, a subcontractor of Sicomines, whose owners include the government
of Congo and the China Railway Group, ended up in court. A similar
lawsuit was successfully filed against Somidez, a joint venture between
the China Nonferrous Metal Mining Group and Gécamines, the Congolese
state mining company.
Towards the end of September 2024, at the start of the school year,
teachers from several public schools went on strike to demand better
working conditions and pay increases. In Northern Ubangui, more than
2,000 teachers from Yakoma public schools are demanding payment of back
wages.
Teachers in Kindu, Maniema, have taken their strike movement to the next
level. They believe that the 50,000 Congolese francs (about 16 euros)
that the government is adding to teachers' salaries is "sabotage." In
the territory of Moba (Tanganyika), teachers from about a hundred public
schools who are members of the Congolese Teachers Union (Sieco) are on
strike for the same reason.
The struggle between capitalist powers is being played out over the
seizure of mineral resources in the DRC. The availability of these
resources is of fundamental importance for each imperialist force to
express its superiority on the economic and military level. A
superiority that translates into suffering, poverty and slavery for the
workers and youth of the DRC.
African Anarchism, although to a lesser extent and in different ways, is
nevertheless present in about ten countries (out of 54). Among these
also in Congo, as attested (according to Anarcopedia.org) by the
Australian comrades of Organiste since the year 2000.
However, while waiting for the "our ideas", the only real option to be
adopted by the large masses of exploited Congolese in order to free
themselves from the pernicious ethnic, religious, tribal and
nationalistic logics, as well as from the deceptive internalization of
borders and frontiers imposed by others, to take root deeply, it must be
remembered that the fate of these workers, these young people and these
children (!) will depend exclusively on themselves.
Nothing, except the perpetuation of a true social and existential
tragedy, can be expected from governments and military juntas, from
castes of plutocrats steeped in corruption, from multinational economic
potentates (always foreigners) and from entrepreneurs imbued with a
hungry, cynical and predatory spirit, from leaders capable only of
offering models and perspectives of an exquisite autocratic, timocratic
and demagogic nature based, as is fitting, on hypocrisy, deception and
eternal exploitation!
Only unity among the proletariat, social self-organization and class
struggle outline the path to be taken by all the exploited Congolese
(who in this must be supported by the living forces of Class Anarchism),
under penalty of perpetuating the current, dramatic situation.
Tertium non datur.
http://alternativalibertaria.fdca.it/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
involved in a violent conflict and the advance of the Rwandan army and
the M23, the militia supported by Kigali, continues unchallenged. ----
In a few weeks, the two capital cities of the regions of North and South
Kivu, Goma and Bukavu, have fallen under their control. And now the
militiamen are marching on Uvira, which is only about thirty kilometers
from the economic capital of Burundi, Bujumbura. ---- The situation
requires an in-depth analysis of its causes, the interests at stake and
the actors involved.
The DRC, the size of Western Europe, is the largest country in
sub-Saharan Africa. With a population of around 105 million, it is among
the five poorest countries in the world: it is estimated that in 2024,
73.5% of Congolese people lived on less than 2.5 dollars a day. 46% of
the country's population is between zero and fourteen years old. The
average age of the population is 16.7 years (in Italy 46.5 years), one
of the lowest in the world and the prospect is to reduce it even further
since fertility remains very high, around six children per woman. The
DRC is endowed with exceptional natural resources, including minerals
such as copper, cobalt, coltan, diamonds, gold, zinc, uranium, tin,
silver, coal. Among these in particular, cobalt and coltan - from which
tantalum is obtained - are "strategic" raw materials being used in the
mobile phone and electric car industry. The mining sector, which grew by
18.2% in 2023, contributes up to 70% to GDP growth, which peaked at 8.9%
in 2022.
Most Congolese have not benefited from this wealth. Rather, they have
often been employed as a slave labor force for the extraction of those
resources at minimum cost and maximum suffering.
The conditions of the miners (many are very young boys) are at the limit
of survival: they work from dawn to dusk in suffocating tunnels, often
transformed into death traps by sudden floods; they live camped out in
tent cities built with sheet metal and makeshift materials; they are
decimated by disease and without medical assistance. But above all, they
are at the mercy of armed gangs who rob them, kill them and rape women
to ensure control of the mines.
Some data offer the possibility of understanding the unspeakable drama
in which Congo finds itself in the field of child labor exploitation.
These numbers are shared by UNICEF, Action Aid, Amnesty International,
Good Shepherd International Foundation, Bon Pasteur and show how
well-founded it is to talk about the "curse of Congo" when referring to
the enormous mineral wealth of the country. The total number is 40,000;
the average daily working time is 12-15 hours; the percentage of workers
with an average age of 4-6 years is significant (highly sought after due
to their small size that allows them to enter and dig, with their bare
hands, in the tiny tunnels of the "open-pit" cobalt mines).
