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M23, DRC-Rwanda Talks, Trump Eyes Congo's Minerals
3 Plays1 month ago
Eric Draitser provides his analysis of this week's talks between the leaders of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda over the M23 insurgency. The video explores the history of the long war in the DRC, the nature of M23 and Rwanda's support for it, and the dollar signs in Trump's eyes as he seeks to plunder Congo's rare earth minerals and displace China as the leading exploiter of Congo's mineral wealth.
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Transcript
Return to Content Creation
00:00:01
ericdraitser
Well, well, well, if it isn't me doing a video after all these many months. If you are watching this video and you have been following and or supporting me all of this time, i cannot thank you enough. I have so much to say. At some point I will get into the details. I will...
00:00:20
ericdraitser
I'll be happy to tell all about all of the various things that have happened to
Health Challenges and Absence
00:00:25
ericdraitser
me. In case you are finding this video for the very first time and you've never seen any of my stuff before, welcome. I have been out of the game for almost two years, almost, give or take. um dealing with various health issues related to my initial cancer diagnosis and everything else. So it has been a bit of a roller coaster these last couple of years, these last 22 months or so, but here I am.
Engaging with Global Events
00:00:54
ericdraitser
So anyway, with that said, i thought about how do I get back into doing the videos? How do I go about jumping back into this? And I thought, you know, I should probably do a whole video talking about myself and this and that.
00:01:10
ericdraitser
not going to bother with all that right now. What really matters is that you're here and that you want to learn about things happening around the world. And I am very fortunate to say that there are people who are interested in hearing what I have to say. So why don't we just get into it? And I will just note at the outset a couple of things. First, um my tendency is for these videos to go very, very long. And I realize that that is just not the way that most people are consuming this sort of content. So I'm going to do my best to keep these as short as I can.
00:01:40
ericdraitser
i know if you're a longtime follower, then you know every time i say I'm going to keep it short and then every time it's easily well over 30 minutes. But we are going to work very, very hard to make sure that that doesn't happen.
00:01:52
ericdraitser
I know that that's just the way of the culture, the way of the world. People are not really interested in long form stuff like I normally do. So we'll see how this goes.
Focus on Africa's Overlooked Topics
00:02:01
ericdraitser
um And finally, i would just point out that um my tendency, though not always, is to try to focus on things that are happening around the world that many people are ignoring or not paying nearly enough attention to or underplaying or even worse, badly misunderstanding. And I do think of it as something of my duty and also my privilege to try to debunk misinformation and disinformation and to try to elucidate things that are otherwise mysterious or just unknown for a lot of people. And
00:02:34
ericdraitser
I guess that's as good of a segue as any to mention that Africa tends to be ignored. It tends to be under, uh, appreciated, misunderstood, et cetera. Much of that having to do with this sort of, uh, Eurocentric and Anglo-centric worldview, much of that having to do with, uh, the way that news media, uh, It prioritizes stories, whiteness, and many other issues play into that. But at least in my little corner of the internet, I do like to pay attention to these
Conflict in the Great Lakes Region
00:03:08
ericdraitser
things. And so what I wanted to talk about today was what is going on in Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and specifically what is going on with regard to the ongoing simmering many years conflict with the so-called m twenty three
00:03:24
ericdraitser
rebels So before I get into the news of this week, let me just very quickly try to recap the last 20 plus years of history. There has been war after war, really a continuous period of war going back to the nineteen ninety s in what is called the Great Lakes region and specifically in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
00:03:46
ericdraitser
This has involved many different players, including the ah Congolese government, the Rwandan government, other neighboring governments, um ah interested parties that have tried to get their piece of the various vast riches that are underneath the soil of the Congo.
00:04:06
ericdraitser
And so this war, which is in many ways just one long continuous period of war stretching back to the nineteen ninety s that is what we're focused
Role of M23 and Geopolitical Intricacies
00:04:18
ericdraitser
on today. And specifically, what we want to understand is the way in which Congo has become a battleground between various parties, various players, and who they are and why they're doing what they're doing.
