The War in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Will End: The Twenty-Seventh Newsletter (2024)

An alphabet soup of political and military fronts – such as the ADFL, FDLR, RCD, and MLC – catapulted the region into resource wars. Reserves of coltan, copper, and gold as well as control over the border roads between the DRC and Uganda that link the eastern DRC to the Kenyan port of Mombasa made these armed groups and a few powerful people very rich. The war was no longer only about the post-colonial consensus, but also about the wealth that could be siphoned off to benefit an international capitalist class that lives far away from Africa’s Great Lakes.

Fascinatingly, it was only when Chinese capital began to contest the companies domiciled in Australia, Europe, and North America that the question of labour rights in the DRC became a great concern for the ‘international community’.
— Read on thetricontinental.org/newsletterissue/congo-dossier/