Jeremy Dewar
In less than three weeks the Rwandan-backed M23 militia swept through the mineral-rich provinces of North and South Kivu, in eastern Congo, leaving a trail of destruction. A quarter of a million people have been forced to flee in terror, many not for the first time.
In late January, the M23 ‘rebels’ surrounded Goma, capital of North Kivu and home to two million people. The DRC’s army retreated to Goma airport, where they surrendered, while the M23, backed by around 7,000 Rwandan Defence Forces soldiers, looted the city’s shops and ordered civilians to leave.
One of the worst atrocities took place after militiamen broke free male inmates at Munzenze prison, many of whom were M23 soldiers convicted of war crimes. According to the UN, the prisoners and M23 soldiers then proceeded to rape 167 women prisoners before burning them alive. As in other conflicts, rape is used as a weapon of war.
M23 then moved south to take the second largest city in Kivu region, Bukavu, on 15 February. Although Burundi had reinforced the DRC’s crumbling army, they were no match for the battle-hardened Rwandan and M23 forces.
Thousands have been killed in the fighting. An estimated 250,000 refugees have been forced from their homes to join the 7 million internally displaced Congolese people from 30 years of on-off warfare. With hospitals destroyed and food scarce, there is another humanitarian disaster in Africa.
Third Congo War
Rwanda’s president Paul Kagame claims his troops are only in DRC to root out Hutu rebels, who fled there after the 1994 genocide of the Tutsis (the ending of which initially brought Kagame to power) and conduct raids over the border. This is the same excuse he used during the first two Congo Wars between 1997 and 2003, in which 5 million people were killed.
While there may be some truth in this and the origins of the M23 militia lie in a Tutsi mutiny inside the Congolese army, it is certainly not his reason for Rwanda and its ally Uganda starting what some are already calling the Third Congo War. Indeed, the M23 has declared its aim is to march to the capital Kigali and overthrow the government of Felix Tshisekedi.
The DRC and the Kivu region are particularly rich in the so-called rare earths, key to powering the digital revolution and green transition: cobalt (electric vehicles’ lithium batteries), tantalum (mobile phones, medical instruments) and germanium (semiconductors). The US wants to get round China’s control of major global stocks. Congo has huge deposits of these as well as copper, gold, diamonds, and uranium, an estimated $24 trillion of mineral wealth under its soil.
Proxy war looming?
Rwanda has developed relations with key powers big and small, from China (hosting the 2024 China-Africa Forum) to the US (its top aid donor), Israel, the UAE (biggest trading partner and buyer of metals) and most recently, a 2024 partnership with the EU to provide rare earths in exchange for €900 million investment in Rwanda’s mineral supply chains and infrastructure. It provides other services too, e.g. a Tory ‘safe haven’ for Britain’s unwanted refugees (and before that Israel’s), but its strategic position at the heart of Africa and mineral wealth, including that of its unfortunate neighbour, are its USP.
So, after weeks of foot dragging, on the 21 February UN Security Council passed a French resolution calling on Rwanda to withdraw its troops, leading to the US to impose sanctions not on Rwanda but just on General James Kabarebe, the minister overseeing Rwanda’s smuggling over the border of rare earths from Kivu! That’s one more minister than the West has sanctioned over the Israeli genocide in Gaza but a weak gesture, and the Rwanda government has declared its solidarity with him. Going to press, the ‘liberal’ EU has yet to do the same.
Tshisekedi has enriched himself by signing off contracts for the same minerals with China. Now out of desperation, he has offered the US and Europe strategic access in return for security, potentially triggering a new scramble for Africa, which could be as bloody and tragic for the continent as the first one 150 years ago.
Socialist and trade unionists in the imperialist centres must stand firmly against the pillaging of Africa’s resources and propping up of the rotten regimes that facilitate it. The people of the DRC must control their own mineral wealth, rather than it be exploited for others’ enrichment while they remain poor.
This must seem a tall order to the people of Goma and Bukavu today. But only by uniting the workers, the rural and urban poor across borders and fighting for a federation of socialist states across central Africa, can the endless taking and retaking of cities by bandits be ended.