Congo: The Real-Life 'Vibranium' Wars

HOST: Congo. 

Papa: Just a question. Can you hear me? 

Ngofeen: Yes. 

Papa: What are you expecting when you say introduce yourself? Just the name? 

Ngofeen: Just however you want to be known.  

Host: We have some very special guests this week. I don’t know if you can tell from my tone, but I’m talking to the people who birthed me.  

Papa: My name is Makim Mputubwele. I’m a retired associate professor of Lane College in Jackson, Tennessee. /  

I’m from the Congo. 

Mama: Alright, my name is Mulata Moba. I am from the Democratic Republic of Congo. I am a mother, a wife, and I am a retired counselor for a mental health agency. 

Host: There’s some news coming out of the Democratic Republic of Congo these days. 

Mama: People that I know will ask… we heard that they killed folks. Is your family okay? Are they near where this is happening? And I say no, but they are my folks.  

‘Well, thank God it’s not your family.’ No, those are my family. You think of everything that is happening over there, but you can’t explain it to the people. 

Host: Since January, the Rwandan army and an armed group that they fund and support called M23 have captured two major cities in Congo….  

And the fighting between, on the one hand, Rwandan forces + M23, and on the other hand… the Congolese army and the armed groups it’s allied itself with… it’s endangering ordinary people. Soldiers killing, raping civilians caught in the crossfire.  

Y’know… light fare. 

Ngofeen: How do you feel right now about what’s going on in the Congo? 

Mama: Very sad. It’s not really – it's more than that. I’m mad. May I use I’m pissed? I can use that?  

Ngofeen: Yeah you can use that. 

Mama: Well you’re going to edit it anyway. 

Host: While this particular manifestation of the war is recent, it’s inseparable from the armed conflicts in the country that’s been going on for the past 30 years involving many African nations that have resulted in some six million deaths.  

Papa: I feel angry, mad, frustrated, impatient, and I can go on and on and on, but I’m going to explain one thing. It’s that this has been going on for over three decades. And nobody in the world – excuse me the word - gives a damn. Nobody cares. And compare to the situation that’s going on, that started 2 or 3 years ago with Ukraine, where the entire world was mobilized just for that. And you see the Congo, the number of people killed directly or indirectly, you can’t imagine. I saw pictures where people are being butchered like animals and they don’t care. 

Host: This is Rights & Wrongs, a podcast from Human Rights Watch. I'm Ngofeen Mputubwele. I am a writer, a lawyer, and a radio producer. Human Rights Watch asked me to look at human rights hotspots around the world through the eyes and ears of people on the front lines of history. 

On this episode, what’s going on in Congo, how did we get here, and how does it reframe what we all think about modern life?  

If you’re trying to understand the Congo, there’s a good chance you already have a great reference point for understanding.  

You remember Black Panther? If you didn’t see it, you’ve probably heard of… Wakanda… 

Archival/Disney/2018: Wakanda forever! 

Well, in the land of Wakanda, there was this really important and very rare metal. 

Archival/Disney/2018: It was taken by British soldiers in Benin, but it’s from Wakanda. And it’s made out of Vibranium… 

Archival/Disney/2018: You’re not telling me that’s vibranium too … 

Archival/Disney/2018: ... vibranium … 

Archival/Disney/2018: … vibranium … 

Host: Vibranium. It’s this fictional precious metal, found only in Wakanda that all of the superheroes and villains fight over. Superheroes need it to do their superhero stuff. A lot of people want it… 

And turns out: vibranium is real — except it’s not one fictional mineral. It’s several very real minerals. Congo is absolutely central to modern life. It's the engine behind the most pivotal moment in the 20th century - WWII (most of the uranium powering the atomic bomb was Congolese) and Congo is the quiet backbone of modern conversations about climate change, renewable energy, whether the internet, social media, smart phones – whether all of that is sustainable. In a way to me it’s the crucible of modern life. And vibranium today, it’s a lot of minerals. 

Lewis:  a lot of gold, a lot of, a lot of coltan, a lot of cobalt. A lot of minerals. The three Ts.  

