“Cheated! The rush for critical minerals in the DRC.” This is the title of the report just published by the Oakland Institute, an independent American think tank that aims to contribute to major social, economic and environmental issues. The Congolese press has produced articles on this report.

Actualite.cd begins with the context of the signing after the fall of the cities of Goma and Bukavu to M23 rebels supported by Rwanda.

“In the aftermath of the fall of Goma and Bukavu and after the failure of the Luanda process, the Washington agreement and the Doha process are the two complementary parts of major diplomatic initiatives aimed at ending the persistent conflicts in eastern DRC, particularly those involving Rwanda and armed groups such as the M23,” according to this online newspaper.

“While US President Donald Trump hailed the ‘peace’ agreement between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as the end of a deadly three-decade war, a new report from the Oakland Institute casts a shadow over this announcement,” states the opinion news website.

“Entitled Shafted: The Scramble for Critical Minerals in the DRC, the document asserts that this diplomatic initiative primarily conceals a US strategy aimed at consolidating control over critical Congolese minerals,” adds Opinion Infos.

For researchers at the Oakland Institute, this diplomatic agreement is not a step towards peace, but rather a “win-lose deal,” according to the Kinshasa-based media outlet.

The report acknowledges that formalising trade through the Washington agreement “may reduce these losses”, but stresses that “with its much larger mineral deposits, the DRC will continue to be the site of extraction, with enormous social and environmental costs, while Rwanda will benefit from the processing and export of minerals around the world,” according to DeskEco.com.

The report acknowledges that formalising trade through the Washington agreement “may reduce these losses”, but stresses that “with its much larger mineral deposits, the DRC will continue to be the site of extraction, with enormous social and environmental costs, while Rwanda will benefit from the processing and export of minerals around the world,” according to DeskEco.com.

The report acknowledges that formalising trade through the Washington agreement “may reduce these losses”, but stresses that “with its much larger mineral deposits, the DRC will continue to be the site of extraction, with enormous social and environmental costs, while Rwanda will benefit from the processing and export of minerals around the world”, according to DeskEco.com.

“According to the study, the United States turned a blind eye to massive exports of tantalum, a metal extracted from coltan, from Rwanda,” reports lafortune.net, a media outlet focusing on economic trade issues. It goes on to add that “At its peak, more than half of US tantalum imports came from Rwanda, despite its limited mining production.”

Finances Entreprises focused directly on the plundering of Congolese mineral resources by Rwanda with the tacit agreement of the United States. “The analysis of historical coltan trade data presented in the report shows that the United States played a central role in laundering Congolese minerals smuggled by Rwanda. Total exports of tantalum (extracted from coltan) from Rwanda to the United States increased 15-fold between 2013 and 2018,” the daily newspaper reports.

Written by Akilimali Chomachoma