Europe’s hunger for minerals for its electric cars and microchips is sparking accusations that it is inflaming conflict in eastern Congo, one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises that has killed 6 million people over recent decades.
The outrage was provoked by a strategic minerals deal that the European Commission struck on Feb. 19 with Rwanda, which borders the Democratic Republic of the Congo. For the EU — caught in a race with China for the resource riches of Central Africa — the agreement is an opportunity to gain access to the ingredients it needs for its “green and clean energy objectives.”
The EU’s critics hit back that the pact will create a smokescreen to smuggle “blood minerals” out of eastern Congo — not least because Rwanda is accused of playing a decisive role in the war on the other side of the border with its support for an insurgent rebel group called M23.
President Félix Tshisekedi of Congo, whose forces are fighting the M23 militia, denounced the EU-Rwanda deal within days as “a provocation in very bad taste.”
Since the deal was inked, the Rwanda-linked M23 fighters have extended their hold over eastern Congo’s mineral resources. In late April — just as French President Emmanuel Macron implored Rwanda to stop supporting M23 — the rebels seized Rubaya, a mining hotspot near the border in eastern Congo.
An M23 spokesman was quick to deny coveting the area’s rich reserves of coltan ore — a source of ingredients used to make smartphones and cars.
But it’s those abundant mineral resources and their smuggling that often help to finance armed groups in eastern Congo, fueling a spiral of violence and human rights abuses in a decades-long conflict that, in addition to the millions killed, has displaced 7 million more.
Beyond human rights
The EU has issued calls to deescalate the violence and pledged to ramp up humanitarian aid, but the minerals agreement with Rwanda is in danger of exacerbating rather than reducing the conflict, regional experts argue.
The deal sends the message that “the EU, because it needs access to minerals, can go beyond the principles of human rights,” Emmanuel Umpula Nkumba, executive director of African Natural Resources Watch, said over the phone from Lubumbashi in Congo’s southeast.
The big problem is that Rwanda is one of the main destinations for coltan and other minerals smuggled across Congo’s eastern border. Rwanda exports more minerals for processing and manufacturing than it mines, the U.S. State Department said this month, citing U.N. figures.
The Great Lakes region is of strategic interest to global powers as they hunt for the minerals and metals needed for wind turbines, solar panels and consumer electronics. It is the source of half the world’s tantalum, which is extracted from metallic coltan ore and used in electronic components.
Facing strong pushback after signing the deal, the EU executive has tried to clarify its intentions, POLITICO found in conversations with officials, activists and researchers — arguing the agreement aligns with its human rights agenda by helping to exert pressure on Rwanda to have sustainable supply chains.
“The deal was not sealed, first and foremost, to get access to minerals, but to leverage change on the ground,” said one EU official, who was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Rwanda’s wealth, Congo’s riches
Brussels wants not only to catch up with China, but also do a better job of safeguarding high environmental and social standards, and of retaining value in mining countries. In the region, Beijing already maintains close ties with Congo and controls vast parts of its mining sector.
The European Commission calls Rwanda a “major player in the world’s tantalum extraction,” pointing to its output of tin, tungsten, gold and niobium. Rwanda, it said, has the potential to become a “hub for value addition in the mineral sector,” forecasting that the mining industry will increase export revenues to $1.5 billion this year, from $373 million in 2017.
That raises eyebrows among observers.
“Everybody knows that only a fraction, an undefined proportion, of the export of Rwanda comes from Rwanda itself — and the bigger part comes from Congo,” Erik Kennes, senior research fellow in the Africa Programme at the Egmont Institute, said. Kennes argued that the deal “justifies … and formalizes” illicit trade.
Kagame’s role
Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who has been in power since 2000 and was reelected for a fourth term this month — securing 99 percent support in highly controlled elections — has admitted that his country has become a transit route for artisanally and semi-industrially mined minerals from Congo.
The 66-year-old is heralded for having restored stability after the devastating genocide of 1994, in which 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed. But Kagame has also been accused by the United Nations of directly supporting M23, ethnic Tutsi rebels who began to rearm three years ago and now control swathes of territory in eastern Congo. Kigali has repeatedly denied the link.