Host: That’s Lewis Mudge. He is the Associate Africa Director at Human Rights Watch. In May last year, the M23 seized control of the Rubaya mine, one of the world's largest deposits of coltan. 

Lewis: They're carving out roads from Rubya straight into Rwanda. 

Host: And cobalt goes into almost every single electric car being produced on the planet.  

Archival/Tesla: I heard a question raised about cobalt mining and you know what? We will do a third-party audit.  

Host: Hence, Elon Musk: 

Archival/Tesla: And if anyone sees any children, please let us know. 

Host: And just like in the Black Panther movies, all of this violence and loss, all of the things that might feel really complex and confusing in the news – the materials that exist in Congo are a huge factor in it. 

Host: Ok so. How did we get here? 

Lewis Mudge: it is a huge country. 

The distance from the Western part of the country, where the capital Kinshasa is, to the Eastern border, is the same distance as London to Moscow. Lewis lived in the way Eastern part of the country where most of this story takes place. A city named... 

Ngofeen: Goma: when you think about the geography of Goma or around Goma, what's the comparison that you make, whether it's in the US or elsewhere in the world? Like gimme like what are we, what are the visuals? 

Lewis Mudge: The comparison to the the is is right where I am speaking to you right now. It's Vermont. It's hills, green, many of them pastures. Um, it's, it's lakes. I mean, this is the Great Lake region of Africa. 

Emmanuel Sekiyoba: You look at the area where I come from. Those volcanoes and the lake. 

Another Congolese person, Emmanuel Sekiyoba, professor of Economics in California who joined the call with my parents. My parents are from the West. He’s from the region, in the East. 

 Emmanuel Sekiyoba: The vegetation back home, it’s so wonderful  

 Lewis: One of the most idyllic places, in my opinion, in the world. 

Emmanuel Sekiyoba: And that’s how I feel. Except that when I look at where I come from, the calamities, the problems that has been happening there. It makes me wonder if we have done something wrong being born in that area. 

Ok so, to explain what’s happening now, I’m going to walk you through a few historical stops or events. The first stop actually does not take place in Congo. The first stop is in neighboring Rwanda.  

Lewis: Hotel Rwanda. 

You may remember Hotel Rwanda. The movie about the genocide that extremist Hutus committed against ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutu allies. Right before the genocide begins, the Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi are in a plane and they got shot down. No one knows by whom. 

Emmanuel Sekiyoba: When the two presidents got shot down, knowing the tension between Hutu and Tutsi in Rwanda. It sparked something in my mind: there will be some serious problems there. 

The president was Hutu. And political extremists who are Hutu side blame Tutsi. And execute this genocide. 

The genocide only ends when Paul Kagame, a Tutsi who leads an army called the RPF - Rwandan Patriotic Front - drives the Rwandan Hutu militias out into the country next door.  

Lewis: You know, Hotel Rwanda, uh, the movie ends, right? The genocide ends and the movie ends. And that's not what happened. The genocide ended and the region then had its own absolutely terrific bloodletting. So in many ways, the genocide was over and the movie was just getting started.  

Host: It’s a grim movie. 

Lewis:  They grabbed, I mean, the, they had done, they had committed genocide. 

 they targeted tootsies, they killed families. I mean, you know, they, they killed hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of tootsies over the course, uh, uh, of just a few months in a very efficient genocide. And they realized they were in big trouble once the RPF, their enemy, had taken over Rwanda, and so they had to get out as quick as they could, and they needed cover. And so you saw, you can hear the recordings. I mean, you can read about it now. The, the people who committed genocide were saying to the Hutu civilians, they're going to kill you. You have to come with us. We were forcing you to come with us.  And so you saw masses of people leave Rwanda, um, for Eastern Zaire, uh, to save their lives. 

Host: That neighbor Zaire? …. That is Congo. It’s an old name. 

Lewis: Millions of Hutu leave Rwanda. 

Emmanuel Sekiyoba: Like a massive wave of people came across Goma to get into Congo.  