00:04:31
ericdraitser
So if you follow the news, if you're reading headlines coming out of this part of the world, they tend to be dominated by a group called the M23. twenty three Now, I don't have time to get into the entire history of the M23. Suffice to say, it is an organized criminal operation that styles itself as an insurgency, and in some ways it is an insurgency. But the important aspect of this is that it is a criminal enterprise slash insurgency that is backed and armed and supported tacitly by the Rwandan government, by Paul Kagame, the dictator of Rwanda, and
00:05:08
ericdraitser
This is the sort of power behind the headlines. And this is well understood. This is not ah theorizing about Rwanda's role. This is simply telling the facts. This has been reported in many, many outlets over many years.
00:05:24
ericdraitser
Rwanda even is almost beginning to drop the veil a little bit and sort of kind of implying that they are behind them, even though they will... Openly state that they are not.
00:05:35
ericdraitser
So what is in the headlines today or this week? It is a negotiation, a mediated negotiation process that is beginning between the presidents of a Democratic Republic of Congo and
Qatar's Mediation Efforts
00:05:50
ericdraitser
Rwanda. And this is being mediated through the government of Qatar.
00:05:55
ericdraitser
Now, I'm going to get into the significance of Qatar here in a second, but suffice to say that this is an important development because against this backdrop of negotiation and mediation, M23 is on the move. is now control of vast...
00:06:10
ericdraitser
is now in control of of vast ah ah areas of North and South Kivu, those two provinces in the Congo that are so key for all of these various extremely valuable ah minerals, in particular rare earth minerals, and in particular, coltan and cobalt, both of which are very, very important to the tech sector. in the global north smartphones computers electric batteries you name it these minerals are of critical importance in the 21st century and we see this playing out in the headlines of course with uh you know the asinine orange buffoon nazi trump going and demanding the rare earth minerals from uh ukraine in this uh dirty deal that he's trying to uh foist on them and i don't have time to get into the ukraine issue but the rare earth minerals are of uh very much
00:07:04
ericdraitser
central important So anyway, that is what everybody is really after. Going back to the 90s, it wasn't so much the rare earth minerals, it was the diamonds and the various other um raw materials that could be extracted from the Congo and shipped out to global markets to enrich the various minerals.
00:07:23
ericdraitser
warlords and regional leaders and such who had their sights set on that. So anyway, um Qatar has emerged in recent years as one of the critical ah mediators in the world. In fact, remember that Doha, Qatar has hosted the Taliban for years and years and years in the time that the Taliban was out of power.
00:07:45
ericdraitser
um The Qataris have been critical players mediating negotiations vis-a-vis ah Iran in the region and other players as well. So Qatar is here flexing what you might call a little bit of diplomatic muscle, a little bit of soft power, right? The role that would traditionally have been thought of as reserved for the United States or so you know the UN or whatever.
00:08:07
ericdraitser
The Qataris are stepping into that void. And that, of course, raises the other question of what Qatar is getting out of it. And I'll get to that in a minute. Of course, I'm already at eight minutes and I'm already running over, but that's how it goes.
00:08:21
ericdraitser
So... um What's happening is that ah this mediation process is ongoing. What is it that they're really after? Well, let me just look at my notes here for a second to remind myself of what it is that I wanted to highlight. I mentioned the role of Rwanda and um the M23 rebels.
00:08:42
ericdraitser
Let's not forget, these are not this is not just you know a criminal gang. This is not just a paramilitary. It's all of these things wrapped into one. You want to talk about mass killings and mass graves, M23 is definitely involved in some of that. You want to talk about stealing mineral resources, selling them through dirty deals to Rwanda, to others, M23 is involved in that as well.
00:09:09
ericdraitser
Okay, m twenty three is a very important organization to understand but because they are the ones that are actually on the ground and they are essentially to be understood as a proxy force of Rwanda.
00:09:22
ericdraitser
Qatar flexing its diplomatic muscles, that is a big takeaway from this as well. And of course, the competition between the regional players in the Middle East, this is now heating up because at the very same time that Qatar is mediating these talks, Saudi Arabia is the center of the talks between the Trump administration and the Putin regime.
00:09:46
ericdraitser
or the Trump regime, I should say, because this is, of course, a fascist ah government now. So in any case, ah That is also in the background here, this sort of political public relations, diploma diplomatic muscle game between the Saudis and Qatar. We know, of course, the longstanding issues between those two Gulf powers.
00:10:10
ericdraitser
And so this is now playing out in Africa. And we see this not just in Congo.
Middle Eastern Influence in Africa
00:10:16
ericdraitser
We see this in Sudan, a place somewhere. horrible conflict that I will do a video on soon.
