'THE KING LEOPOLD OF 2024 IS PAUL KAGAME’

Speaking on our recent Pan-African Attitude podcast, Kambale Musavuli, analyst at the Center for Research on the Congo-Kinshasa, argued Rwandan President Paul Kagame is a modern-day Belgian King Leopold II, who was known for maiming Congolese as he colonised the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to exploit its natural resources.

@kambale, a Congolese native and one of the DRC’s leading cultural and political voices, told African Stream’s team on 22 April that Rwanda is the central transit hub of Congo’s mineral wealth, a fact that Kagame himself has admitted to. And, just as Leopold ruthlessly extracted Congo’s rubber to supply the United States’ booming automotive industry more than a century ago, Musavuli said Kagame ensures the West’s environmentally friendly transition by allowing the smuggling of Congolese minerals to power electric vehicles (EVs) that don’t emit greenhouse gases. According to UN reports, the smuggling business is an economic incentive Kigali uses to finance and arm the M23 militia group.