A History of Coltan Mining and Extraction in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
To fuel its tech boom, as is its nature, the First World is preying upon the Third for its resources
Note: This piece was originally written as an essay for AAAS/HIST 307: Modern Africa, Honors, a course at KU. It has since been further edited and refined.
Introduction
The wealthiest country of the world in terms of GDP is the United States of America, with over $25 trillion last year, or over ¼ of the world’s wealth.1 However, if one were to define wealth based on natural resources instead of monetary holdings, the wealthiest nation may instead be the largest francophone country in the world: the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).2 The DRC has a long and difficult history, particularly as it relates to colonialism. Despite having vast reserves of resources like natural rubber, cobalt, diamonds, gold, silver, timber, uranium, zinc, tin, coffee, and coltan, the Congolese people have seen very little of the vast wealth extracted from their fertile lands and bountiful mines returned to them.3 Instead, outside actors, directly or by proxy, have taken much of the wealth from the nation, leaving it chronically unstable.
Particularly in the far-eastern provinces of North and South Kivu, known jointly as the Kivus, the valuable mineral coltan has been aggressively exploited by warring rebel factions since the start of the 1998 Second Congo War, with little to no reprieve since.4 Coltan, short for columbite-tantalite, is a dull, black rock which contains the element tantalum. When refined, tantalum has a powerful capacity to store electric charge and is highly heat-resistant, making it indispensable in the manufacturing of digital technologies like cell phones, laptops, and electric vehicles. Congo holds 80% of the world’s supply of coltan, with some estimates putting the total amount in natural reserves at 450,000 metric tons.5 As such, when examining the history of the Congo and the wars in its east, it is clear the DRC has retained some colonial-economic vestiges in the form of constant, externally-induced instabilities and conflict-proneness over coltan and other high-demand “conflict minerals”.
A Brief History of the Congo
In the early 1880s, King Leopold of Belgium decided that his country, one scarcely larger than the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area, ought to keep parity with the other European powers and acquire a colony of their own.6 In 1885, Leopold sent his men into Africa to claim the Congo as his own, thus establishing the Congo Free State.7 Contrary to its name, however, those in Leopold’s Congo were anything but free. In his efforts to extract iron, gold, and especially rubber from the region, Leopold deployed devastatingly brutal measures to ensure quotas were met, infamously including cutting off the hands of his indentured indigenous laborers. By 1908, under public pressure over the brutality of his treatment of the Congolese, Leopold resigned control over his Congo to the Belgian state, but not before burning the documents detailing what he did there. In all, roughly half the population, or about 10 million people, died under the King’s rule.8 The Belgian state did not do much to change the practices Leopold had established as they continued to rule over the state, extracting the resources they now controlled.
By 1960, however, the independence movements had placed sufficient pressure on the Belgians to finally give in to Congolese demands for independence, and in June of 1960, the Congolese people elected Patrice Lumumba as their new president. In his inauguration speech, Lumumba reflected on the ill-treatment of the Congolese by the Belgians, celebrating his people’s independence as representatives from the Belgian government watched on. At that point, Lumumba’s rule looked promising as a decisive postcolonial step towards true liberation.9 Tragically, however, his time in power lasted only a few months. On January 17th, 1961, French and Belgian agents captured Lumumba, killed him, carved up his corpse, and dissolved him in acid until all that remained of his body was his gold tooth.10 After his murder, there was no clear line of succession in the newly-independent Congo, leading to instability and infighting, thus preventing an effective transition of power to a new, potentially decolonially-minded, leader.11
Taking advantage of the power vacuum, Mobutu Sese Seko assumed the role of leader – and didn’t let go for over 30 years. As president of the DRC, which for a time was renamed to Zaire, the “Kurtz”, as he was called, led a cult-of-personality rule which left the DRC in a state of running on “low batt[ery]”. He stole the equivalent of $5 billion USD through embezzlement and corruption, pitted ethnic minorities against each other to secure his own rule, and most importantly, with regards to natural resources, effectively created a “second economy”.12 This system, often known as Système D, got its name from the Mobutu-era slogan “Débrouillez-vous”, which effectively translates to “fend for yourselves” and was ostensibly representative of the Congolese cultural value of self-sufficiency. At the same time he was promoting himself as the father of his nation, he was effectively leaving the Kivus in the east of his country out to rot.13 His policies created an opportunity for illicit resource extraction operations to emerge, including for metals like coltan, reinstating the same extractive practices that had plagued the Congo during colonial rule.
