Embedded Files
2.1- A Congolese father stares at the limbs of his young daughter
Resource Exploitation
Since contact with the Europeans, the area that would become the DRC has and still possesses many desirable resources. These resources continue to be a source of immense profits that historically have come to the Congolese people's detriment. Arab and later European slave traders made humans the first resource to be extracted and exploited. The Atlantic Slave Trade would begin to decimate the existing societies within the Congo. One of the few African voices we have from this period, King Nzinga Mbemba Affonso of the Kingdom of Kongo, was born knowing nothing of Europeans and died with his empire threatened by slave selling.[1] Ivory was King Leopold’s original target when he stole land and designated it the Congo Free State near the end of the nineteenth century. The bicycle's invention and the automobile's emergence produced the rubber boom. Leopold II exploited resource demand through brutal forced labor to extract the sap from rubber vines, often high up in tree canopies in the rainforests. Belgian restructuring resulted in more efficient exploitation of resources while keeping the Congolese population in poverty.[2] In addition, the world wars were when the Congolese provided resources and a workforce to the Allied fight. Eighty percent of the uranium in the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki came from Congolese mines.[3] After a short-lived democratically elected government following independence, Joseph Mobutu seized power. He administered a kleptocracy that allowed him unlimited access to state resources that he used to enrich himself and his sycophants.[4]
2.4- Ivory was a luxury good sought throughout the world at the turn of the 20th century
2.2- Congolese laborers in the Congo Free State
2.3- A Congolese man taps a rubber vine
2.5- Shinkolobwe uranium mine
2.6 Congolese child mining coltan
Links:
Suggested Readings:
De Koning, Ruben. Controlling Conflict Resources in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Stockholm, Sweden: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 2010.
Kabamba, Patience. "External Economic Exploitation in the DRC: 1990-2005." African Studies Review 55, no. 1 (2012): 123-30.
Matti, Stephanie. "Resources and Rent Seeking in the Democratic Republic of the Congo." Third World Quarterly 31, no. 3 (2010): 401-13. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2010.488471.
Moran, Daniel, Darian McBain, Keiichiro Kanemoto, Manfred Lenzen, and Arne Geschke. "Global Supply Chains of Coltan." Journal of Industrial Ecology 19, no. 3 (2014): 357-65. https://doi.org/10.1111/jiec.12206.
Tsabora, James. "Fighting the 'Resource Wars' in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: An Exploratory Diagnosis of the Legal and Institutional Problems." The Comparative and International Law Journal of Southern Africa 47, no. 1 (2014): 109-28.
Usanov, Artur, Marjolein de Ridder, Willem Auping, Stephanie Lingemann, Luis Tercero Espinoza, Magnus Ericsson, Masuma Farooki, Henrike Sievers, and Maren Liedtke. Coltan, Congo, & Conflict. Hague, Netherlands: Hague Centre for Strategic Studies, 2013.
Since the 1994 Rwandan Genocide and the fall of Mobutu’s regime, corruption and patronage networks have become deeply entrenched, while ongoing civil conflicts continuously fragment the DRC.[5] Exploited resources include but are not limited to gold, diamonds, copper, tungsten, and the world’s newest vital need, coltan. At one point, the DRC produced a third of the world’s coltan, used in everything from cellular phones and laptops to computer chips in aerospace projects.[6] Paramilitary forces primarily control mines, and the profits fuel ongoing civil conflict, and there is little done to track the flow of these resources.[7] These militias use the mineral trade to finance their operations and ensure group survival, which prolongs conflicts as competition for control of mines is endless.[8] Armed groups use forced labor, plundering, taxes, fees, protection payments, and monopolies on exports to carry out mining operations.[9] These raw minerals are shipped to the West, and the Congolese people see little to no return. The problem is not in the DRC alone, as neighboring countries, including Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, and Zimbabwe, recruit local warlords to carry out their agendas and to get in on any profits.[10]
The modern resource exploitation of the DRC has plagued its economy while enriching other more developed economies and elite individuals. Resources that are difficult to track under conflict conditions and enrich other economies also result in capital flight, while the DRC remains impoverished.[11] Modern resource exploitation has resulted in crimes against humanity that include war rape, ethnically targeted violence, and the use of child soldiers.[12] Proposed solutions to the complex situation include transparency of the supply chain, certification of metals and minerals, securing and demilitarizing mines, government reform, and economic reforms focusing on worker’s rights and fair compensation. Unfortunately, there is little political will in the DRC to accomplish these tasks. The government wants a large army to combat militia groups and the ability to exploit local resources.[13] Additionally, the security sector tends to ignore plundering and misconduct by its members, whether military or police, because it struggles to pay them and retain their services.[14]
Page updated
Report abuse