WEST NOT BYSTANDERS IN DRC

Recent protests in Kinshasa have targeted Western embassies, including those of France and the US, as demonstrators accuse these foreign powers of complicity in the three-decade-long minerals conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) that counts as the deadliest since World War II, according to many sources including US-based and UN-associated NGO World Without Genocide.

While Western governments have issued mild condemnations of Rwanda's involvement, including token sanctions that leave senior Rwandan leadership untouched, their corporations continue to benefit from the DRC’s mineral wealth.

As NGO Focus Congo’s Pappy Orion (@pappyorion of @focuscongo/@focuscongo_drc) puts it, the European Union's financial support for Rwanda, extending as far as funding Rwandan troops in Mozambique, where French oil giant TotalEnergies has a $20 billion investment, suggests deeper strategic motives. He also argued that with China and Russia increasing their presence in Africa, Western powers are prolonging the conflict under the guise of later stepping in as peacemakers.

The DRC has seen little peace since Europeans carved up Africa and handed it to Belgian King Leopold II, who killed as many as 15 million people and enslaved our people to produce rubber. A glimmer of hope at independence was whiffed out with the assassination of Pan-African icon Patrice Lumumba (1925-61) at the hands of Belgian-, UK- and US-backed Congolese forces. The fall of the dictator, Mobutu Sese Seko (1930-97), provided no reprieve, as the minerals conflict k*lled more than 6 million people by 2010 and internally displaced over 7 million.

Sources

https://x.com/LarryMadowo/status/1884219097887695006

Leopold in Congo

https://x.com/LarryMadowo/status/1884219097887695006

Western firms profiting off blood minerals

https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-appeals-court-dismisses-child-labor-case-against-tech-companies-2024-03-05/ 

Total Rwanda deal

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/07/11/after-the-success-of-its-army-in-mozambique-rwanda-expects-economic-rewards_6049404_4.html 

CIA Lumumba

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/10/17/patrice-lumumba-congo-washington-00121755 

DRC killed and displaced since Rwanda genocide

https://africacenter.org/spotlight/drc-conflict-new-phase

Deadliest conflict

https://worldwithoutgenocide.org/genocides-and-conflicts/congo 

6 million dead as of 2010

https://www.caritas.org/2010/02/six-million-dead-in-congos-war 

700,000 flee since January 2025

https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/02/1160486 

Rwanda in Mozambique

https://ieefa.org/resources/list-reasons-not-finance-totalenergies-mozambique-lng-project-grows 

Displacements

https://reliefweb.int/report/democratic-republic-congo/iom-democratic-republic-congo-internal-displacement-overview-september-2024 (click on PDF)

US on Rwanda

https://www.state.gov/sanctioning-drivers-of-violence-in-the-democratic-republic-of-the-congo

EU Parliament on Rwanda

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20250206IPR26752/meps-want-to-suspend-eu-rwanda-deal-on-critical-raw-materials

UK on Rwanda

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/25/uk-suspends-aid-to-rwanda-over-alleged-support-for-drc-rebels

King Leopold's murder rate

https://congoinconversation.fondationcarmignac.com/en/reportages/protesting-belgium-s-colonial-legacy-in-congo-pamela-tulizo