Following the fall of Mobutu in 1997 after the First Congo War, President Joseph Kabila emerged as the head of state in the DRC. Due to his aggressive, militaristic policies, combined with a continued neglect of the east, the Second Congo War began, involving other regional powers including Rwanda and Uganda, as well as western powers by proxy.14 Within 10 years, over 5.4 million Congolese had died as a direct result of the war.15 While clear developments in Congolese political stability have occurred since then, particularly since the democratic elections of 2018, the Kivus remain ravaged by war. It seems that “the faces of DRC leaders may be different the names of places may have changed, but the Congo's horror is unchanged.”16
Coltan in the Congo
Some may suggest that the Congo is in a constant state of war and instability in spite of its vast resources. Arguably, however, the conditions in the Congo are caused by their potential wealth. The phenomenon of resource-rich countries being plagued by perpetual conflict has been dubbed by some as the “resource curse”, in which “resource-rich countries are less wealthy and less competently governed than those lacking in natural resources.”17 Most often, these lesser-resourced countries are western powers, reliant on a constant instream of raw materials to sustain their economy. As such, if there are means to acquire these materials more cheaply and easily, such as by taking advantage of a poorly-governed and conflict-prone country, these monetarily-wealthier capitalist countries are likely to pursue those means.18
At the start of the First Congo War in 1996, the military of neighboring Rwanda occupied the Kivus. However, even after the official end of the war, Rwandan forces remained, both directly and by proxy through rebel groups who maintained great control over the region, and by extension, its resources.19 A UN report in 2001 suggests that “Rwandan 'production' of tin, tantalum, gold and diamonds rose suddenly in 1997, the year that Rwandan troops were first deployed on Congolese soil.” This, in combination with the instability and fallout from the inter-ethnic Congolese war in 1993, the Rwandan Genocide in 1994, and Mobutu’s neglect of the Kivus combined with the provinces’ subsequent deference to neighboring countries for authority, created an opportunity for expropriation by the Rwandan government.
Following the start of the Second Congo War, rebels from the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD) began to focus on a mineral that was becoming increasingly desirable to support the increasing manufacture of portable technologies: coltan. In territories they controlled, the rebels began aggressively facilitating extraction and trade of coltan through middlemen to rebel-supported comptoirs, or buyers. For coltan in particular, “most of the coltan extracted by civilians and prisoners [was] sold to intermediaries (civilians or soldiers) who in turn [sold] it to comptoirs, some of which [were] controlled by the Rwandan military.”20 These comptoirs often had license fees, much of which went directly back to rebel groups like the RCD who massively increased these fees under their direction.21 Once rebel groups acquired the mineral, “the quasi-totality of this coltan [was] sent to Kigali, and [was] generally stored in facilities owned by the Government.”22 From there, it was often sold to capacitor producers in the US, Germany, Korea, Japan, and China.23 Despite “removal of Coltan ores by an occupying foreign army [being considered] looting and a war crime,” Rwanda maintains an effective monopoly over tantalum production in the region.24 Although the comptoir system was replaced in 2000 and the coltan market having crashed by early 2001, hurting profitability, rebel control and extraction continued.
All of this constitutes the “economization of conflict”, meaning that this extraction of resources was not only financially sustaining the efforts of the rebels, but giving them a reason to keep fighting. While the First Congo War was largely ideological in nature, since the start of the Second Congo War, “the fight to control Congo as a whole has given way to military strategies on the part of all actors to dominate the natural resources.”25 In fact, ”The RCD's split into separate 'Rwandan' and 'Ugandan' wings”, which later evolved into various factions still at war to this day, “owed as much to mineral deposits as to ideology.”26 Rather than simply competing over ideological differences, “the government army and various rebel groups compete to control mines, trade centers, tax routes, customs rackets, and smuggling opportunities, providing funds that allow the continuation of campaigns of violence. Thus, such illegal trade has a self-sustaining rationale.”27 Put simply, the war makes the mining possible, and the mining makes profit for those who control it.