HOST: Paul Kagame becomes President of Rwanda. He looks sort of … mild-mannered: he’s got these big glasses that frame his face, and he’s got this sort of stern smile on at all times. Like even when he’s saying he’s ready to fight, it sounds like he could be telling you about the weather.  

Kagame builds this country up. He grew up in exile, in Uganda, speaking English. He changes the language of the Rwanda from French to English. Turns it into the Rwanda of today.  

Lewis: Rwanda is a country that loves its brand. You know, if anyone who is listening to this follows soccer, Arsenal Paris Saint Germain and Bayern Munich are all supported. 

They have marketing deals with Rwanda, with this big “visit Rwanda”, emblem on the players' arm bands  which is a brand of, ‘it's a safe place to visit. It's a safe place to do business’. The NBA has a developmental league in Kigali. 

HOST: But Reminder. Kagame has been president for nearly 25 years now. So the reality is pretty different from the brand. 

Lewis:  The RPF is a very authoritarian government. They control, they control what people are allowed to say. 

We, we've documented people who get in trouble for having a drink in a bar and saying something. So I'm not exaggerating when I say this is you, you have to be very careful about what you discuss. 

Host: That was our first stop.  

[HRW ad]  

HOST: Second big stop:  

Lewis: October ‘96. 

HOST: October 1996 

Lewis: October 96 is a date that's really seared into the brains of many people who were alive back then. And that was when Rwanda invaded Bukavu. Millions of Rwandans had fled into refugee camps that were in what was then eastern Zaire. 

Host: Well, Rwanda is literally on the eastern border with Congo. And Rwanda... after having driven the Rwandan Hutu militants out into Eastern Congo, into these massive refugee camps… Rwanda starts saber-rattling.   

Lewis: “We know that people who perpetrated genocide are in these camps. Uh, we consider them a threat and we're gonna clean these camps out.”  

 And October 96, um, Rwanda had enough. They were gonna clean these camps out, and they did so by shelling them with artillery and moving in and starting to target everybody. 

And so not only do you see, uh, an invasion, uh, you know, they, they crossed the border and, and went into Congo. 

Uh, but you saw a real, uh, bloodletting,  saw that civilians were absolutely an afterthought. Um, and that their priority was to either kill or push this mass of refugees further into the hinterland of DRC. 

That was the objective. Not to try to bring people home, not to try to do any meaningful ascertation of who might have committed the genocide and who hadn't. Um, no. It was, you know, ‘we don't have the time for that. We don't have the bandwidth for that. Let's kill everyone’. Um, so really just a terrible bloodletting started in Bukavu in 1996. 

That was the beginning of Rwanda's interference in the Eastern Congo. It also demonstrated that this is going to be a conflict that's gonna be marked by serious human rights abuses, war crimes, , crimes against humanity. Um, absolute acute violations of international humanitarian law.  

And it's just millions of people are gonna die. Millions. I mean, the numbers, you get numb to the numbers because they get so high. When you talk about the displacement, even where we are today, we're talking about millions of people displaced, you know, millions of people being moved around right now. 

Like chess pieces in, in the DRC, um, millions dead, starting in 96. 

Ngofeen: I remember when all the whispers start, all the meetings in congo, like my parents with their friends, all the, all the Congolese parents are like talking to each other and having these sort of, I don't know how to explain it to you, but to say that like, so you as a kid, you're like, I'm, I'm in the US. You're like, you know, playing games or whatever, and then you come out and all the parents are just like around a table or around in the living room with like dower faces, just know something serious is happening.  

Host: The story doesn’t end there.  

Under Paul Kagame, Rwandan armed forces go into Eastern Congo. They attack Hutus in the refugee camps indiscriminately. And it’s not just Rwandan Hutus, they’re attacking Congolese Hutus who weren’t involved in the genocide in Rwanda. 

And they don’t stop there. The armed forces decide they’re gonna march all the way across the country and take the capital, Kinshasa. They pick up Congolese allies along the way. And Uganda, where Paul Kagame grew up, joins in. 

