Violence, Minerals, and the Inevitable in Central Africa
Policymakers must be realistic about what can be done in the Rwanda–Congo conflict.
In January, the rebel group M23 captured Goma, the largest city in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The ethnic Tutsi militants, who have been intermittently fighting the DRC government for years, restarted their rebellion in 2021 and have rapidly captured territory since the beginning of 2025. Since taking Goma, they have moved to the south and also captured the large city Bukavu, giving them control over an area that is home to millions of people.
M23 is widely believed to be backed by Rwanda and its long-time President Paul Kagame, a charge that Kagame has always denied. This troubled region remains racked by brutal inter-ethnic and multinational conflict featuring countless armed factions. Perhaps more importantly, it contains some of the world’s largest deposits of key minerals, such as cobalt, which is necessary for the manufacture of electronics. Across a nearly impassable rainforest from the capital of Kinshasa, eastern Congo has proven impossible for the central government to rule, but the African Union and United Nations remain devoted to maintaining historic borders no matter how impractical. There is little the United States can or should do to help stabilize the situation, but it is long past time to consider accepting the breakup of the DRC.
The current troubles in in the eastern Congo date back to the 1994 Rwandan genocide, a story that is widely known but poorly understood. Western experts, in an extension of popular academic theories, have found it convenient to claim that the division of Hutus and Tustis was made up by Europeans as a method of colonial control. Although it was used that way, and their legal classification system was arbitrary and based on physical characteristics, this division within the society of this region dated back hundreds of years prior to the arrival of colonialism. The most simple way to understand the division is that the Tutsis were a noble class who kept cattle, while the Hutus were agriculturalist serfs. The colonialists ruled through the Tutsi monarchy, and Hutus overthrew both in the 1959 Rwandan Revolution.
In 1990, the Rwanda Patriotic Front, made up of Tutsi refugees based in Uganda, started a civil war trying to take back control of Rwanda, and in response in 1994 Hutu extremists began a genocide against the country’s Tutsi population. Ultimately, the RPF were able to chase the Hutu militants out of the country and won the civil war. In a dark historical irony, though the world had stood mostly silently during the genocide, or in France’s case sided with the government, once the genocidaires were exiled in the eastern DRC, their well-being became a major international concern. The Hutus who committed genocide received more assistance than the original victims; granted, the humanitarian needs were genuine, as they were facing famine and retributive violence.
The large population of displaced Hutus, as well as Tutsis who continue to live in Congo, have destabilized the region for decades. Further, in the mid 1990s Rwanda managed to overthrow the government of its much larger neighbor twice, the first time removing the long-time tyrant Mobutu Sese Seko. Rwandan troops are believed to continue to operate in Congo, though this is denied by Rwanda. At the same time, Rwanda says it is necessary to keep fighting the Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR), a Hutu militia, which Rwanda claims was founded by men who perpetrated the genocide. FDLR works with the Congolese government, though experts say that the group does not actually pose a serious threat to the Rwandan government.
The ultimate result of the genocide was the return of Tutsi power in Rwanda, a situation which has continued to this day. Kagame, one of the main leaders of the RPF, took power in 1994, although he only formally became president in 2000, previously ruling through other people. Though Kagame is widely considered an authoritarian, his regime has been marked by internal stability, economic development, and persistent work to reduce ethnic tensions. Kagame has maintained close relations with many Western countries. He is the sort of strong but pragmatic leader with whom one can work, and unusually competent among African rulers.
Kigali, once the scene of untold horrors, is now an orderly city, ranked as the cleanest in Africa and seen as a desirable location for international business offices. Using Google Street View, you can drop yourself at a random location in the city and see meticulously clean, paved streets and well-kept middle class homes. Much of it looks like it could be in America (albeit a relatively less affluent part of America). While this demonstrates the government’s willingness to use state power to enforce good behavior, it also demonstrates a high level of social cohesion and public buy-in: Many states in Africa are oppressive, but few are clean and orderly or have widespread, well-developed middle-class neighborhoods. The cities which M23 captured border Rwanda, and the difference is stark, substantially greater than the difference between the American and Mexican sides of our own border.
Some would say that stealing the DRC’s mineral wealth has been the source of Rwanda’s success, and there is some truth to this. Rwanda exports more minerals than it produces or imports, so it is clear that minerals from the DRC are smuggled into the country. This is widely seen as a driver of conflict in the region, as the demand for the resources to manufacture technology is insatiable. Even so, major companies such as Apple have stopped sourcing minerals from the region due to concerns about human rights.
It is important to note that these minerals have not made Congo wealthy, and Kinshasa has proven persistently unable to maintain control of their extraction and trade. While some of the myriad of armed groups operating in the region are tribal protection groups, ethnic militias, or actual rebels, many are little more than mineral-trafficking gangs. It has remained one of the world’s most lawless regions.
Though nearly all of the borders of Africa are essentially arbitrary, not being based on meaningful geographic features much less historic tribal territories, this is especially true of the DRC. When it was claimed by the infamous Belgian King Leopold, it was just the “blank spot” in between other country’s claims, and proved to be much bigger than anyone imagined. It has been ungovernable except by extreme brutality, and even that has not worked well. This particular region of the DRC is in between the rainforest and the East African countries, making it extremely remote from the capital of Kinshasa, which is around 1000 miles away. Google Maps says it is a 47 hour drive from Kinshasa to Goma, some of which is paved but much of which is little more than dirt trails through the jungle. By contrast, Goma is a three and a half hour drive from Kigali on a proper highway. This goes a long way towards explaining why this region is so hard for Kinshasa to control even against a tiny opponent like Rwanda.
Despite the problems with Africa’s existing borders, the African Union remains strongly anti-secessionist in almost all instances, primarily because it is a club of the central governments. The UN and United States have also followed this path, even in a situation like Somaliland’s where the central government fell apart but a self-declared state maintained stability for decades. The one notable exception is South Sudan; in that situation the central government agreed to allow an independence referendum and respect the results. Bolstering the postwar fiction that we no longer live in a world where borders change by force, the concern has always been that if any of Africa unravels, it all will. In fact, the opposite may be the case: The longer the inevitable is put off, the more catastrophic it may be—although it doesn’t get much worse than what the eastern DRC has already gone through.
So far, the United States has taken few actions regarding M23’s territorial gains, primarily generic statements and sanctioning General James Kabarebe, a national hero of Rwanda who is said to be in charge of the country’s Congo policy. There is little the Trump Administration can or should do. The United States remains primarily a maritime power, and Goma is quite distant from the sea. The best course of action is to wait and see what happens. Ultimately, this region of eastern Congo becoming part of Rwanda might be the best thing for the people who live there.
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