Coltan (short for columbite–tantalites) and manganese are rare minerals used to make mobile phones and computers. The high demands for such minerals have aroused the interest of criminal organizations. In order to destabilize the political situation and take control of the mining business at a reasonable price, financial backing is given to the different armed groups that are waging wars on one another.
In the province of North Kivu, in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, the tension remains high, as a large-scale conflict seems evermore closer and inevitable. In the previous years the Kinshasa army, the FARDC, has opposed the rebels of M23, defeated them with difficulty in January 2014, and then they fought the armed movement FDLR assembled with soldiers that took part in Rwanda’s genocide.
Fueled by ethnic and political ideologies, the war is a diversion to destabilize the entire region, in order to benefit from the lucrative and illegal trafficking of minerals. These wars are mostly fought for coltan, one of the most demanded minerals on the market.
For those who live in the Eastern province of Congo, the government in Kinshasa seems light years away: inept and corrupt. It hasn’t been able to retake control of this area, allowing it to become a war zone, in the hands of armed militias, often in conflict among themselves. To be allied with the Government forces or the rebels makes no difference. What’s most important is to be the strongest, the best armed, taking advantage of the civilian population, stealing everything of value, and committing random executions, acts of cannibalism, mutilations, mass rape, child labor. There is no end to the deprivation used to instill terror.
The Nyatura are the rulers of Rubaya, a small town of miners located between mountains, where nobody enters or exits the town without their permission. The Nyatura is Congolese Hutu militia, collaborated with FDLR rebels and the Congolese army (FARDC) to protect Hutu interests against ex-CNDP officers and the defunct M23, according to campaign group Enough Project. To avoid integrating them into the regular army, the central Government in Kinshasa has not opposed their total control of the Rubaya mining zone. Through surveillance, searches, confiscations and violence, the Nyatura hold the isolated village by the throat, where martial law breaches into constant abuse of power. Nyatura survives by bullying, through the abuse of power, raiding night and day and demanding tax on all forms of activity in the city of Rubaya.
In the Rubaya area everything revolves around the extraction of coltan and manganese. Some of the miners are born in Rubaya, but most of them are former farmers, that have fled from war zones, searching for work, and with the intention of a short term stay to earn enough money and move on. There isn’t much to do in a village where there is hardly anything, except for drinking Rambo beer, Simba Waragi, which has 42% alcohol, or frequenting prostitutes, many of them young girls, in crumbling brothels at a cost of 1500 Congolese francs, or 1 euro.
Soldiers patrol the territory around the Mudere mine where miners dig 20 meters deep holes to extract the minerals before being transported by workers to a nearby river where they are separated from rocks and sand to be ready for the dealers. When the bureaucratic procedure is finished, the material is loaded onto trucks escorted by soldiers. The convoys leave every Monday and Friday always before 4 p.m., with keeping in mind that escorting the trucks is risky, as they are often ambushed by thieves. The mineral loads travel very quickly despite the terrible conditions of the roads. They stop under no circumstances, and don’t pay any duties along the way, crossing the border with Rwanda without any documents or permits. Once over border the material becomes Rwandese, clean and legal.
Images by Erberto Zani
