DR Congo

How Congolese Climate Activists Stopped A ‘Carbon Bomb,’ For Now

January 5, 2025 Adem Ay, Waging Nonviolence. Strategize! Africa, DR Congo, Extinction Rebellion, Greenpeace, Oil and Gas

“I was very angry. I was astonished. Everything I saw was stolen,” said François Kamate, an environmental activist from the Democratic Republic of Congo, or DRC. He was describing how it felt to enter the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Belgium for the first time. The museum was built in a rich suburb of Brussels to showcase the spoils after King Leopold II declared a vast swath of Central Africa, including the entire present day DRC, to be his own private kingdom. What resulted was one of the most vicious and exploitative episodes of European colonial history, and the funneling of 10,000,000 zoological specimens and 120,000 cultural objects into the museum’s collection.

The DRC’s Historic Case Against Apple Over Blood Minerals

January 1, 2025 Pavan Kulkarni, People's Dispatch. Resist! Apple, Apple Inc, DR Congo, M23 rebels, Natural Resources, Technology

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has filed criminal cases against Apple, accusing the US-based global tech giant of fueling the war against the country’s eastern region by using in its products what have been deemed “blood minerals”. “Year after year, Apple has sold technology made with minerals sourced from a region whose population is being devastated by grave violations of human rights,” maintains Robert Amsterdam, founding partner of Amsterdam & Partners LLP. The Washington DC-based law firm was retained by DRC’s government late last year to investigate supply chains for illegally extracted and siphoned minerals from Congo, especially the 3T.

Apple Is Accused Of Profiting From War Crimes In Congo

December 24, 2024 Judi Rever, Canadian Dimension. Resist! Apple, DR Congo, Profiteering, War crimes

By every subjective measure, Apple is one of the most successful public companies in history. Its brand perception is synonymous with innovation and its corporate ethos is to make the world a safer, more equitable place. But lofty credos can often be misleading. In the Great Lakes region of Africa, which is ground zero in the global supply chain for Big Tech, Apple appears to have betrayed its vision. The company stands accused of deceiving consumers, laundering Congolese minerals and profiting from war crimes, according to criminal complaints filed against Apple subsidiaries in France and Belgium.

Congo Week Draws Attention To The Congolese Struggle

October 25, 2024 Pavan Kulkarni, People's Dispatch. Resist! Cobalt mining, Coltan, Congo week, DR Congo, Mining, North Kivu, Philadelphia, Resources, Western imperialism

Teach-ins, concerts, screenings of films and documentaries, rallies, demonstrations, and other actions and events were organized in several cities around the globe from October 13 to 19 to raise global consciousness about the struggles of the Congolese people for peace and justice. “Breaking the Silence: Congo Week” has been observed annually in the third week of October since 2008 to commemorate the more than 5.4 million killed over the last 10 to 12 years, amid what the UN described as the deadliest conflict since World War II.

Scale Up Mpox Response, Health Groups Urge

August 24, 2024 Ana Vračar, People's Dispatch. Educate! Africa, DR Congo, health, Health Care, Monkeypox, United Kingdom (UK), Vaccines

Thousands of people across Africa have been infected with the Mpox virus, resulting in hundreds of deaths and the ongoing spread of the disease. In response, over 55 health groups have urged the British government to support health systems in the affected countries. In an letter circulated on August 23, the groups demand rapid distribution of vaccines to countries in Africa currently struggling with mounting a response to the outbreak, as well as ensuring sharing of technologies between existing vaccine producers and manufacturers in Africa to increase global supply.

The Victims’ Pact: Rwanda And Israel

August 4, 2024 Ann Garrison, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Africa, DR Congo, Gaza, Genocide, History, Israel, Palestine, Rwanda

Rwanda is the Israel of Africa. The two nations reinforce one another in a longstanding victims’ pact, while the West reinforces both. The three commonly join forces to promote Western “humanitarian interventions” like those in Libya and Syria, which are in fact wars of aggression. The foundation of Israel and Rwanda’s victims’ pact was laid a year after then General Paul Kagame and his Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) won the 1990-1994 Rwandan Civil War and seized power in July 1994. Robin Philpot, in his book Rwanda and the New Scramble for Africa, from Tragedy to Useful Imperial Fiction writes: Two specific events that often go unnoticed contributed to the official sanctioning of the use of the word “genocide” to describe the entire Rwandan tragedy.

Israel In Palestine, Rwanda In DRC

July 19, 2024 Ann Garrison, Black Agenda Report. Educate! DR Congo, Genocide, Israel, Occupation, Palestine, Rwanda

After October 7, 2023, as Israel began bombing Gaza and the world reacted in horror, a question murmured through the anti-war, anti-imperial left. Why not the Democratic Republic of the Congo? Why have the horrors in DRC gone on for so many years, with millions dead and millions displaced by the same decades-long conflict, but without a similar response? Since then the UN Group of Experts’ have reported that Rwandan troops inside the borders of DRC outnumber those of Rwanda’s M23 militia, which masquerades as Congolese. The report also concluded that Uganda backs M23. I spoke to Congolese journalist Akilimali Saleh Chomachoma , who likens the situations of Palestinians and Congolese.

