Rubaya’s economy of genocide
Rubaya mine, North Kivu, DRC.
Normalizing work-related death risks
Rubaya is a swathe of golden scarred earth found in the sprawling, lush Masisi Hills of North Kivu province - around 60 km north-west of the city of Goma in eastern Congo. The mine holds 15% of one of the world’s strategic minerals, coltan, which alone supplies half of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s total deposits of this mineral. The mine lies circa ten kilometers from the bustling mining town of Rubaya.
On 28 January 2026 Rubaya hit the news: a land slide caused by heavy rains had dismal consequences for the people working there. On 2 February more than 400 deaths were confirmed in the incident, most of the dead being artisanal miners, but also children, small traders who worked in the vicinity of the mine and residents of the surrounding villages, some of which were destroyed by the collapse. The town is currently occupied by the M23 militia, a Rwandan proxy.
Such tragedies are recurring. On 20 June 2025 17 bodies were recovered after another landslide in Rubaya. Then local member of Parliament Justin Ndayishimiye and former coordinator of artisanal mining in Rubaya, attributed the tragedy to the unregulated and chaotic mining practices prevalent in the region.
“They only managed to retrieve 17 bodies. There are hundreds more believed to be buried. This operation lacks any form of regulation. The shafts are poorly maintained, there are no supports, it’s organized looting,” he was quoted as saying on the local radio station.
Ndayishimiye called for the immediate closure of the Rubaya mining site, currently reported to be under M23 control, until proper order and oversight are restored.
Through the news links highlighted above we learn that the working conditions in Rubaya are deplorable with extremely low pay, no protective equipment provided, nor safety guarantees put in place; that lack of protection in the mines causes many deaths. Elsewhere I have analyzed this illicit activity as necro-mining. We also learn that Rwandan and Ugandan predatory mining system have prevailed for three decades in the region through proxies such as RCD-Goma, CNDP and today M23.
Wars fueled by mining interests
This eastern Congolese region has been ravaged by war, severe human rights abuses and acts of genocide since 1996. The death toll in eastern Congo is today well over 10 million civilians and over 7 million people are internally displaced. Despite these staggering statistics of human suffering the international war of aggression against Zaire (today Congo), as the country was called in 1996, there is no official international recognition of the crime of aggression the country faces.
Canadian author Alain Denault in Noir Canada, Corruption et Criminalité en Afrique describes the beginning of this endless war:
“At the origin of the war, so as to thwart the distrust of the eastern Congolese towards neighboring countries, American Mineral Fields International (AMFI), Uganda, and Rwanda created a rebellion called the AFDL (Alliance of Democratic Forces for Liberation) and placed at its head, so it would seem Congolese, a former South Kivu resistance fighter close to the late Patrice Lumumba: Laurent-Désiré Kabila. Suddenly, finding himself supported by these powerful neighbors as well as by western diplomacy (the United States, incidentally), Kabila took the helm of the AFDL. He hastily concocted an army consisting mainly of child soldiers and a few disillusioned Mobutu supporters. It was primarily the Ugandan and Rwandan armies that would lead the fighting. Officially, the incursion of this “rebellion” into eastern Congo aimed to push back the Hutu genocidaires who took refuge there after the Rwandan massacres of 1994, when Kagame’s Tutsi-led RPF took power. But the fear of the genocidaires stationed on the Rwandan borders also served as a pretext: the route of the incursion and the speed with which the armies invaded towns and regions with high concentrations of mining prove that interests of a different nature were at stake.”
American Mineral Fields International (AMFI) reportedly signed in May 1997 a US $1,5 billion mineral contract with Kabila. Jean Raymond Boulle, the owner of AMFI was reported to have loaned his private jet to Kabila for use in his visits to liberated cities in the Congo and diplomatic missions in Africa. Alain Denault underscores: “ In exchange for this assistance, and sometimes even before he became president of the former Zaire, which had become the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kabila granted these companies outrageously advantageous “one-sided contracts.”(…) The mining companies’ legal strategy most often consisted of concealing in these contracts the real value of the deposits they acquired at rock-bottom prices, then inflating their value on the stock markets to make them the subject of highly lucrative speculation.”