00:10:23
ericdraitser
ah In Sudan, you see the United Arab Emirates and the Saudis and the Egyptians and other forces all involve backing one side or another. The various players are shipping in money, they're shipping in weapons, etc. This was what we saw play out in Libya as well going back a number of years with Turkey. of course, involved along with Qatar backing the government in Tripoli against Haftar backed by the Russians and the Egyptians and others. So there are regional dynamics playing out against the backdrop of these and these specific conflicts that we're talking about. But I don't want to go too far afield. Let's focus again on the situation in Congo
00:11:05
ericdraitser
the rare earth minerals. And here we need to point out the fact that we are now beginning to see what the United States wants to do here.
US-China Competition for Congo's Minerals
00:11:15
ericdraitser
Because while we hear so much about the Trump administration trying to get away from its direct involvement in places like Africa and Latin America, that's only to the extent that they have to, ah you know,
00:11:28
ericdraitser
do anything for humanitarian and and sort of political reasons. This is a transactional fascist regime under Trump and they see dollar signs in Congo. And so here we go.
00:11:40
ericdraitser
Now we have the Trump administration setting its sights on Congo. The United States is now competing with China to try to position itself to get a hold of those rare earth minerals ah in the Congo.
00:11:56
ericdraitser
Right now, as of, I guess, 2024, China was extracting 80% of the total minerals that were coming out of the Congo. 80%.
00:12:08
ericdraitser
Okay, 80. That is a massive, massive number. What do you think... Trump and his gaggle of fascists in Washington think when they see the Chinese getting hold of that coltan, getting hold of that cobalt, right? You're beginning to see the transformation of the U.S. view of these places away from um kind of humanitarian, neocolonial forms of aid and direct investment and all of that.
00:12:40
ericdraitser
And instead under Trump, going to a much more openly and nakedly colonial relationship of pure extraction, extraction of wealth.
00:12:50
ericdraitser
That is actually explicitly what the Trump administration is interested in. ah According to the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College, they estimate that Beijing has spent roughly $240 billion dollars in sub-Saharan Africa since the early 2000s.
00:13:13
ericdraitser
Okay, we all know about China in Africa. This is nothing new. But the extent to which China had come to dominate this extraction in Africa.
00:13:24
ericdraitser
This is something that I think even seasoned observers often underestimate. So for the U.S., brokering a deal, helping to negotiate something between the DRC and Rwanda to put an end to this M23 insurgency, this would basically mean the United States under Trump would be in a position to make demands. And we all know that the Congolese government is...
00:13:51
ericdraitser
going to be happy to give the Trump administration whatever it wants if the United States is going to flex real muscle and resolve the M23 crisis for the government once and for all.
US Imperialistic Tactics in Congo
00:14:03
ericdraitser
Again, this is a complicated issue that actually extends back to the 1990s, comes forward to today and involves all of these regional players and the international players as well.
00:14:15
ericdraitser
This is the same kind of conflict that's playing out in Ukraine with regard to the minerals. These powers see in these minerals the future. Now, of course, they see it through the lens of rapacious capitalism.
00:14:29
ericdraitser
Naturally, that is what they are. But ultimately, this is going to play out in the form, unfortunately, of new proxy wars and sadly, likely also real wars.
00:14:43
ericdraitser
The situation in North and South Kivu is rapidly deteriorating into a full-blown civil war, where key cities are taken over by M23. M23 takes control of the mines, cuts a dirty deal with Kagame in Rwanda, and enriches itself for the next 10 years, right? This is where the United States wants to inject itself and where it's basically going to be able to strong arm the government in Congo to say, if you want to survive, give us what you got.
00:15:13
ericdraitser
A shakedown. That's the kind of gangsterism that Trump brings to the United States government. And um for those of us who have been railing against U.S. neocolonial policy all of this time, there is an element of adjustment where we have to shift away from from thinking about the US s only in in the forms of its soft power projection, soft and hard with AFRICOM and so forth, but also with investment, with cultural soft power, all of these things, that's all being stripped away.
00:15:42
ericdraitser
And instead we are being left with the more overt, the more blunt, the more transactional, the more nakedly imperialist and nakedly colonial form of US imperialism under Trump.
00:15:56
ericdraitser
That's what we see playing out in Congo. Much more to come.