The War In The Democratic Republic Of The Congo Will End

July 4, 2024 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Educate! Africa, Colonialism, DR Congo, Imperialism, Wars and Militarism

On 20 June, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) condemned the attacks on civilians in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) ‘in the strongest terms’. In its press statement, the UNSC wrote that these attacks – by both the DRC’s armed forces and various rebel groups supported by neighbouring countries such as Rwanda and Uganda – ‘are worsening the volatile security and stability in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in the region and further exacerbating the current humanitarian situation’. Five days later, on 25 June, the United Nations peacekeeping force in eastern DRC withdrew, in accordance with a December 2023 UNSC resolution that pledged both to provide security for the DRC’s general elections on 20 December and to begin to gradually withdraw the peacekeeping force from the country.

The Congolese People Proclaim: The Congo Is Not For Sale!

June 26, 2024 People's Dispatch. Strategize! Belgium, Colonialism, Coltan, DR Congo, Extraction, Imperialism, Labor exploitation, Mining

The people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo continue to face paramilitary attacks against refugee camps and health centers, as the extraction of Congolese natural resources continues to produce unfettered conflict. Paramilitary conflict in the country has resulted in the displacement of seven million Congolese people, with more constantly forced to flee. In light of the ongoing violence in the DRC, the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research has published new dossier entitled, “The Congolese Fight for Their Own Wealth,” in recognition of the need for a better understanding of the colonial and imperial roots of resource extraction in the DRC, and the current fight against imperialism in the region.

Congolese Journalist: It’s Time To Stop Negotiating With Rwanda

February 25, 2024 Ann Garrison, Black Agenda Report. Resist! Africa, DR Congo, Humanitarian Crisis, Journalism, Rwanda

Rwanda’s M23 militia and Rwandan Special Forces have been advancing on Goma, the capital city of North Kivu Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). I had a Zoom conversation with Congolese journalist Akilimali Chomachoma, who is based in Goma. Ann Garrison: Akilimali, do you feel safe talking about the security situation there in the northeastern DRC? Akilimali Chomachoma: I'm not feeling safe as a journalist, but as a journalist, I have the duty to tell what is going on here. I have the duty to give testimony, I have the duty to give voice to all people who are suffering, to tell what actors here locally are doing.

Disappointing ´Rush To Judgment´ On China’s Role In The Congo

February 19, 2024 Dee Knight, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Book Review, China, Cobalt, DR Congo, Imperialism, Mining

China’s role has been to bring new, large-scale investment on a new basis: combined financing for industrial mining and public infrastructure – roads, railroads, dams, health and education facilities. The result was “After decades of almost non-existent industrial production, the country became and remains the world’s leading producer of cobalt and, by 2023, became the world’s third largest producer of copper.” The new deal “puts an end to the monopoly of certain Western countries and their large companies whose history shows that this exclusivity has not brought development to the country.” The arrangement has dramatically reduced the role of artisanal mining.

Myth-Busting: Dag Hammarskjöld, Katanga, And The Coup

February 14, 2024 Ludo De Witte, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Coups, Dag Hammarskjold, DR Congo, History, Lumumba, United Nations (UN)

On an almost monthly basis the press, and scholars, focus on the death of UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld, in a plane crash near the Rhodesian town of Ndola, not far from the Congo-Katanga border, on the night of 17 – 18 September 1961. Accident or assassination attempt? And if it was an assassination, who was guilty? These are questions to which the UN itself is seeking answers. There is a lot of evidence to suggest that the plane was shot down. If this is indeed the case, we must look for the perpetrators in what was then Katanga, a Congolese province which, shortly after Congo’s independence, broke away from the central power with the powerful mining company Union Minière (Umicore) and local politicians in the entourage of Moïse Tshombe.

Investigation: Prince Harry Charity Linked To Horrific Abuses In Africa

January 30, 2024 Survival International. Educate! Conservation, DR Congo, Land grabs, Non-Profits, Prince Harry, Sexual Assault, Violence

A charity with strong ties to Prince Harry has been funding rangers responsible for horrific abuses against Indigenous people in the Congo, including torture and rape, according to a major investigation published in the UK’s Mail on Sunday. The abuses have taken place in Odzala-Kokoua National Park in the Republic of Congo, which is managed by African Parks – Prince Harry is a member of their Board of Directors, a position to which he was “elevated” in 2023, after having served as their President for six years. The investigation has uncovered evidence of countless atrocities committed by African Parks’ “armed militia” against local Baka people.

Cobalt Red, How The Blood Of The Congo Powers Our Lives

January 25, 2024 Ann Garrison, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Book Review, Cobalt, DR Congo, Electric Vehicles, Human Rights, Resources

“Unspeakable riches have brought the people of the Congo little other than unspeakable pain.” So writes Siddharth Kara in Cobalt Red, How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives . It’s one of the many poetic phrases that make this book easy on the ear but hard on the heart and mind. There’s pleasure in turning the pages of such finely crafted prose, pain in knowing that, if you have half a heart, you’ll never be able to see your smartphone, laptop, tablet, solar power system, or electric car quite the same way again, that you’ll see blood all over the supply chain that put them in your hand, on your roof, or in your driveway.

Crisis In The Democratic Republic Of Congo

December 30, 2023 Eugene Puryear, Liberation News. Educate! Africa, DR Congo, History, Imperialism, Internal Displacement, Poverty

Since 1996, at least 6 million people have been killed in successive conflicts in the eastern portion of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The same conflicts are largely responsible for the 6.9 million internally displaced people in the DRC today, one of the world’s largest populations of IDPs. Successive waves of violence have unfolded against a backdrop of a desperate struggle for the $24 trillion of mineral wealth embedded in Congolese soil. Despite immense wealth, nearly 60 million people — 64% of the country — live on less than $2.15 a day. One in six people living in extreme poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa are living in the DRC.

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