The second Congolese war which began in 1998 was also fueled by multinationals: “It must be remembered that Western multinationals and neighboring political actors in eastern Congo who supported Laurent-Désiré Kabila expected to find in him, once elected to the presidency, a collaborator who would smoothly preside over what Colette Braeckman called a “disguised partition.” (…) While Kabila now saw Angola, Namibia, and Zimbabwe as new allies, his initial supporters (Rwanda and Uganda), led by AMFI, turned against him. Starting in August 1998, they gradually waged against him exactly the kind of wars they had orchestrated, with him at their head, against Mobutu. “Rebel” groups established in neighboring countries to the east and headed by Congolese leaders would emerge. Rwanda first created, in the two Kivus, the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), also composed of a minority of Ugandans as well as disaffected former Mobutu supporters. Arthur Zahidi Ngoma became its leader, only to realize that he was being exploited: he candidly denounced “a predatory fight [of natural resources] that does not deserve to be fought,” before finally leaving. Azarias Ruberwa succeeded him,” writes Alain Denault.” [i]
The mining companies, abandoned by their former protégé, now president, sharpened their weapons and supported the Ugandan and Rwandan camps preparing to renew hostilities under the “rebel” banners of the MLC (Movement for the Liberation of Congo) and the RCD (Congolese Rally for Democracy). Journalist Wayne Madsen writes that “one of the fundamental objectives of the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD), supported by Rwanda—a group fighting the Kabila government in Congo—is the return of mining concessions to Barrick Gold Inc. of Canada.” The company Banro has also been signaled out for its takeover of Sakima operating in the Kivus as the reason for fueling the second Congolese war.[ii]
Bonnie Campbell of the University of Quebec in Montreal writing on the reasons AMFI was founded pointed to the “stated aim of allowing North American investors to take advantage of the opportunities presented by African mineral resources.” Furthermore, Journalist Colette Braeckman wrote on the subject : “Relatively modest companies such as AMFI described as “juniors” in Toronto and that agreed to deal with the “rebels,” were in reality only “pilot fish” (groundbreaker) who, after the end of the war, intended to resell their assets to transnational corporations.” [iii]
The documentary film Silence is Gold tells the story of how Alain Denault and his publisher faced SLAP charges (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) from Canadian mining companies Barrick Gold and Banro, a harrowing experience of lawfare, in Canada for Noir Canada.
American journalists Wayne Madson and Keith Harmon Snow, former US congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, propaganda expert Professor Edward S. Herman, African historians such as Boniface Musavuli, Patrick Mbeko and Charles Onana, geologists such as Pierre Baracyetse, lawyers such as Jean-Paul Mopo Kobanda, amongst many others, have written extensively on the crucial role mining multinationals play in Congo’s wars.
The Rubaya mine produces coltan — short for columbite-tantalite — an ore from which the metals tantalum and niobium are extracted. Both are considered critical raw materials by the United States, the European Union, China and Japan. Other minerals are also found in the area.
Niobium is primarily used as an alloying element in steel, enhancing its strength and toughness. It’s also used in superconductors, particularly in MRI machines and Maglev trains. Other applications include aerospace, electronics, and even jewelry. In 2023, the mine production of niobium was estimated at 700 metric tons in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Tantalum is used in mobile phones, computers and automotive electronics, as well as in aircraft engines, missile components and GPS systems. Tantalum is a key material in steel manufacturing, as well as many modern technologies — the critical metal is used in capacitors for everything from computers and mobile phones to air conditioners and refrigerators.
