WHAT DOES DRC-U.S. MINERAL DEAL MEAN FOR CONGOLESE?

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has proposed a deal seeking to exchange Congolese minerals for US military support against the Rwanda- and Uganda-backed rebel group M23. The DRC President Felix Tshisekedi reportedly reached out to US President Donald Trump to broker this exchange despite the US already having been involved in the DRC’s ‘security’ through military training and election support for years.

Kambale Musavuli (@kambalem on IG), a political analyst at the Center for Research on the Congo-Kinshasa, questions the deal’s transparency and fairness, saying it involves nearly one-tenth of the DRC’s estimated $24 trillion in mineral wealth. Unlike the $9 billion Chinese deal in the DRC, which Western media have widely criticised, this US deal—much larger than the Chinese one—has received relatively little scrutiny. There’s also concern that it ignores the role of US allies Rwanda and Uganda in fueling the conflict, raising fears that the deal may repeat past patterns of exploitation without addressing the root causes of instability.

Watch the whole conversation on Editor-in-Chief Ahmed Kaballo’s YouTube channel (@ahmedkaballo4170).