While M23’s interests cannot be reduced to commercial gain, Rwanda’s exports of minerals such as gold and coltan have surged in recent years. Kigali, which does not disclose its domestic production figures, argues that Congo lacks the political will to end the crisis in its east, which has embroiled the Congolese national army, ethnic Hutu rebels, neighbors and regional powers including the Rwandan army.
M23, in turn, denies any involvement in smuggling, arguing it fights solely to protect the ethnic Tutsi population in Congo. Willy Ngoma, the group’s spokesperson, told POLITICO in a voice message that M23 is “not in this revolution for the minerals,” adding that “the population is free to trade.”
‘Blood minerals’
Jutta Urpilainen, the EU’s Commissioner for International Partnerships, and former Rwandan Foreign Minister Vincent Biruta sparked diplomatic outrage when they inked the deal in February — just as clashes in eastern Congo intensified.
In addition to calling the EU deal a provocation, Congolese President Tshisekedi said it “was as if the European Union were making war against us by proxy.”
Visiting Belgium at the end of February, Tshisekedi canceled appointments with Commission officials, meeting instead with Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, who joined Tshisekedi in snubbing the agreement and calling for sanctions against Rwanda. Congo has since called for an international embargo on Rwanda’s mineral exports and threatened to take tech giant Apple to court for using smuggled “blood minerals” from conflict areas in Congo. Asked for comment, Apple pointed to its supplier code of conduct and progress report on addressing social and environmental issues in its supply chain.
Ask the Commission, and it’ll tell you the agreement is exactly what will help put an end to such practices. The deal seeks to “support the sustainable and responsible sourcing, production and processing of raw materials,” a spokesperson said. “The goal is to increase traceability and transparency and to reinforce the fight against illegal trafficking of minerals.”
Critics, however, fear the pact reflects the EU’s willingness to sacrifice its principles on the altar of geopolitics: Brussels is increasingly resorting to such collaboration agreements — which do not have binding trade implications but are easier to seal than traditional trade deals. Its goal is to diversify its supplies of key minerals and counter Beijing’s Belt and Road initiative, a global infrastructure development program, with its own strategy, the Global Gateway. It’s a course that Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen has vowed to stay on in her second term.
“There’s all this competition with China over economic influence … and I think [the EU] neglects a certain number of [aspects] such as sovereignty, democracy,” Eric Kajemba, head of Observatoire Gouvernance et Paix, a Congolese NGO, said.
Reconciliation course
Brussels has sought to clarify the intentions behind its minerals deal with Rwanda, which only received the green light from EU member countries after intense debate.
The agreement, said the Commission spokesperson, is in line with Brussels’ broader strategy for peace in the Great Lakes region. Just last year, the bloc also sealed a minerals deal with Congo with the aim of “strengthening governance, due diligence and traceability, [and] cooperation in the fight against illegal international trafficking in raw materials.”
In a paper on its regional strategy, circulated to member countries in June and seen by POLITICO, the EU executive argued that “ensuring the transparency and traceability of ‘conflict minerals’ (i.e. tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold) is … fundamental, so that control over these and other resources does not keep fueling the conflicts, notably through illicit financial flows, and related human rights abuses.”
As part of its minerals deal with the bloc, Rwanda was asked to sign up to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, a global standard developed by a Norwegian-based organization of the same name that aims to “promote the open and accountable management of oil, gas and mineral resources.”
Brussels also wants it to provide a map of all the mines from which it sources minerals and to use scientific tools to check the origin of minerals. Unless Rwanda meets these conditions, it won’t be possible to sign a roadmap outlining next steps over the next two years, according to officials.
Asked about progress made on these points since February, the Commission spokesperson did not provide further detail. The Rwandan government did not respond to requests for comment.
Activists and researchers welcome these steps, but they point to more effective ways the EU could put pressure on Rwanda, such as by withholding development aid — the EU is one of the country’s larger donors.
“It’s interesting to find new ways to influence the region,” said Guillaume de Brier, a researcher with the International Peace Information Service who focuses on conflict analysis and natural resources in eastern Africa.
“But, so far, the EU and the West have been trying to influence through regulation — such as laws on so-called conflict minerals — and there’s no bigger commitments, such as a peace process that could be put in place.”