Minerals analyst Melissa Pistilli writing for Investing News Network on the DRC’s 2023 tantalum production states : “The DRC, the world’s biggest tantalum producer, has increased its tantalum-mining activities in recent years. In total, it put out 980 metric tons (MT) of the metal in 2023, producing nearly 41 percent of the world’s mined supply. Much of the tantalum produced in the DRC comes from coltan. As mentioned, the DRC has a reputation for human rights violations in its mining sector, including child labor. Various organizations have taken steps to discourage companies from purchasing tantalum produced unethically in the country. For instance, in the US, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was designed in part to stop the flow of conflict minerals from countries like the DRC. ”
In this 2024 article however there is no mention of the on-going genocide and international war of aggression in the region. Rwanda is mentioned as the second largest coltan producer with 520 metric tons (MT) in 2023, yet the numerous sources that corroborate that most of the coltan exported from Rwanda is stolen from the DRC, smuggled in trucks or flown across the border, are omitted.[iv]
Tantalum
Doing business in eastern Congo amounts to total interference in state decisions as no formal framework grounds public policy decisions. Canadian companies have been repeatedly denounced in the work of the Group of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of Congo, initially mandated by the UN Security Council to investigate trade agreements signed in eastern Congo during wartime. Pillaging during the second Congo war (1998-2003) is well-documented since its first report dating 12 April 2001 : “From late November 1998 to April 1999, the RPA (Rwandan Patriotic Army) and RCD leadership in Goma organized the removal and transport to Kigali of between 1,000 and 1,500 tones of coltan and between 2,000 and 3,000 tones of cassiterite.”
The National Commission of Inquiry on Mining Agreements, established in 2003 by the Congolese parliament, and chaired by MP Christophe Lutundula, despite the opposition of the new President, Joseph Kabila, has also extensively denounced specific multinationals.
How did the three decades long war of aggression against the Democratic Republic of Congo play out in Rubaya?
In an excellent 22 May 2024 reportage The Problem With ‘Conflict-Free’ Minerals by acclaimed investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker Mélanie Gouby, underlining the root cause of the conflict in eastern Congo, writes: “ no other narrative has cut through as much as that of so-called conflict minerals.”
Gouby also highlights the severe shortcomings of the tracking system known as International Tin Supply Chain Initiative (ITSCI ), a program focused on the responsible sourcing of minerals, particularly tin, tantalum, and tungsten, known as 3T minerals, that began operating in Rubaya in 2014.
Interrogating leader of the Association for the Development of Farmers’ Initiatives (ASSODIP) and child labor and anti-slavery activist and researcher Janvier Murairi, we learn from Gouby that Rubaya was in the hands of a Rwandan backed militia, RCD-Goma, as early as 2001, during the second Congolese war: “Indigenous communities in Masisi were dispossessed of their land during the war” (…) “Today’s farm and mine owners are people who had links to the RCD. Everything from Mushaki to Masisi town belongs to hardly more than 10 people.”
Google map Masisi, North Kivu, DRC.
Gouby continues: “One such owner was Edouard Mwangachuchu, an aspiring Tutsi politician and a member of the RCD’s political branch, who was awarded by the rebel administration in 2001 a concession covering seven mines in Rubaya. Two years later, the Sun City Agreement, a peace deal negotiated between rebel factions with little regard for social justice or community grievances, endorsed Mwangachuchu’s ownership over the mining sites as a prize of war for the RCD, granting his company, Mwangachuchu Hizi International, MHI (later renamed Société Minière de Bisunzu Sarl, SMB), control over Rubaya.
Mwangachuchu was arrested in March 2023 and charged with treason after weapons were allegedly found on the grounds of his company’s facilities in Rubaya. According to the prosecutor, Mwangachuchu was supporting the M23 rebellion. The government then revoked SMB’s mining permits.”
The very fact that this international war of aggression and occupation is omitted from most narratives on the Congolese war has contributed to allowing for its continuation, while rendering accountability impossible.