Emmanuel Sekiyoba: It’s in Goma where everything is put together to march on Kinshasa. Using the child soldiers - they’re going to pick up kids from high school. Going just to school. They’re going to pick up the young men that are there and take them to training camps. And they will be supported by the RPF. And that’s how they will march all they way to Kinshasa.  

Papa: In the beginning, I didn’t even believe they would be able to reach Kinshasa because I said, their base is far back in Rwanda. I don’t see these people walking to Kinshasa. Because I’m sorry… you cannot imagine the distance from Bukavu to Mbandaka to Brazzaville. And those people walked.  

Host: Papa’s talking about people fleeing ahead of the armies marching.  

Ngofeen: Sorry. Papa. Can you say again, but if you can, don’t tap on the table because it’ll affect the microphone, but just say.  

Host: So people walked, fleeing the military forces. They marched from the East of the Congo all the way to the capitol in the West, taking territory.  

Papa: You cannot imagine… would that be from Texas to Tennessee? I don’t even know.  

Host: It’s much further. This is the length of Moscow to London. This march is truly like Napoleon level . Like walking from Illinois to Utah. It’s like walking the entire length of India from Mumbia to Dhaka, Bangladesh. And it’s gonna take a while, if it succeeds. People are just fleeing ahead. 

Papa: And while walking, they were being killed, bombarded by planes. You could see everything. 

Host: Along the way… people just DIE. Starvation. Massacres.  

But wait: if the genocide committers are in the Eastern Congo by the border, why are Rwandan troops and allies marching across the country? 

Lewis Mudge says it’s no longer just about the security of Rwanda -- i.e. the people who committed the genocide hanging out in Eastern Congo. It’s bigger: 

Lewis: if it were about, if it were about, well, we're worried about the, this is a purely security issue. Why would they hold territory? Why would they, after they pushed the, these, these, these Hutus out. Why would they hold territory? Why would they set up parallel administrative structures? Why would they set up an office in Kigali for the exportation of Congolese minerals, which they did?  

Why would the RPF, uh, the Rwandan Patriotic Front go on to become one of the richest political parties in the world, uh, on the back of Congolese minerals? The security argument is legitimate, but there are absolutely economic advantages that came into play. 

Host: Black Panther y’all. 

Ngofeen:  Ngofeen: Um, maybe it's a foolish question to ask, but why is that not like a Ukraine, Russia moment globally? Why is that not like right now? 

Lewis: It’s an interesting question. 

Ngofeen: Right now we can, we all have this memory. We can all sort of go, even if we don't know a lot about the politics, we can be like, you know, when Russia invaded Ukraine and it's like a, a seismic shift? 

Lewis: Yeah, I think there's the, look, there's several reasons, but I think the most important as they're germane to, to, to where we are today is that number one, the world and rightly so, felt this unbelievable guilt for what had happened in 94 in Rwanda. This was a genocide that was carried out by machetes, Um. The world absolutely positively could have stopped this genocide. 

And didn't hundreds of thousands of lives, could have been saved with a very minimal un peacekeeping force. There was actually a peacekeeping force on the ground, Belgians. Um, they, they ended up leaving. 

So the world,  The world felt this unbelievable guilt and that guilt translated then and in some ways continues today into Kagame getting a free rein. //  I have conversations with people very high up around the world who will tell me privately he still gets free rein because of our failures in 94. So you, you, you never were gonna hear this, um, Ukraine moment. They, on the contrary, there was some shoulder shrugging about like, well, you know, gosh, we, we didn't help them in 94. And so kind of means he can do what he wants. 

Host: Kagame and his allied forces depose the president of Congo, Mobutu Sese Seko… 

Kagame and his allied forces install a new president. You may have heard his name: President (Laurent) Kabila. So, so far so good from the perspective of the Rwandan, Ugandan, Congolese rebel-led allied armed forces. 

