Today’s History Lesson - Time to Learn

Written by: Ssiima Sematimba

Edited by Kamdi Okonjo

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is one of the richest resource countries in the world in terms of their natural materials including coltan, cobalt, and copper and yet they remain one of the poorest economical countries on the planet. This is all because of the exploitation that the DRC faces from first-world countries and other money-making nations from as early as the 1800s. What makes matters worse is that there is an internal corruption growing within DRC that is aided by Congolese people themselves because they are benefitting from the wealth of the Western companies. The resources from the Democratic Republic of Congo and her people have undergone this same type of mistreatment and exploitation ever since the country had developed to become an independent democracy and their story still remains hidden and silenced.

King Leopold II

From the mid-1880s, King Leopold II actively participated in the brutal exploitation of Congo and its people. He referred to the Democratic Republic of the Congo as his exclusive possession. He ironically named it État Indépendant du Congo, which translates as Congo Free State. Leopold referred to himself as the colony's "proprietor" because it was the world's only private colony. Belgian King Leopold then set about attempting to amass a large fortune from his new possession, the DRC. He was initially interested in the abundant ivory found in Congo, but there was a new global demand for rubber. The Landolphia vines in the vast Central African rainforest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo were a major source of wild rubber, and no one owned more of that area than Leopold. Motivated by a desire for fortune, Leopold dispatched his 19,000-man private army, the Force Publique, into villages, taking women hostage and brutally raping many of them, forcing the men to flee into the rainforest if they did not kill them in order to meet a monthly quota of wild rubber. As the price of rubber increased in the global economy, Congolese men's and women's rights and voices were suppressed and silenced.

Leopold's effects were devastating, starving many of the women hostages and exhausting many of the male rubber gatherers. Hundreds of thousands of Congolese citizens fled their villages in order to avoid being identified as forced laborers, seeking refuge deep in the forest, where food and shelter were scarce. Numerous others were assassinated during failed uprisings against the regime. King Leopold was notorious for requiring his soldiers to present severed Congolese hands or feet. As a result of expeditions against rebels, baskets of severed body parts resulted. If a soldier fired at someone and missed, or if he used a bullet to shoot a game, he would occasionally cut off the hand or foot of a living victim to demonstrate it to his office.

With women held as hostages and men compelled to tap rubber, the remainder of the population was left to hunt, fish, and cultivate crops. Millions of Congolese then faced famine, leaving them vulnerable to disease. With men and women separated, traumatized, or fleeing as refugees, the birth rate plummeted, and no one will ever know the precise number of Congolese killed. Between 1880 and 1920, it is estimated that the Congo's population was reduced by up to 70%.

DRC Resources

Even after such a traumatic episode in Congolese history, Congo was denied time for truth and reconciliation, which would have allowed them to recover from such a brutal and painful trauma. From the early 1900s, the DRC was once again supplying the world with various resources, albeit without Leopold's leadership but rather under the auspices of other Western powers. The Democratic Republic of Congo supplies more than 70% of the world's cobalt, but this African country remains one of the poorest in the world, owing to a lack of opportunity to thrive and grow within the abundance of their own resources. The Democratic Republic of Congo has a surface area equivalent to that of Western Europe, making it the largest country in Sub-Saharan Africa while consistently remaining one of the poorest.

Cobalt is a critical mineral that is used in the batteries of electric cars, computers, and cell phones, and the DRC produces 70% of the world's cobalt, making it the world's largest supplier of this mineral. The demand for cobalt is increasing at a breakneck pace, with even small children as young as five years old mining cobalt as more electric cars become popular, particularly in Europe. Many Congolese children end up in mines extracting minerals because their parents are already employed there and first-world countries demand a greater and faster supply of resources. According to recent projections by the World Economic Forum's Global Battery Alliance, demand for cobalt for battery applications will quadruple in 2030 as a result of this electric vehicle boom.

The Democratic Republic of Congo's primary industry is mining. The DRC possessed over $24 million in mineral deposits in 2009, including the world's largest coltan reserve and vast quantities of cobalt. Additionally, the DRC has significant copper, diamond, gold, tantalum, and tin reserves, as well as over three million tons of lithium, according to the US Geological Survey. According to the most recent data, the DRC had more than 25 international mining firms in 2011. The DRC is estimated to have untapped raw mineral ore reserves worth more than $24 trillion, but it remains one of Africa's largest producers of diamonds (34%), and copper (13%). However, the DRC continues to be plagued by corruption and crime, and while it has been forced to shut down numerous mining operations in order to curb illegal activity, this has not deterred many other companies from stealthily stealing their resources.

Exploitation and its Effect on the Congolese People

The Democratic Republic of Congo is a nation that has endured a great deal of exploitation, which appears to be a recurring theme throughout their history. From Leopold's rule over the Congolese to Western powers' mistreatment of Congolese mines, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is still struggling to recover from all this exploitation. 72% of the country's population lives in extreme poverty on less than $1.90 per day, despite the fact that this country supplies resources to the rest of the world. The DRC is ranked 135th out of 157 countries in terms of human capital, with a 0.37 percent human capital index score, which is lower than the average for Sub-Saharan Africa (0.40). This means that a child born today will be 37% less productive than a child who receives adequate education and health care.

Congolese children attend school for an average of 9.2 years and 43% of children are malnourished. At the moment, 43% of households have access to safe drinking water (69 percent in urban areas, 23% in rural areas), but only 20% have access to adequate sanitation. The DRC's fertility rate, at 6.1 children per woman, is higher than the Sub-Saharan average (4.8). These are just a few examples of the exploitation's impact on the Congolese people. Early childbearing is also prevalent, with 125.24 births per 1,000 adolescent females (15-19 years). The Congolese people have been exploited, mistreated, stolen from, and robbed for many years prior to the country becoming a democratic republic, and even now, despite their legal freedom, they are still treated as a colony. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is still recovering from a series of conflicts that erupted in the 1990s. The presidential elections have been postponed several times.

It is critical to share and prioritize the DRC's reality because enough is enough and the Congolese people deserve to benefit independently from their own land. As Africans, we cannot allow the Congolese people to repeat the traumatic experiences of the past. We must take a stand and tell their story.