Controlling the narrative is a part of the US imperialist strategy. Huge Wilford ‘s The CIA, an imperial history recalls the 1957 funded American Society of African Culture (AMSAC) unstated purpose: “ luring post-colonial African intellectuals into the Western camp in the Cold War”, yet it also helped to “marginalize further the anti-imperialist tendency within African-American thought.” [v] Today western NGOs, think tanks, legacy media and certain scholars contribute in misrepresenting the Congolese conflict, mainly by obfuscating its imperialist character.
Since when was Rubaya occupied by a Rwandan proxy and for how long were its mines run by Mwangachuchu ?
Western awareness of illicit Rwandan occupation of Rubaya
One of Rwanda’s fallacious pretexts for invading eastern Congo in 1996 was that Hutu refugees organized under the banner of FDLR (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda) were a security threat for Rwanda. This pretext was debunked as early as 1994 by a Pentagon memo, although this pretext still persists to this day.
A June 2004 wikileaks cable underscores that there was no evidence of a FDLR security threat for Rwanda.
What can we deduce on the actual patterns of violence and its main actors on the ground?
A further 27 October 2004 wikileaks cable RCD-Goma sticks up for renegade officers underscores the perpetuators of the violence in the region: “COMMENT: Nkunda’s and Mutebusi’s troops raped and pillaged their way through Bukavu in June 2004, and Nkunda himself is widely reported to have been a leading figure in the May 2002 Kisangani massacre. In our view, they are both very clearly enemies not just of the transitional government, but also of the Congolese civilian population. END COMMENT. MEECE”
Who is Laurent Nkunda?
Numerous details are listed in a 1 November 2005 United Nations security council resolution concerning sanctions ( yet the entry became available on the UN website only in 2014). According to its entry Nkunda : “Joined forces with other renegade elements of former RCD-Goma to take Bukavu in May 2004 by force. In receipt of weapons outside of FARDC in violation of the arms embargo. According to the Office of the SRSG on Children and Armed Conflict, he was responsible for 264 cases of recruitment and use of children by troops under his command in North Kivu from 2002 to 2009. Former RCD-G General. Founder, National Congress for the People’s Defense, 2006; Senior Officer, Rally for Congolese Democracy-Goma (RCD-G), 1998-2006; Officer Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), 1992-1998. Laurent Nkunda was arrested by Rwandan authorities in Rwanda in January 2009 and replaced as the commander of the CNDP. Since then, he has been under house arrest in Kigali, Rwanda. DRC Government’s request to extradite Nkunda for crimes committed in eastern DRC has been refused by Rwanda. In 2010, Nkunda’s appeal for illegal detention was rejected by Rwandan court in Gisenyi, ruling that the matter should be examined by a military court. Nkunda’s lawyers initiated a procedure with the Rwandan Military Court. Retains some influence over certain elements of the CNDP.”
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour, during her May 31 2005 briefing of the UN Security Council following a mission to the Great Lakes region stated: “There is virtually no accountability for a long series of serious human rights violations. Violators are seemingly rewarded for their abuses with positions of power, and the militia abuses of the civilian population continue at will. Security Council Resolution 1325 is virtually ignored, as violence against women has reached pandemic proportions in both frequency and intensity. (…) As an example, Congolese authorities have agreed to the inclusion of amnesty provisions in peace accords, whereby alleged perpetrators were granted amnesties for human rights violations, and/or integrated into the armed forces. Notably, Laurent Nkunda, currently the subject of an arrest warrant for rape and multiple murders, has been awarded the rank of General, and through the ‘mixage’ process, where rebel militia are mixed with Armed Forces of the DRC (FARDC), Nkunda’s de facto control has grown, and he now presents an even greater security risk to the civilian population.” Arbour stated that “the practice of ‘mixage’ must be replaced for all combatants by a systematic integration program known as ‘brassage’. Reform of the security sector in DRC is critical to increasing the protection of civilians. A credible, systematic review of all security forces with the removal of the most serious human rights abusers is necessary, and will require the full support of the international community.”