But then, all hell breaks loose in 1998. The new Congolese president - the one installed by Rwanda – he turns against the Rwandan led forces. He dismisses his chief of staff James Kabarebe, and replaces him with a Congolese person. (Side note: Kabarebe was just sanctioned by the US for his role coordinating Rwandan support to the M23 in the latest iteration of the crisis) 

Then Kabila orders all the Rwandan and Ugandan forces to leave the country. And a second war breaks out. 

And this turns into just a massive African war. It is an epic struggle over the Congolese version of vibranium. … Congo’s mineral resources. 

THEN…. In a final move of chaos… in 2001… the Congolese president, Laurent Kabila gets assassinated. The war intensifies. 

By 2003,, when I was hearing Hey Ya by Outkast on the radio and also Stacy's Mom - when that is happening, if you traced a line down the map of Africa north to south from Libya to South Africa,  

EVERY. 

SINGLE. 

Country on that line was involved in this huge African war, which revolved around the Congo. Libya. Chad. Sudan. Central African Republic. Uganda. Rwanda. Burundi. Tanzania. Zambia. Angola. Namibia. South Africa. And of course, the Congo. 

Archival/African Biographic/10-9-20: Nine African countries took part in this war including Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia. By 2008 the war in this aftermath had caused 5.4 million deaths principally through disease and starvation making the Second Congo War the deadliest conflict since World War II. 

Host: The UN… international diplomats… try to force everyone to the table. And create this compromise where there’s one Congolese president - Joseph Kabila, the assassinated guy’s son…. And 4 – 1 2 3 4 -- Vice Presidents.  

For a while, there’s a stretch of Calm. But things are tense.  

Lewis: you saw a lot of countries want to get in for either, uh, regional strategic interests, uh, to secure, to try to secure, uh, you know, their own companies and mining sites.  uh, Rwanda ramped up their mental exportation after these wars in which they take territory in the Congo. 

Ngofeen: So even dating back to ‘96? 

Lewis: Yeah, absolutely.  

Host: Until our third stop.  

Lewis:  October, November, 2008. 

Host: So you have this tentative peace… country’s broken into regions. That agreement falls apart. The group in the Eastern Congo that would become M23, they’re backed by Rwanda, and they decide they’re gonna rebel. 

in 2012, the M23, with Rwanda’s support, marches into Goma. But US President Obama makes a phone call to Kagame, and with international pressure, things change. 

Lewis: And we see Kagame pull back, 

Host: M23 pulls back, and when the M23 no longer receives the military support it needed from Rwanda, the Congolese army and UN forces quickly defeat the rebels.  

The Congolese government stalls efforts to demobilize and reintegrate former combatants, and there are very few efforts to bring to justice M23 and other armed group leaders implicated in abuses. 

And so, the problem never really went away. And now the current conflict breaks out in 2021, actually. It’s been going on for a few years. 

Lewis: So late 2021, here we are again. They, they rebelled  and this is all happening. With Kagame and Rwanda's blessing and support. Um, so this is not something happening in, in a void. This is happening, this is strategic. 

HOST: That brings us to today. The news you’re hearing out of Congo. The taking of Goma. And Bukavu. LAND and MINERALS. 

Lewis:  We're seeing a heavy presence of the Rwandans in these territories that, that are controlled. And very quickly, they started setting up state administrative structures. So, you know, they, they, they got on, they had a big meeting in Goma and said, let's get everyone back to school. 

You know, we're in a new Goma, let's get everyone back to school. Uh, they started, um. Obligatory cleanups around the city. So around Bukavu and around Goma, citizens are now being obliged to go out and clean up the city. They wanna present this image. They've started a taxing system. They've had meetings with people to explain how there's gonna be movement between Rwanda and the DRC under this new administration. 

So we're really seeing the setup of state administrative structures very, very quickly. And that to us indicates, they're in this for the long term. 

Host: You know I’m trained in audio editing and it's all about tight cuts. But given that we never hear from Congolese people, as we wrap up, you’re gonna hear from them now. And it’s not gonna be tight. We’re gonna give them space.  