What gets left behind in this perpetual war are the lives and livelihoods of the Congolese who live in the Kivus; “The situation on the ground remains catastrophic.”28 Money made from extraction is not reinvested into the places the coltan comes from, rather it is used up by the rebel groups to sustain their war effort, the rebel’s benefactor countries, and those purchasing the tantalum for manufacturing. This has left the people of the Kivus in a dire state, as beyond coltan mining, there is little else one can make a living from. To this day, children are forced to work in the coltan extraction process, including in sluicing, petty smuggling, washing, and more. Despite the Congolese mining code being changed in 2017 to ban child mining, the practice remains widespread.29 One number from 2020 puts the total number of child miners at 40000.30 Moreover, miners face risks like radon exposure, forced prostitution, contracting STIs, and death for resisting rebels.31 Around the end of the Second Congo War, roughly 90% of Kivuian young men were coltan panning; those who were not mining were either struggling to make a living through agriculture or trying to escape the region.
Today, there are four major factions in the region: DRC militias backed by western powers and the UN, M23 Tutsi rebels backed by Rwanda and Uganda, the FDLR which is composed of ex-Interahamwe Hutu forces, and the NDC-R backed by ISIS of Central Africa. Many Congolese with the means to do so protest against the war, with many of them focusing on the role western governments have played in facilitating and arming the warring factions.32 Notably, according to a 2021 report from the Transnational Institute titled “Smoking Guns”, European arms, which make up roughly a fourth of the global market, are being smuggled into conflict zones by third-party traders, even despite end user agreements and tracing programs. In the Congo, ”Between 2012 and 2015 Bulgaria exported assault rifles, large-calibre artillery systems, light machine guns, hand-held under-barrel and mounted grenade launchers to the [DRC] national police and military,” despite these arms being used “to perpetrate gross human rights violations”. Moreover, “in 2017, Serbia exported 920 assault rifles and 114 light machine guns that were originally manufactured in Bulgaria.” In the same year, 2017, that “2,166,000 people were forcibly displaced… Bulgarian weapons were in use in North Kivu… coinciding with the forced displacement of 523,000 people.”33 If it means better quarterly profits or stronger national security, though, such practices are all but certain to continue.
Colonial Legacies, or Leopold’s Ghost
When one traces the origins of this ongoing conflict in the Kivus and those that preceded it, it becomes clear that the extractive and exploitative logics and structures of colonialism remain deeply embedded in the region. In the era of colonialism, western powers would conquer African lands directly, taking what they pleased while imposing control over the indigenous peoples. In the era of Mobutu, colonial powers had to get more creative, forming partnerships with regional leaders to get what they needed. By the start of the Second Congo War, this included a partnership with Rwanda to ensure access to resources, made cheap through the war sustained through the profits from those resources, in the neighboring DRC. To this day, western powers, indirectly or otherwise, arm and finance the status quo in the Kivus. It never stops.
Over the last 25 years, analysts have offered a litany of different solutions, all aiming at securing regional peace and ensuring the Congolese people can benefit from their own wealth of natural resources.34 Still, nothing has fundamentally changed about the region. And until the demands of the Congolese people are met – for the end to the war and an end to backing by western powers – nothing will.
Works Cited
Apostolis Fotiadis, Niamh Ní Bhriain. “Smoking Guns.” Transnational Institute, 2021.
“Coltan: Earth Sciences Museum.” Earth Sciences Museum | University of Waterloo, 4 Dec. 2023.
“Countries in the World by Population (2024).” Worldometer
“Land Use According to the Land Register.” Statbel.
Scott, Pippa and Oreet Rees, directors. King Leopold’s Ghost. Journeyman Productions, 2011.
Sutherland, Ewan. “Coltan, the Congo and Your Cell Phone” SSRN, 11 Apr. 2011.
Endnotes
- “GDP by Country.” Worldometer
- “Countries in the World by Population (2024).” Worldometer
- Jackson, Stephen. “Making a Killing: Criminality & Coping in the Kivu War Economy.” Review of African Political Economy, vol. 29, no. 93/94, 2002, JSTOR, p. 525; Rodgers, Will. “Coltan, Cell Phones, and Conflict: The War Economy of the DRC.” New Security Beat, 2 Dec. 2008
- Lalji, Nadria. “The Resource Curse Revised: Conflict and Coltan in the Congo.” Harvard International Review, vol. 29, no. 3, 2007, JSTOR, p. 35
- “Coltan: Earth Sciences Museum.” Earth Sciences Museum | University of Waterloo, 4 Dec. 2023; Jackson, “Killing”, p. 523. For more on Coltan, see Coltan by Michael Nest (2011)
- “Land Use According to the Land Register.” Statbel; “Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex – Travel Guide at Wikivoyage.” Wikivoyage, Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., 12 Oct. 2024. I find this fact to be very funny.
- Scott, Pippa and Oreet Rees, directors. King Leopold’s Ghost. Journeyman Productions, 2011
- Laumann, Dennis. “Chapter 3: Violence” African World Histories: Colonial Africa, 1884-1994 (Oxford University Press, 2013); Pippa and Rees, King Leopold’s Ghost
- Newbury, David. “The Continuing Process of Decolonization in the Congo: Fifty Years Later.” African Studies Review, vol. 55, no. 1, 2012, JSTOR, p. 132-133
- Nyabola, Nanjala. “Lumumba’s Tooth Returned, Racist Logic of Colonisation Endures.” Al Jazeera, 30 June 2022
- Newbury, “Decolonization”, p. 134
- Dr. Elizabeth MacGonagle, “Congo”, HIST 307: History of Modern Africa, Honors (class lecture, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, 22 October 2024)
- Jackson, “Killing”, p. 520-523
- Newbury, “Decolonization”, p. 136
- Moszynski P. “5.4 million people have died in Democratic Republic of Congo since 1998 because of conflict, report says.” BMJ. 2008 Feb 2;336(7638):235
- Lalji, “Curse”, p. 34
- Lalji, “Curse”, p. 34
- Lalji, “Curse”, p. 35
- Jackson, “Killing”, p. 525-526, Newbury, “Decolonization”, p. 135-136, Lalji, “Curse”, p. 36
- Jackson, “Killing”, p. 526
- Jackson, “Killing”, p. 527
- Jackson, “Killing”, p. 526
- Sutherland, Ewan. “Coltan, the Congo and Your Cell Phone” SSRN, 11 Apr. 2011, p. 8
- Sutherland, “Cell Phone”, p. 3
- Jackson, “Killing”, p. 528
- Jackson, “Killing”, p. 528
- Prendergast, John. “Eastern Congo: An Action Plan to End the World’s Deadliest War (activist brief).” The Enough Project, 16 July 2009, p. 1
- Prendergast, “Congo”, p. 1
- Ojewale, Oluwole. “Child Miners: The Dark Side of the DRC’s Coltan Wealth.” ISS Africa, 18 Oct. 2021
- Vivuya, Bernadette. “As Incremental Efforts to End Child Labour by 2025 Persist, Congo’s Child Miners – Exhausted and Exploited – Ask the World to ‘Pray for Us.’” Equal Times
- Ojewale, “Miners”
- AfricaNews. “Anti-Western Demonstrations in DR Congo as Fighting Escalates in East.” Africanews, 13 Aug. 2024; Tasamba, James. “Explainer - Why Escalating DR Congo Conflict Is Fueling Anti-West Sentiment.” Anadolu Ajansı, 27 Feb. 2024
- Apostolis Fotiadis, Niamh Ní Bhriain. “Smoking Guns.” Transnational Institute, 2021
- Jackson, “Killing”, 2002 (528); Lalji, “Curse”, 2007, p. 37; Prenderghast, “Congo”, 2009; Newbury, “Decolonization”, 2012, p. 136-138; Ojewele, “Miners”, 2021
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