A 2007 wikileaks cable further explains : “ MONUC spokesmen in Goma told us there was a limited exchange of gunfire 11 September 2007 between Mayi-Mayi militia forces and Nkunda loyalists around the village of Rubaya, about 25 miles north of Goma in Masisi territory. Rubaya has been under the control of Nkunda’s forces since late August. MONUC military observers report that pro-Nkunda elements have also dug into positions in the hills surrounding Sake, while troop movements have been observed in parts of Masisi territory under Nkunda’s control.”
Skirmishes continued in Rubaya the following month in October 2007 according to another wikileaks cable. In 2008 “FARDC and its proxies were attacking at Rubaya, Kahundu, and Katoyi (three points along CNDP’s western “frontier).”
A December 2008 UN report, Final report of the Group of Experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, describes mine owner Mwangachuchu and his ties with the occupying CNDP forces:
“F. CNDP and natural resources
57. The Group made a field visit to Rubaya, a town a few kilometers away from the Bibatama coltan mine in Masisi territory, where it was informed by a local administrator that mining police loyal to CNDP are monitoring production at the Bibatama mine. The mine itself has been a site of several conflicts over the last few years, most recently in 2006 and 2007, when CNDP clashed with FARDC and PARECO for control of the mine, which eventually was left in CNDP hands.
58. Edouard Mwangachuchu, a national senator, obtained a license to exploit the mine in 2001. He exports the coltan through his comptoir (buying house) MH1. He says he has no choice but to accept the presence of CNPD and carry on working at Bibatama, as he needs money to pay $16,000 in taxes to the Government. Sources in the mining industry say General Nkunda has given him permission to remain at the concession in return for a cut of production. Mr. Mwangachuchu himself informed the Group that he pays $0.20 per kilogram of coltan exported at checkpoints set up in the vicinity of the mine, which he suspects are linked to CNDP.”[vi]
According to a 20 August 2008 Wikileaks cable UNHCR Expanding Its Activities in North Kivu the UN refugee agency underscores that Nkunda’s rise also fueled population displacement:
“ With regards to the shelter cluster, the Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM) managed by the UN Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) makes UNHCR's efforts almost superfluous. (…) The RRM was a mechanism to respond with three months worth of assistance, after which IDPs were likely to go home. But with the rise of Laurent Nkunda's "Congres National pour la Defense du Peuple" (CNDP), displacement
appeared to be more ethnically driven and more permanent. UNHCR felt, therefore, that camps were necessary in order to better deliver assistance. There are currently 18 IDP sights that fall under CCCM coordination in both Kivus.”
Before joining the RCD-Goma Laurent Nkunda initially fought alongside the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) against the Habyarimana government in Rwanda. In 1996, he returned to Congo and joined the Rwandan and Ugandan front, during the first Congo war (1996-1997). A HRW report dated February 2006 calls for his arrest. Congo: Arrest Laurent Nkunda For War Crimes “Laurent Nkunda (known also as Nkundabatware), born in North Kivu, joined the RCD-Goma rebel forces in 1998. He received military training in Rwanda, including at Gabiro military camp, and became the commander of the Seventh Brigade of RCD-Goma forces.
In May 2002 Nkunda, together with General Amisi, was among the RCD-Goma officers responsible for the brutal repression of an attempted mutiny in Kisangani where more than 160 persons were summarily executed. In one incident, forces under Nkunda’s command bound, gagged, and executed twenty-eight persons and then put their bodies in bags weighted with stones and threw them off a Kisangani bridge. After the U.N. began investigating these crimes, Nkunda and several armed guards entered the U.N. premises and abducted and beat two guards.”
In past investigations, Human Rights Watch has documented summary executions, torture, and rape committed by soldiers under Nkunda’s command, in Kisangani in 2002 and Bukavu in 2004.
Despite the supposed end to the war and the establishment of a transitional government in 2003, dissident soldiers loyal to RCD-Goma clashed with the Congolese national army and self defense groups in South Kivu in May 2004. Nkunda and troops loyal to him took control of the South Kivu town of Bukavu on 2 June, claiming his action was necessary to stop a genocide of Congolese Tutsi, known locally as Banyamulenge. These allegations were yet another pretext for waging war. During the fighting, Nkunda’s troops carried out war crimes, killing and raping civilians and looting their property.