Ngofeen: So thirty thousand feet as they Zoom out… we are talking about the intrigues and… twists and turns of politics. And the people who suffer from that is people living their lives, who have nothing to do with the politics. People are just living. There’s a question you have to answer that people will have inherently, which is like… ‘Ok. Now I understand how we got here.’ But then the question is “If I’m living in France, or if I’m living in Japan, if I’m living in Brazil, if I’m living in Canado, or if I’m living in Malaysia -- why should I care about what’s going on?’ 

Mama: First of all you should care because people are being killed. These people, are human beings, regardless of their colors. And why are they being killed? That’s where we talk about the land. We talk about the minerals. So, for them to get the minerals, they steal the minerals by killing the people. The owners are killing the Congolese. And everybody has to be involved. So the story of Congo has to be told. The minerals don’t only go to Rwanda. It goes to… all these other countries. The “powers” to be. Meaning it goes to Europe, it goes to America, Canada, wherever, China. They know that Rwanda doesn’t have these minerals. So they’re getting them from Congo. People need to care because guess what we’re all using the telephones. We have computers. We have all this stuff that we are using. We need to tell the stories of this minerals. Are producing these telephones that we all love and computers and all this other stuff, technology. Do people have to die for this to be made? No. So, this needs to stop. When you just think that my phone I’m using, somebody was dead for me to use this phone, that gonna ring a little bell. How? Well then, we can tell a little story. That’s why we are all marching, we are all doing whatever we can to let people know what is going one. How many people have to die?  

If you just count, yaya, if you just count, from January till now, people have died and they are still dying! Wow. I say what I say, it’s not enough, but you can just hear what is coming from me. 

Host: Y’all thought I cared about human rights. You have no idea. 

So, what do we do? What are Human Rights Watch’s recommendations? Back to Lewis… 

Lewis:  So the short term, this is only gonna come from pressure on Rwanda. Um  in once again, Kagame realizing that this has gone too far. Pressure on Rwanda and this can come in many forms and maybe that means, you know, people who watch soccer or watch Formula One or watch the NBA - the NBA has a developmental league in Kigali. Um, you know, they're gonna have to start recognizing that, um, there's a price to pay in, in the sportswashing. Uh, no, uh, there's a, there's a, there's a really dark negative side of this as well in which Rwanda's brand is in the region is that ‘this is a force for good’. And, um, whilst, you know, I lived there for many years, I raised my first kid there. Whilst there are some good things happening in Rwanda, and the Rwandan politics regionally are not stabilizing. Rwanda benefits from war in Eastern Congo in order to profit from the minerals in the ground. 

Host: And long term:  

Lewis: Longer term, we need to have in place in which we actually create a viable, meaningful army that is able to. Defend this country in a meaningful way, uh, that, that just has to happen.  This, this, this crisis might be put out, and six months from now, it might be an afterthought, but it'll come back in a few years. If the Congo is continually seen by its regional neighbors as a place to be exploited, to be abused, because its army is so hollowed out.  We're just gonna continue to have these cycles of violence. 

Emmanuel Sekiyoba: But as a Congolese, I’m hurt because my brother is suffering, I have to care. If you were in Indonesia, a tsunami came and wiped out something, I feel so bad, I leave near the ocean, it may be me tomorrow. Why not having that feeling? It doesn’t cost you any money. It doesn’t cost you any money. Why not care? Why?  

Host: For more on what’s been going on in the Democratic Republic of Congo, go to Human Rights Watch’s website: h-r-w dot o-r-g. 

The archival clips in this episode are from Disney, Tesla, MGM Studios, and African Biographic. 

You’ve been listening to Rights and Wrongs, from Human Rights Watch. This episode was produced by me and Curtis Fox. Our associate producer is Sophie Soloway. Thanks also to Ifé Fatunase, Stacy Sullivan, and Anthony Gale.  

We’re still short of our goal of 1 billion listeners, can you believe it? So, we still need you to help in spreading the word. Subscribe, leave a review, and let everyone know about the podcast on social media. I’m Ngofeen Mputubwele. Talk to you again in two weeks.