Mistreatment, beatings and abuse of all kinds perpetrated by "security
guards" are the order of the day, as are deaths "due to accidents at work".
As a corollary, it should be remembered that not many years ago the
giants Google, Apple, Dell, Microsoft, Tesla managed to elude a class
action aimed at holding them accountable for the exploitation of child
(and infant!) labor in the extraction of cobalt and other precious minerals.
As reported on the World Bank website: "Congolese women face significant
barriers to economic opportunity and empowerment, including high rates
of gender-based violence (GBV) and discrimination. Only 16.8 percent of
women have completed secondary school, about half the completion rate of
men.
The female labor force participation rate in the DRC is estimated at
nearly 62 percent, with the majority working in agriculture. While
participation is relatively high, women earn significantly less than men
and own fewer assets."
The history of the DRC, characterized by colonial occupations, coups,
and regional conflicts, is closely related to the economic development
of Western countries that, in phases marked by great inventions or
industrial progress, found in the DRC one of the most important
suppliers of almost every kind of resource: ivory for piano keys,
crucifixes, false teeth, and carvings (1880s); rubber for car and
bicycle wheels (1890s); palm oil for soap (early 1900s); copper, tin,
zinc, silver and nickel for industrialization (1910s); diamonds and gold
for wealth (always); uranium for nuclear bombs (1945); tantalum and
tungsten for microprocessors (since 2000) and cobalt for rechargeable
batteries (since 2012).
The ongoing conflict is part of a cycle of violence that began with the
Congo wars, which followed the Rwandan genocide of 1994. It should be
remembered that one of the largest genocides in history, the one that
occurred in Rwanda between 1990 and 1994 between Hutus and Tutsis,
confirms the true face of European-style colonialism (sometimes
presented according to the canons of edifying culture); and this is
easily found in the role played and in the strategies, sponsorships and
aims of countries such as Belgium, France and the United Kingdom.
Also or above all this justifies the background that allows us to
rationalize the discouraging outcome of many of the "national liberation
struggles" and the sad fragility of the so-called "third world theories".
Since that time, more than 100 armed groups have been active in the
eastern part of the DRC (the indigenous self-defense militias, the
Mai-Mai, the forces of the perpetrators of the genocide in Rwanda, FDLR,
the groups that are supported by Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, the jihadist
militias, the armed forces of the DRC (FARDC) and its neighboring
countries).
Among these armed groups, the one that has managed to establish itself
the most in recent years is the March 23 Movement, known as M23. It is
historically considered a pro-Rwandan group due to the presence of Tutsis.
The M23 is composed of former rebels from the National Congress for the
Defense of the People (CNDP) integrated into the Congolese army
following the peace agreement signed on 23 March 2009 between the CNDP
and Kinshasa, which mutinied in April 2012, considering that the
Congolese government did not respect the terms of the agreement. On 6
May 2012, the rebellion adopted the name of the 23 March Movement, in
reference to the peace agreement.
In the Kivu regions, there are also some groups of foreign mercenaries
hired through two private companies that have signed contracts with the
DRC army: the first, which several newspapers identify as the Agemira
company, employs former soldiers of various nationalities; while the
second, identified by BBC News as the Asociatia RALF company, managed by
a Romanian citizen, mainly employs former Romanian soldiers, including
many who had served in the French Foreign Legion.
The DRC is once again torn apart by civil war, with over 7,000 victims,
thousands of displaced people who join the 6.4 million already present
in various parts of the country and a strong advance by the M23 rebels,
supported by Rwanda, who have gained control of important mining regions
along the eastern border. Kinshasa has always denounced the smuggling of
raw materials through Rwanda, which often also serves to finance the M23
guerrillas.
The United Nations Security Council has taken action against Rwanda,
unanimously approving a resolution on 21 February last that demands that
"the M23 immediately cease hostilities, withdraw from all areas under
its control" and "completely annul the establishment of illegitimate
parallel administrations in the territory of the DRC" (source Nigrizia).
As Siddharth Kara writes in his book "Cobalt Red": "Electric vehicle
batteries require up to ten kilos of refined cobalt each, more than a
thousand times the amount needed for a smartphone battery. As a result,
demand for cobalt is expected to increase by at least five hundred
percent from 2018 to 2050, and there is nowhere else on Earth where that
amount of the mineral can be found outside of the DRC".
Among the absolute protagonists of the infinite "sack" of the DRC's
resources are the multinationals dedicated to the exploitation of the
subsoil.
In an ever-growing list, Glencore, CDM, Randgold, CMCO (formerly China
Molybdenum) stand out; the first, Anglo-Swiss, alone represents an
incredible 35% of the entire world production.
In recent years, other industries have carved out a space for themselves
to insert themselves into the general contest for the country's
formidable mineral resources; Among them Volkswagen, Apple, Microsoft,
Huawei and Tesla.
