Democratic Republic of Congo

How do Africa’s many “leaders for life” do it?

Pope Francis’ diagnosis of the causes of African underdevelopment is simplistic, condescending, and ahistorical.

The resurgence of the M23 rebel group in Eastern Congo increases suffering for civilians and heightens international tensions.    

The future of the Democratic Republic of Congo is as consequential as the country is complicated.

As the DRC becomes the newest member of the East African Community,  the regional organization confronts multiple challenges in its effort to tackle insecurity in eastern Congo.

Access to the Democratic Republic of Congo's natural resources has been largely controlled by a privileged elite, fueling mistrust and violence between competing groups.

Former U.S. Senator from Wisconsin Russ Feingold reflects on his time as U.S. Special Envoy for the Great Lakes and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and other diplomatic roles he has held throughout his career.

Uganda's entry into the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo to combat the terrorist Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) diverts attention away from equally pressing issues at home.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, opaque dealmaking facilitated the transfer of power from Joseph Kabila to Felix Tshisekedi. It is not too early for policymakers to encourage a more democratic process in 2023.

The killing of the Italian ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the lifting of U.S. Treasury sanctions against an Israeli businessman accused of mining-related corruption in the final hours of the Trump administration has again focused international attention on the interlocking crises in the DRC. Italian Amb. Luca Attanasio was killed when the World Food Programme caravan he was part of was stopped en route to a school feeding program in Rutshuru, near Goma, in eastern Congo. (His driver and bodyguard were also killed.) The DRC authorities are claiming that the perpetrators were part of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR); the militia denies it. The FDLR, one of some 120 separate armed groups [PDF] operating in eastern Congo, is associated with the Rwandan cabal that led the 1994 Rwandan genocide; Congolese officials frequently blame it for atrocities in eastern Congo. Dan Gertler, an Israeli mining merchant closely associated with former DRC dictator Laurent Kabila and his son-turned-successor, Joseph Kabila, in 2017 was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department after being widely accused of staggering corruption. Those sanctions excluded him from the American financial system and blocked access to his American accounts. The Trump administration in its final hours in office quietly eased those sanctions. Their easing, while not necessarily illegal, violated usual Treasury procedures and has provoked outrage among human rights activists in the United States, the DRC, and elsewhere. Critics see the reprieve as a part of President Trump's wave of pardons to criminals with good connections. According to the media, the Biden administration is likely to reverse the move. Eastern Congo is a stark example of great wealth—mostly based on the strategic minerals that have made Mr. Gertler rich—amidst grinding poverty. Militias and gangs, allegedly with ties to neighboring Rwanda, Burundi, and Uganda, are active. Ethnic conflict is widespread. Criminality, sometimes with political links, is ubiquitous. Ebola recurs; new cases have been reported this month. Government at the national and provincial levels is notorious for corruption and appears largely alienated from the people who live there. The DRC is far from fulfilling the basic requirement of sovereignty—guaranteeing the security of its citizens. The ambassador's reputation was that he was devoted to his humanitarian mission, that he was judicious, and did not take unnecessary risks. The road traveled by the convoy was regarded as safe. So, what group killed the Italian ambassador? It may have been by a group with a political agenda. But the event also has elements of being primarily a criminal enterprise: after capturing the ambassador, the perpetrators moved him into the bush, in what is believed to have been an attempted kidnapping. He was killed only after security forces attempted to rescue him.

Three months after health authorities from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) declared the country had brought to an end its eleventh outbreak of Ebola, the disease has killed the wife of a survivor in a hospital in Butembo, a large city (estimated population of around one million) in North Kivu province. (In earlier Ebola outbreaks, Butembo has been a prominent treatment center.) Despite the bad news, some encouragement is that health authorities know what to do: World Health Organization (WHO) epidemiologist are tracing more than seventy persons with whom the victim had contact and are thoroughly disinfecting any places she had visited. While it is too soon to assess the seriousness of this outbreak, such measures raise hopes that it can be contained. But this latest outbreak also underscores that the disease is endemic in eastern Congo and hence is likely to reemerge. Butembo is an important trading and mining center in North Kivu, of which it is the second largest city after Goma. The province has seen banditry and warlordism, yet Butembo has in the past managed to insulate [PDF] itself from the worst episodes of violence. North Kivu is adjacent to Rwanda and Uganda and is not far from Burundi and Tanzania. Uganda, Burundi, and Tanzania remain politically opaque. Coronavirus is believed to be widespread in East Africa; there should now be concern over the possibility that Ebola could spread elsewhere in the region. Tanzania's regime of John Magufuli is a particular concern, having refused to share information with the WHO about possible Ebola cases in Dar es Salaam in 2019 and, since then, rejecting public health measures based on science—including vaccines—to contain COVID-19. Magufuli claims that Tanzania is free of the virus because of the power of prayer. This latest outbreak of Ebola against the backdrop of COVID-19 reminds that Africa has a particularly heavy disease burden that in some places is exacerbated by political unrest and warlordism. And, through COVID-19, the world has learned that disease knows no boundaries. Thus far, the United States has been largely spared from Ebola; that might not be true of another, now-unknown disease that has its origin in the rainforest.

