Congo conflict flares amid critical minerals race

As we foreshadowed yesterday, Rwanda-backed M23 rebels have now seized the eastern Congolese trade hub of Goma in a lightning advance.

It’s a conflict with ties to Big Tech, world history, and Western unease, so let’s take a look:

1. The geography

A quick glance at a map might make you wonder how Rwanda could possibly be a source of angst for the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which is 90 times bigger. They share a border along Lake Kivu, with DRC’s Goma serving as a vital port city of two million people.

Traders flock to the region’s wealth of gold, cassiterite, coltan, cobalt, and diamonds, but these riches have also fuelled instability since at least the colonial era, while 100+ rival militias have been in a state of intermittent conflict since the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

2. The who’s who

First, there’s the main rebel groups:

• M23 (March 23 Movement, the date of an earlier peace accord) is a Tutsi-led group backed by Rwanda (which disputes this), and
• The FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda) is the rival DRC-linked militia co-founded by exiled Hutus who led Rwanda’s genocide against Tutsis.

Then there’s their regional backers:

• Rwanda’s leader (Paul Kagame) is part hero for the way he’s restored order and prosperity after the genocide, but he’s also part villain for his autocratic methods. Plus while everyone knows he backs M23, which started out pursuing fleeing genocidaires into DRC, he has lots of friends in the West because of the way he’s a) opposed Russia’s Wagner mercenaries, b) contributed regional peacekeepers, and c) even helped guard France’s $20B gas venture in Mozambique.
• The DRC, on the other hand, is still grappling with its own brutal colonial legacy, is fresh off a botched military coup, and hasn’t earned many friends abroad by sentencing three involved Americans to death.

And then there’s their international backers:

• Western partners like the US and UK have condemned the violence and helped haul some of the perpetrators before international courts, but they remain cautious about using sanctions given the likelihood of targets merely inviting support from China and Russia instead
• France, blamed by many locals for the West’s slow response to the genocide, has just called on the UN Security Council to scrutinise Rwanda’s current role, with backing from Uruguay and South Africa (who just lost peacekeepers), and
• Kenya’s President Ruto is now seeking to fill the remaining diplomatic void by hosting talks this week, though there’s no confirmation if anyone will actually attend yet. 

And then, dear Intriguer, won’t somebody think of the private sector? 

• As geopolitical competition heats up, industry is now scrambling to secure supplies for tech-critical minerals like tantalum, 60% of which still comes from the DRC and Rwanda, and
• That’s leading to allegations (plus even a lawsuit) that giants like Apple are using conflict-sourced minerals in their top products (accusations Apple rejects).

3. So why is this flaring up again now?

Angola’s on-again / off-again peace talks collapsed (again) last month, with Luanda throwing shade at Rwanda’s alleged unwillingness to engage.

So M23 made its move again and, unlike its last brief seizure of Goma in 2012, this one looks like it could hold, as reports emerge of DRC soldiers surrendering their arms.

INTRIGUE’S TAKE

There aren’t a lot of good options here:

• Our more multipolar world means whatever measures you might propose, your rivals will only be too happy to undermine them for influence, and yet
• So long as the violence continues, it’s tough to verify where your tantalum comes from, leaving Big Tech and others exposed to reputational and legal risk.

And yet… with the long-running conflict already displacing seven million people, inaction is hardly a viable option either.