Chinese influence on Congo's mines became a reality in 2008, with the
so-called "deal of the century": a 25-year concession extended by the
country to the Chinese consortium Sicomines for the extraction of 10
million tons of copper and 600 thousand tons of cobalt. Today this
consortium owns between 40% and 50% of Congolese cobalt.
The mining group CMCO Group, formerly China Molybdenum Corp, is now the
undisputed king of cobalt (and copper) in the Democratic Republic of
Congo, where its compatriots Huayou Cobalt and Zijin Mining also
operate. CMOC controls in particular the mega mines Tenke Fungurume and
Kinsanfu, now renamed TFM and KFM, through shares that it acquired from
the US Freeport McMo-Ran, which no longer considered them "strategic"
assets. Under CMOC, the development of operations has exceeded all
expectations. Last year, the Chinese miner more than doubled its cobalt
production, "thus putting another 60,000 tonnes of the metal on a global
market where supply is just over 200,000 tonnes," notes Andy Home, a
specialist analyst at Reuters.
China controls three-quarters of the cobalt refining capacity.
In recent years, the United States has been trying to get back into the
game: the "Memorandum of Understanding" signed in 2022 with Congo and
Zambia to support the electric car battery supply chain is a symbol of
how the US is trying to forge new and belated trade partnerships in Africa.
The United States, in addition to the European Union, recently announced
its investment in the Lobito Corridor, a sub-Saharan mine-to-port
railway (The total estimated cost of the Lobito Corridor is between 1
billion and 2.3 billion dollars. The African Development Bank will
contribute approximately 500 million dollars and the United States will
invest 250 million dollars). The initiative plans to upgrade 800 miles
of existing track from the DRC to Angola, with the possible construction
of new tracks in northern Zambia. The Lobito Corridor aims to improve
the West's access to cobalt and limit its dependence on the Chinese
supply chain. The railway alone, however, cannot address these objectives.
The material difficulties and the heavy repression that affects anyone
who expresses dissent towards the ruling elites represent a brake on the
development of social and trade union realities that can express a mass
movement capable of starting a process of emancipation and liberation.
Some attempts to build civil society movements inspired by the values of
social justice and democracy are bloodily crushed and many of the
activists are still locked up in prison. In response to the intimidation
that multinationals exercise on workers by denying the right to join a
union, there have been some legal actions to claim union rights. In
2022, a subcontractor of Sicomines, whose owners include the government
of Congo and the China Railway Group, ended up in court. A similar
lawsuit was successfully filed against Somidez, a joint venture between
the China Nonferrous Metal Mining Group and Gécamines, the Congolese
state mining company.
Towards the end of September 2024, at the start of the school year,
teachers from several public schools went on strike to demand better
working conditions and pay increases. In Northern Ubangui, more than
2,000 teachers from Yakoma public schools are demanding payment of back
wages.
Teachers in Kindu, Maniema, have taken their strike movement to the next
level. They believe that the 50,000 Congolese francs (about 16 euros)
that the government is adding to teachers' salaries is "sabotage." In
the territory of Moba (Tanganyika), teachers from about a hundred public
schools who are members of the Congolese Teachers Union (Sieco) are on
strike for the same reason.
The struggle between capitalist powers is being played out over the
seizure of mineral resources in the DRC. The availability of these
resources is of fundamental importance for each imperialist force to
express its superiority on the economic and military level. A
superiority that translates into suffering, poverty and slavery for the
workers and youth of the DRC.
African Anarchism, although to a lesser extent and in different ways, is
nevertheless present in about ten countries (out of 54). Among these
also in Congo, as attested (according to Anarcopedia.org) by the
Australian comrades of Organiste since the year 2000.
However, while waiting for the "our ideas", the only real option to be
adopted by the large masses of exploited Congolese in order to free
themselves from the pernicious ethnic, religious, tribal and
nationalistic logics, as well as from the deceptive internalization of
borders and frontiers imposed by others, to take root deeply, it must be
remembered that the fate of these workers, these young people and these
children (!) will depend exclusively on themselves.
Nothing, except the perpetuation of a true social and existential
tragedy, can be expected from governments and military juntas, from
castes of plutocrats steeped in corruption, from multinational economic
potentates (always foreigners) and from entrepreneurs imbued with a
hungry, cynical and predatory spirit, from leaders capable only of
offering models and perspectives of an exquisite autocratic, timocratic
and demagogic nature based, as is fitting, on hypocrisy, deception and
eternal exploitation!
Only unity among the proletariat, social self-organization and class
struggle outline the path to be taken by all the exploited Congolese
(who in this must be supported by the living forces of Class Anarchism),
under penalty of perpetuating the current, dramatic situation.
Tertium non datur.
http://alternativalibertaria.fdca.it/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten