Trump's 'minerals-for-protection' pact with DRC unlikely to yield peace

**DRC President Felix Tshesekedi**. [File, Standard]

Massad Boulos, US President Donald Trump’s advisor on Africa and the Middle East, was in Africa to meet Presidents Felix Tshesekedi in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, Uganda’s Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, and Kenya’s William Ruto. He also stopped in Paris where Nigerian President Bola Tinubu was receiving treatment. His real interest, however, was Congo which is geographically so big and rich that it seems like two countries in one; Eastern and Western Congo. Since the US is interested in Congolese strategic minerals, Boulos and Tshesekedi reached an understanding on Americans accessing Congo’s natural wealth as a way of promoting security and an elusive ‘peace’ in the region.

Peace, a contrived reality, occurs when various players agree to contrive it. The reasons for striving to make peace include the pain from negative conflicts, pressure from interested groups acting as mediators, and the possibility of a common ‘enemy’ emerging temporarily to unify the parties in conflict. Players can also destroy existing peace if it does not appear to serve specific interests. In situations of intense rivalry for resources, ‘peace’ is actually an ‘enemy’ of entrenched interests. This seems to have been the case in Congo where leaders repeatedly turn on each other and plunge the region into deadly confrontations. As a result, the effort to bring peace in the Congo region regularly hits hard rocks.

In its 140 years of colonial and post-colonial existence, Congo has experienced multiple invasions mainly because it is rich in natural wealth. These invasions have been military, mercenary, commercial, mineral resource looting, and cultural/spiritual. It also experienced multiple-colonialism due to changes in ownership or control. Subsequently, Congo often attracts extra-continental adventurers and looters who compete for its wealth and ensure that the region knows no peace.

Fear of white people killing each other in Africa led to the 1884 Berlin Conference on the Partition of Africa. The conference participants, argues Francis Khayundi, made international law by setting rules for grabbing African territories. First, they partitioned the Congo region with Belgian King Leopold receiving Congo as his personal property. Second, they agreed on the procedure for claiming territories and legitimising those claims. They also required each to show effective occupation. Third, they agreed not to fight in Africa. Thereafter, Africans lost legitimacy, independence, and sovereignty to European capitals. Leopold showed effective occupation through brutality. He sold Congo to his kingdom in 1908 and the colony became Belgian Congo.

Congo’s strategic value skyrocketed during and after World War II because, first, it provided the uranium used to make the atomic bomb and, second, the exigencies of emerging Cold War competition. Congo became central to US Cold War calculations in Africa. The objective was to deny the Soviet Union access to Congo’s wealth. When Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba in 1960 vowed to interact with all powers and use resources to benefit the Congolese, he aroused geo-strategic anger. His ouster, assassination, and imposition of Joseph Mobutu as the ruler plunged Congo into perpetual chaos. Mobutu ruled like Leopold and outlived his usefulness in the 1980s. The US, reassessing its policy, decided to abandon client tyrannical rulers like Mobutu.

Several African countries supported Kabila to oust Mobutu in 1997 only to turn on each other and fight in Congo. They fought in Eastern Congo, exported Congolese minerals, and joined extra-continental forces to exploit the mines. With the extra-continental forces supplying guns for the 140 militias in DR Congo, the government in Kinshasa has little say in Eastern Congo. Since it needs serious assistance beyond what the UN and African states can provide, Tshesekedi, having seemingly followed discussions between Ukraine and the US on exchanging rare earth minerals for security, offered Congolese rare earth minerals in exchange for US military protection. Although Boulos secured a deal to await implementation, conflicting external interests will ensure that ‘peace’ remains elusive.