After U.N. peacekeepers negotiated Nkunda’s withdrawal from Bukavu, he and some of his forces headed into the forests of North Kivu while others, commanded by Col. Jules Mutebusi, found safety in Rwanda. The Congolese government issued an international warrant for the arrest of Mutebutsi, charged like Nkunda with insurrection, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Congolese Foreign Minister also wrote to Rwanda, requesting Mutebusi’s return to Congo, but Rwandan authorities did not hand him over. Mutebusi remained in Rwanda until his death in a Kigali hospital in 2014.
In August 2005 Nkunda declared the current government corrupt and incompetent and said it must be overthrown. In September 2005 a large number of Rwandan origin soldiers belonging to the former RCD-Goma deserted the national army in North Kivu and some joined Nkunda in the forests of Masisi.
Some more details from the HRW paper on the impunity for serious crimes committed: “ On October 21, 2004 the Security Council in resolution 1565 directed the U.N. troops to cooperate with Congolese authorities “to ensure that those responsible for serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law are brought to justice,” a directive it repeated with added emphasis on December 21, 2005 (resolution 1649). Asked by Human Rights Watch researchers why U.N. peacekeepers had not assisted in arresting Nkunda, one senior U.N. official mentioned possible repercussions from Rwanda as one reason.”
As early as 16 July 2002 at a UN Security Council briefing, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson had called on Congolese authorities to arrest those who ordered or were involved in massacres, and warned of further bloodshed if they were not brought to justice.
Since late 2021 the province of North Kivu has again been torn by extreme violent clashes between the DRC’s government troops and the March 23 Movement (M23), the latest Rwandan proxy militia. Since April 2024 the Rubaya mine has been in the hands of the M23.
The M23 was established on 6 May 2012. It is an armed group made up predominantly of ethnic Tutsis. It emerged as an offshoot of the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), which disbanded in March 2009 after the Goma peace agreement. The 2009 agreement stipulated the integration of CNDP soldiers into Congo’s military and police, while its political wing would be recognized as a political party. However, a faction within the CNDP disapproved of the Goma agreement and created a militia group in 2012 that came to be known as M23.
The CNDP was itself an offspring of the RCD-Goma, the rebel movement established by Rwanda in August 1998 in its attempt to unseat Laurent-Désiré Kabila, following the collapse of the AFDL-led regional alliance that coalesced in October 1996 to topple the Mobutu regime.
Numerous United Nations reports from 2001 up to this day have denounced senior government officials from Rwanda and Uganda for providing M23 with weapons, intelligence and military support.
A neocolonial project
BBC journalist Paul Njie visited Rubaya and published on 13 July 2025 Inside the Congolese mine vital to mobile phones, as rebels give BBC rare access.
“We usually have more than 10,000 or more people working here daily,” Patrice Musafiri, who has supervised the Rubaya mining site since the rebels took control of it in April 2024 told the BBC”, writes Njie.“During our brief visit - we were allowed access for around 45 minutes - there was no hint that the chain of command was about to change,” Njie continues.
Thus, the foreseen withdrawal of M23 and Rwandan Defense Force (RDF) troops, as established by the UNSC resolution endorsed by the recent Washington peace accord, seems so far not to be taking place.
BBC journalist Njie underlines the key problem at stake: “ it is not yet clear how or with whom an investor would do business given the M23 is still very much in control in the east. “
According to a UN report, since seizing Rubaya in 2024 the M23 has imposed taxes on the monthly trade and transport of 120 tones of coltan, generating at least $800,000 a month. The coltan is then exported to Rwanda.
