Africa Mining

https://www.nytimes.com/

The world is witnessing a new era of conflict. In Gaza, images of devastation have dominated headlines for more than a year. In Ukraine, nations have rallied to defend sovereignty against aggression, deploying diplomatic interventions, sending military aid and enacting sweeping sanctions with urgency. Yet the war unfolding in the Democratic Republic of Congo remains an afterthought. A bloody conflict is met with condemnations but no meaningful action. This stark contrast is not just neglect; it is selective justice.

Last month Goma, the largest city in the east of Congo, fell to the M23 rebel group, backed by neighboring Rwanda, as part of the group’s decade-long campaign to control the region’s mineral-rich territory. The assault on Goma resulted in nearly 3,000 deaths in the first week alone and thousands of injuries.

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https://allafrica.com/

Utrecht and Dakar — “Most reporting on the conflict is using questionable framings, suggesting it is purely driven by a desire to plunder the region’s rich mineral resources.” The capture of North Kivu’s provincial capital, Goma, by the M23 armed group last month has multiplied international coverage of the forgotten crisis in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Yet most reporting on the conflict is using mistaken framings, suggesting it is purely driven by a desire to plunder the region’s rich mineral resources.

The conflict minerals narrative contains several tropes: Proponents claim that the M23 and its Rwandan allies launched the insurgency to loot large quantities of minerals from neighbouring DRC; that Western electronics or tech corporations buy violently exploited minerals and thus become complicit in the conflict; and that the war is driven by competition for so-called critical minerals required by the energy transition.

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https://oilprice.com/

Last year, a report by the United States Institute Of Peace (USIP) emphasized the importance of the United States government engaging in the African critical minerals sector if it is to diminish its dependence on China and fortify its national security and foreign policy interests.

The report outlines practical steps that the United States can take to build mineral partnerships with African countries in a bid to diversify its supply chains and strengthen peace and security on the continent. Africa is home to an estimated 20% of global copper and aluminium reserves, 50% of manganese and cobalt, 90% of platinum group metals, 36% of chromium, as well as considerable lithium, uranium, gold and rare earths.

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Mongabay – Conservation News

On Jan. 28, the Rwanda-backed rebel group M23 captured Goma, capital city of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s mineral-rich North Kivu province. The fall of Goma marks a shocking chapter in a long-running conflict in the eastern DRC that has claimed millions of lives since it began in 1996. Deeply rooted in the colonial history of Central Africa, as well as the 1994 Rwandan genocide, one of the core drivers of fighting in the region is the DRC’s vast mineral wealth.

The DRC has the world’s largest reserves of coltan, crucial for the manufacturing of consumer electronics like cellphones and laptops. Extraction of the mineral is associated with deforestation, habitat loss, and pollution of waterways. Along with Goma, in the past year M23 has seized control of many lucrative coltan, tin, tungsten, tantalum and gold mines in the eastern DRC, including the largest coltan mine on Earth, near the town of Rubaya.

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https://www.reuters.com/

The cobalt market is no stranger to boom and bust cycles but the current downturn is unprecedented and no-one is sure how long it’s going to last. London Metal Exchange (LME) cobalt has imploded from a high of $82,000 per metric ton in April 2022 to $21,550, the lowest level since the contract was launched in 2010.

Once again the market has been swamped by over-production in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the world’s dominant source of the battery metal. But while it was an artisanal mining surge that caused the bust of 2018-2019, this time around it’s China’s giant CMOC Group.

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https://theweek.com/

Battle for control of central African nation fuelled by increasing demand for minerals crucial in manufacture of smartphones and laptops

“The source of misery for the people of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo lies in the vast natural treasures beneath their feet,” said The Times. The region boasts a “dizzying array” of riches, such as gold and diamonds, but the “most coveted are the lesser known”: coltan, cobalt and other minerals “crucial in the production of laptops and smartphones”.

It is “no coincidence” that violence has increased alongside consumer demand for tech. But while the slogan “blood diamonds” helped to ease conflicts elsewhere in Africa, a “similarly murderous hunt for smart-tech minerals” has only intensified in the DRC, displacing seven million and “condemning a region to perpetual chaos”.

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https://www.reuters.com/

Jan 28 (Reuters) – A lightning advance in Congo’s mineral-rich eastern borderlands is set to boost the M23 rebellion’s illegal mining revenues, with analysts predicting a further surge in illicit trade in minerals including coltan and gold through neighbouring Rwanda.

The Rwanda-backed insurgency entered Goma, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s largest city, this week, marking a major turning point in a conflict with government forces that has raised fears of a spillover into a broader regional war.

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