When Félix Tshisekedi assumed power in in the Democratic Republic of the Congo at the start of 2019, he did so not because of the will of the voters (who apparently favored a different candidate), but because he had entered into an agreement with his predecessor, Joseph Kabila, and Kabila’s political party, the Common Front for Congo (FCC). Tshisekedi and his party got the presidency, but the FCC dominated the parliament and provincial governorships, controlling most levers of power throughout government. Since then, the two parties have coexisted in an uneasy and profoundly unproductive partnership.  But earlier this month, Tshisekedi formally and publicly ended the alliance, aiming to turn a widening rift into a clean break. He had already challenged the FCC’s dominance with his appointments to the constitutional court and electoral commission. Recently he embarked on a set of inclusive political consultations clearly aimed at broadening support for a significant change. Now Tshisekedi is seeking to reconfigure the balance of power in Parliament, scoring a major success on December 10 when a majority of deputies voted to oust the President of the National Assembly, Kabila ally Jeanine Mabunda. On the bright side, these developments could mean an end to a dysfunctional stalemate that has hindered governance in a country confronting multiple security, health, and economic challenges. Few advocates for reform in Congo would be sorry to see the FCC lose control. An examination of the eighteen-year record of Kabila’s presidency, and his behind-the-scenes machinations since finally succumbing to pressure to leave office, reveals little to inspire confidence that his political machine has either the desire or capacity to deliver needed governance solutions. But it is important to remember that for all the understandable frustration with Kabila and the FCC, to be opposed to their continued dominance is not the same as being a champion for increased accountability and better governance in the DRC. Generations of Congolese people have suffered from terrible governance, both externally imposed and home-grown. A glimmer of hope for meaningful change would be most welcome. Whether the latest developments represent such an opportunity is not at all clear. Few savvy observers expect Kabila and his allies to quietly lick their wounds. What the pushback looks like, and how destabilizing it might be, remains to be seen. Even if Tshisekedi succeeds in wresting control of the levers of power from the FCC without a major flare up of political violence, there is no guarantee that changes in relative power at elite levels will translate to change in the direction of the country or the conditions of its people. The stakes of the latest tussle are clear for politicians and businesspeople who depend on access to the state for profitable opportunities. But just as the 2018 election substituted elite accommodation for genuinely responding to the will of the people, the latest dramatic political developments could have little bearing on the lives of most Congolese. The measure of success for Congolese leadership should be found in concrete improvements in security, service delivery, transparency, and respect for the rule of law, not high-profile power struggles.

