New report warns Congo peace efforts are undermined by mining interests

By Bharat Dogra 

Given the extreme violence that has long afflicted the region, there is no doubt that the conflict involving the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda, and several armed groups must end as soon as possible. Peace negotiations are therefore welcome. However, despite the urgency of restoring peace, a settlement reached earlier this year with the intervention of the United States appeared unlikely to succeed, as peace issues were subordinated to mining interests. The diplomacy on display was focused more on securing access to minerals than on building lasting stability. Instead of addressing the deeper, complex causes of conflict, the approach reflected short-term measures suited to facilitating mineral deals.

The persistence of violence and killings in the months following the agreement has confirmed these concerns. Hundreds of people, including civilians, have been killed. A new report from the US-based Oakland Institute, titled “Shafted: The Scramble for Critical Minerals in the DRC,” released in October 2025, underscores the dangers of prioritizing mineral access over genuine peace.

“US involvement in Congolese affairs has always been unequivocally tied to the goal of securing access to critical minerals,” said Frédéric Mousseau, co-author of the report and Policy Director at the Oakland Institute. “The ‘peace’ deal comes after decades of US training, advising, and sponsoring foreign armies and rebel movements, and at a time when Rwanda and its proxy M23 have expanded territorial control in eastern DRC. This is a win-lose deal that serves US mining interests and rewards Rwanda for decades of pillaging Congolese resources.”

The report’s analysis of previously overlooked coltan trade data shows that the United States has played a central role in laundering illegally smuggled Congolese minerals. Rwanda’s tantalum (derived from coltan) exports to the US rose 15-fold between 2013 and 2018, following the first M23 invasion in 2012 and coinciding with the US administration’s waiver of sanctions against Rwanda. At one point, more than half of US tantalum imports came from Rwanda, despite the country’s limited production capacity. The report warns that the regional economic integration underpinning the recent “peace” agreement could legitimize this laundering.

“With the world's largest reserves of critical minerals, the Congolese will continue to bear the social and environmental costs of extraction, while Rwanda reaps the benefits from processing and exporting its neighbour’s resources,” said Andy Currier, report co-author and Policy Analyst at the Oakland Institute. “The deception is even more obvious knowing that Rwanda’s Minister of State for Regional Integration is James Kabarebe – sanctioned by the US Treasury in early 2025 for orchestrating Rwanda’s support for M23, coordinating mineral exports from the DRC, and managing the revenues generated by this extraction.”

According to the report, the regional integration plan backed by the US aims to establish two key export routes for Congolese minerals: one positioning Rwanda as a hub for resources extracted in the conflict-prone east, and another upgrading the Lobito Corridor, an export route to the Atlantic for copper and cobalt mined in southern DRC. The latter is financed through a US$553 million loan to Angola by the US Development Finance Corporation (DFC).

Several mining deals along these routes are already being negotiated by US firms backed by influential billionaires, former US officials, and figures linked to the military and intelligence establishments. “True peace and prosperity will only come when the Congolese – not foreign powers – set the terms of the country’s future,” said Maurice Carney, Executive Director of Friends of the Congo. “Under the US-brokered ‘peace,’ the suffering of the Congolese people persists, and a new era of exploitation unfolds.”

The Oakland Institute concludes that US involvement in the DRC has far more to do with securing strategic mining access than with ending violence. The agreement rewards aggression while sidelining essential elements of sustainable peace: accountability for perpetrators, justice for victims, and respect for Congolese sovereignty.

Earlier, the Oakland Institute had also reported on land and resource grabs in Ukraine by powerful interests. Such reports expose how influential global actors manipulate conflicts to serve narrow economic agendas, often pushing genuine peacebuilding aside. In a region as fragile and violence-prone as Rwanda and the DRC, peace must be pursued with sincerity and independence — not subordinated to the lure of lucrative mineral deals.

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The writer is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Protecting Earth for Children, A Day in 2071, and Planet in Peril