Sunday March 13, 2025

Beni, DR Congo

Despite the risks and the fear, Judith Kahindo walks several kilometers every day, alone, to her isolated cocoa plantation, a coveted resource in Beni, a region of eastern DRC infested by armed groups and plunged into mourning by massacres.

The province of North Kivu, where Beni is located, is mainly rich in minerals – cobalt, copper, coltan – which are accused of fuelling the conflicts that have ravaged the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for three decades.

But in Beni territory, cocoa – the price of which has soared on the world market in the last two years – is also fuelling the violence.

Massacres committed by the ADF (Allied Democratic Forces) rebels, who have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, have claimed thousands of lives and prevented cocoa farmers from accessing their plantations for several years.

Despite a lull in recent years, “we tend our fields with the fear of being massacred because cocoa is so coveted, whether by the rebels or even our soldiers”, laments Juliette Kahindo, a widow and mother of eight, as she hackles her way through the tangled forest.

Cocoa production in the DRC, spread across the country, remains marginal on a global scale: in 2024, the country is expected to produce around 50,000 tonnes of cocoa, just over 1% of world production.
– Smuggling –
In this particularly fertile region, agricultural products, including cocoa, attract the covetousness of various armed groups who feed smuggling networks to neighboring Uganda, according to those involved in the sector.
“If there wasn’t an abundance of cocoa in Beni, the war would already have ended,” says Judith Kahindo.
The ADF are not the only threat. “There are people who take advantage of the terror created by the ADF to steal”, assures Colonel Mak Hazukay, army spokesman in the area.
Even before the emergence of the ADF in the 2000s, the region was plagued by attacks from the “sangabalende”, criminal groups specializing in cocoa theft and smuggling, explains Richard Kirumba, president of civil society in Beni territory.
According to him, some soldiers deployed against the ADF also tax traders or plunder fields. The stolen cocoa is generally sold through cross-border smuggling networks.

“Criminals sell cocoa as it is: they cut it, remove the bean pod and then go straight out to sell it,” explains Frank Ndinyoka Kabeya, cocoa buyer and representative of the Union des négociants des produits agricoles in Congo.
Controls are unscrupulous in a country where, according to Transparency International, corruption is endemic, and only the unwary risk trouble.
The streets of Beni are lined with beans drying in the sun on tarpaulins. The smuggled goods are mostly sold to “small buyers”, bypassing the certification process, according to Karim Sibenda, an agricultural engineer at a local chocolate factory.
– Organic label –
At the Office national des produits agricoles du Congo (Onapac), responsible for certifying the quality and origin of cocoa intended for export, activity is buzzing at harvest time.
Tons of vinegar-scented beans pile up under the Beni warehouse, where employees fill and stamp canvas bags destined for foreign markets.
“Producers are identified by a code linked to the area” to ensure traceability, explains Agee Mbughavinywa, an employee of a company responsible for purchasing and certifying agricultural products.
Like other agricultural products from the region, the bags are mainly exported to neighboring Uganda.

Since the end of 2021, the DRC has authorized the presence of Ugandan troops in the region to support its army against the ADF, an armed group of Ugandan origin.
This military presence has made it possible to secure vital trade routes and increase exports, according to Onapac.
But this rapprochement with Kampala also raises fears.
“Ugandan buyers are destabilizing the sector: they come with their coins in hand and impose their prices on the producers,” laments the director of Onapac in Beni, “They don’t look at quality, they take everything and export it under the Ugandan label, and this handicaps the country’s economy.”
In Beni, traditional farming methods and particularly fertile soil enable organic cocoa to be produced.
But the violence also threatens its organic certification: the EU recently threatened to stop recognizing the label awarded to local products, as insecurity prevents certification bodies from deploying their inspectors in the field.
This measure would encourage the fraudulent export of Congolese cocoa under Ugandan labels, according to industry players.

Humaniterre with AFP