“But even before M23 seized control of the mine, analysts said that the mineral was sold to Rwanda, the only difference being it was done through Congolese intermediaries “, write David Yusufu Kibingila and Monika Pronczuk on 18 May 2025 in an Associated Press article Congo’s coltan miners dig for world’s tech — and struggle regardless of who is in charge.
The disappearing “Congolese intermediaries” is a crucial detail as it corroborates what UN and other reports are denouncing, namely the setting up of a foreign parallel taxation and administrative system to the Congolese state in eastern Congo, a parallel state run by the M23. It eerily echoes the days when Rwanda directly ran such a set-up denounced in UN reports at the beginning of 2000s during the second Congo war, a set-up never fully dismantled since.
A Financial Times article from 27 June 2025 reported that an ally of President Donald Trump, Gentry Beach, is seeking to “ snap up” the Rubaya mine site, with other investors.
We read that Gentry Beach, a former hedge fund manager, and his America First Global, are acting as part of a consortium including the Swiss commodities group Mercuria, which hopes to develop the Rubaya coltan mine in a joint venture with Congolese state miner Sakima (Société Aurifère du Kivu et du Maniema). This same consortium has also invested in a refinery in Rwanda, prompting some analysts to say that the Washington peace accords so far has been legitimizing an occupation and the enforcement of a colonial-like exploitation.
The Financial Times article continues : “Longer term, some of the coltan mined at the (Rubaya) site would be exported legally through Rwanda and processed for export at a new smelter in Kigali. The smelter would be built by a separate consortium made up of Mercuria, Beach’s America First Global and Rwandan state investor Ngali Holdings, according to people familiar with the negotiations.”
This economic set-up relegates Congo to the colonial role of exporting primary resources to a country which has pillaged its resources illegally for 30 years. This is highly problematic as the planned economic deal envisioned by this consortium awards a genocidal aggressor.
The current regional taxation policies are structurally conducive to pillaging : “Rwanda levies no export tax on minerals while the DRC’s export tax is extraordinarily high. Rwanda’s lack of export taxes on minerals is not, as some Congolese officials allege, because the Rwandan authorities are trying to poach Congolese output and claim it as their own, but because there is zero Rwandan export tax on all non-traditional exports (NTEs), defined to mean anything except tea and coffee, as part of an International Monetary Fund-backed fiscal package intended to promote NTEs, “ writes researcher Gregory Mthembu-Salter.
In the article published on 9 September 2025 M23’s State-Building Project: Africa File Special Edition by Yale Ford and Liam Karr, they write : “the M23 has consolidated control over major global critical mineral supply chains in North Kivu. M23 strengthened its control over the production and transport of “3T” networks—tin, tantalum, and tungsten—in North Kivu. M23 has controlled Rubaya, which produces 15 to 20 percent of the global coltan supply, since April 2024. The UN and other organizations reported that M23 tightened control over 3T networks by consolidating control over the cross-border Rubaya-Goma-Rwanda transit corridor, which has reportedly increased the security and efficiency of Rubaya’s mining operations. M23 imposed new mining taxes in 2025, and Reuters estimated that a 15 percent tax M23 imposed on tantalum production in Rubaya in early 2025 could equate to nearly half a million dollars in monthly revenue.”
The United States Treasury Department imposed significant sanctions on several entities involved in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s mining sector on 13 August 2025. Some of these measures specifically target operations in the strategically important Rubaya region. These sanctions affect four main entities:
· Cooperative des Artisanaux Miniers du Congo (CDMC), a prominent Congolese mining company
· Coalition des Patriotes Resistants Congolais-Forces de Frappe (PARECO-FF), an armed group allegedly aligned with Congo’s military
· Two Hong Kong-based mineral exporters allegedly involved in facilitating illicit mineral trade
The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designation means these entities’ assets in the US are frozen, and American individuals and companies are prohibited from conducting business with them.
Yet the CDMC has forcefully rejected the US Treasury’s allegations linking it to armed groups and mineral smuggling. In a statement released on August 14, 2025, the company positioned itself as a victim rather than a perpetrator of the regional instability.