Professor Dorothée Baumann-Pauly is director of the Geneva Center for Business and Human Rights at Geneva University's School for Economics and Management and research director at the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights. Cobalt is an essential mineral used for batteries in electric cars, computers, and cell phones. Demand for cobalt is increasing as more electric cars are sold, particularly in Europe, where governments are encouraging the sales with generous environmental bonuses. According to recent projections by the World Economic Forum’s Global Battery Alliance, the demand for cobalt for use in batteries will grow fourfold in 2030 as a result of this electric vehicle boom. More than 70 percent of the world’s cobalt is produced in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and 15 to 30 percent of the Congolese cobalt is produced by artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM). For years, human rights groups have documented severe human rights issues in mining operations. These human rights risks are particularly high in artisanal mines in the DRC, a country weakened by violent ethnic conflict, Ebola, and high levels of corruption. Child labor, fatal accidents, and violent clashes between artisanal miners and security personnel of large mining firms are recurrent. ASM cannot simply be shut down, however. It is a lifeline for millions of Congolese who live in extreme poverty. Cutting ASM out of the cobalt supply chain is neither feasible, due to the interwoven nature of the cobalt supply chain, nor desirable from a development perspective. Instead, companies committed to setting up responsible cobalt sourcing practices need to take responsibility for addressing the human rights violations that taint the DRC’s ASM sector. Some companies have started experimenting with so-called ASM formalization projects, which regulate mining methods and working conditions. During a research trip to Kolwezi in the DRC in September 2019, I visited the two largest active cobalt ASM formalization projects, one led by the Swiss-based commodity trading firm Trafigura, and the other by the biggest Chinese cobalt processing firm, Huayou Cobalt. Several other formalization projects are currently in the planning phase. Lessons from these projects and recommendations for companies were recently published in a World Economic Forum White Paper. Most importantly, companies need to work with key stakeholders to establish a common ASM standard for mine safety and child labor and ensure ASM cobalt is sourced responsibly. “ASM formalization” can mean very different things to different companies, and no common standard or uniformity in its implementation exists. This lack of a common understanding of what constitutes “responsible ASM” hampers the acceptance of ASM cobalt in the market. Many large companies are currently not sourcing from the DRC because of human rights concerns. Many other companies that produce electronics or electric vehicles are, at least officially, not using cobalt from ASM sites, although they are well aware of the practical difficulties of separating out ASM cobalt from industrial production by tracking it at these mining sites. To improve consumer confidence that cobalt from the DRC is not mined by children or in unsafe conditions, the mining industry needs to formalize its approach to these ASM sites. This requires a recognition that ASM will continue, that industry human rights standards will need to be put in place, and that those on the ground will need to have the capacity to monitor compliance with those standards. The DRC government has adopted a Mining Code and has already begun to assign pieces of land specifically for ASM. But full implementation of ASM formalization at scale will also require the support of private companies. These are enormously complex undertakings, but we can learn from several existing ASM formalization pilot projects and build these models to scale while also beginning to address the root causes for systemic human rights challenges in the DRC, such as child labor. Several leading companies are beginning to support common standards for ASM formalization. Working in a multi-stakeholder setting with key actors along the supply chain, globally and in the DRC, including the government, cooperatives and concession holders, civil society organizations, workers, and manufacturing and end-user companies will be key to developing systems that promote responsible cobalt production and trade practices. The increasing world demand for battery minerals presents a unique opportunity to develop a model for responsible ASM cobalt. The benefits from the cobalt model could apply to the estimated 40 million artisanal miners around the world that work on extracting different minerals for a living. Solutions need to be put in place before the electric vehicle boom really takes off. The time for action is now.

Black Lives Matter protests in France and the United Kingdom have intensified the domestic debate over their countries’ past colonialism and present racism. Demonstrators, numbering in the thousands, have toppled memorials to historical figures associated with the slave trade and with colonial empires. In June, the protests spread to Belgium, with a crowd of about 10,000 in Brussels demonstrating against racism. On June 30, Belgian King Philippe, in a letter to Felix Tshisekedi, president of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), expressed his "regret" over his country’s exploitation of DRC. King Philippe stopped short of an apology. Under Belgium's system of governance, an apology would be deemed a "political act" and could be done only by parliament. However, in a statement following the King’s letter, the new prime minister, Sophie Wilmes, urged Belgians "to look its past in the face." For his part, President Tshisekedi, in remarks commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of DRC’s independence, called for closer ties between the two countries, but based on a common understanding of history: "I consider it necessary that our common history with Belgium and its people be told to our children in the Democratic Republic of Congo as well as in Belgium on the basis of scientific work carried out by historians of the two countries." Unlike his predecessors, King Philippe has never visited Congo. He had expected to attend the commemoration, but COVID-19 precluded travel. A rapprochement with its former colonizer has been part of DRC’s foreign policy since Tshisekedi was sworn in on January 24, 2019. In his first official trip to Europe, Tshisekedi traveled to Belgium in September 2019 for a four-day visit to turn the page on the poor relations between the two countries that existed under his predecessor, Joseph Kabila. The Belgians and other Europeans at the 1885 Congress of Berlin have much to regret. The Congress, in effect, allocated Congo to King Philippe’s ancestor, Belgian King Leopold II, who began ruling Congo as his personal property that year, without reference to the constitutional government in Brussels. His harsh labor policies were designed to maximize the production of natural rubber. His brutality and waves of lethal disease led to the deaths of up to 20 million people (though some estimates are far lower). His numerous, well-documented atrocities led to Europe-wide pressure to end his personal regime, and in 1908, Belgium annexed Congo, and thereafter ruled it as a colony. Nevertheless, Leopold II still has admirers in Belgium, especially among the older generation. He had long been seen as having brought "civilization" to Africa. A parliamentary vote on a formal apology to the DRC might prove controversial for the country's fragile politics.