"As part of a resources-for-security type deal agreed last year, the US signed a mining agreement with Kinshasa's government to secure supplies of components essential to its technological innovation, economic power, and national security. While Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi has touted the economic benefits of the endeavour, many in the country's mining epicentre trapped between poverty and armed violence see only further oppression on the horizon."
"We are exploited in mineral extraction, said Gerard Buunda, an economics student in Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, which is a significant source of the world's coltan, tin and gold resouces. There are investors who make us work; sometimes they chase us off our land and force us to work for them in their mines for their own selfish interests. We don't want to be exploited any more."
Delegations from 50 countries, including the DRC, meet in Washington for the inaugural Critical Minerals Ministerial hosted by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to strengthen and diversify mineral supply chains. The US seeks to counter China's global dominance in critical minerals and secured a resources-for-security mining agreement with Kinshasa to guarantee supplies essential for technology and national security. President Felix Tshisekedi promotes expected economic benefits. In mineral-rich eastern DRC cities like Goma, residents facing poverty and armed violence fear increased exploitation, land dispossession, forced labour, child exploitation, environmental degradation and heightened socio-political instability resulting from intensified foreign demand.
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Read at www.aljazeera.com
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