“We categorically reject these allegations,” the company stated through a spokesperson. “We are not the perpetrators – but the primary victims – of the armed conflict and pillage that have destabilized this region.”
CDMC’s defense centers on several key claims:
· The company cannot legally operate its concessions due to armed group control
· “The presence and taxation of mining activity by armed groups such as PARECO-FF and, more recently, the M23 rebels have prevented CDMC from exercising lawful control over its concession”
· The company has been unable to maintain security at its sites due to the broader conflict
The United States has also sanctioned between 2023 to 2025 some M23 military and civilian members including its President Bertrand Bisimwa, M23 military spokesperson Willy Ngoma, deputy commander of operations and intelligence Bernard Byamungu, civilian spokesperson Lawrence Kanyuka Kingston and Corneille Nangaa, which heads the Congo River Alliance (Alliance Fleuve Congo (AFC)), the political-military coalition that includes the M23 as its main armed component.
In 2024 Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian E. Nelson speaking about the imposed sanctions stated: “Today’s action reinforces our commitment to hold accountable those who seek to perpetuate instability, violence, and harm to civilians to achieve their political goals. We condemn AFC and its affiliates, including M23, for fueling this deadly conflict and exacerbating a humanitarian crisis in eastern DRC.”
One cannot help but question why a sanctioned outfit such as the M23, and its political wing AFC, are given voice in the Qatar-US-AU brokered Doha Framework Agreement peace negotiations, although it is widely acknowledged that their intention is “ to overthrow the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo and is driving political instability, violent conflict, and civilian displacement.”
By addressing the Congolese conflict and genocide via two parallel peace process one between the DRC and Rwanda in Washington and one between the DRC and the M23 in Doha, the international community is effectively establishing a false separation between Rwanda and its M23 proxy. It also forces Congo to reckon with a sanctioned proxy militia whose stated goal, according to U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), is regime change. This approach is not conducive to a lasting peace.
Thus the Washington brokered peace accords , by not addressing head on the sanctioned Rwandan-backed outfit M23, nor sufficiently underlining the Rwandan and Ugandan decades long settler colonial enterprise in the region and downplaying the on-going genocide, are currently incapable of developing policies for halting the violence.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Denis Mukwege- as well as countless Congolese from all walks of life- continue to express outrage at the relentless violent attacks the region faces, a barbarity that the Congolese people have been enduring on their own for three decades.
More mine-specific and mineral-and other natural resources-specific research in eastern Congo should be conducted to pin point on a map the main actors responsible for the relentless violence. No commerce in natural resources should be allowed until the genocidal occupation has ended.
Notes:
[i] Alain Denault, Noir Canada Noir Canada. Pillage, Corruption et Criminalité en Afrique, Ecosociété, May 2008. p 90 and p 87
[ii] Gregory Mthembu-Salter, Social and economic dynamics of mining in Kalima, DRC, Institute for security studies, avril 2009.
[iii] Alain Denault, Noir Canada Noir Canada. Pillage, Corruption et Criminalité en Afrique, Ecosociété, May 2008.
[iv] We learn that together the DRC and Rwanda accounted for more than half of global production of this mineral in 2024. Other major countries producing tantalum include Brazil, Nigeria, Australia and China.
[v] Huge Wilford, The CIA An Imperial History, Basic Books, London, 2024. p 218
[vi] The report states further : “ 59. The Group understands from interviews with mining sources and from a MONUC report that a land dispute has broken out between Mr. Mwangachuchu and Bayose Senkoke, a local businessman. CNDP has sided with Mr. Senkoke, who has partnered with Mboni Habarugira, an OCC official based in Goma, and has been given permission by CNDP to exploit part of the concession. Their product is sold to the MUNSAD comptoir in Goma, run by Damien Munyarugerero. Mr. Munyarugerero has been named by several sources as being close to CNDP. As mentioned above, Mr. Munyarugerero has also acquired over 600 hectares of ranch land in CNDP territory since their occupation.”