Friday March 14, 2025
Rubaya, DR Congo

Behind the mine shafts, farmland stretches as far as the eye can see: in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the M23 has seized vast, rich and fertile territories, which it has begun to use to finance its war effort.
Since 2021, the M23, a politico-military movement backed by Rwanda, has taken up arms against the Kinshasa government, gaining ground in North and South Kivu, two provinces bordering Rwanda, whose two capital cities, Goma and Bukavu, it seized at the end of January.
In the areas under its control, the armed group has set up its own administration and collects taxes.

The jewel in the crown is the Rubaya mine in North Kivu, the largest coltan mine in the DRC, which has been under M23 control since April 2024.
Nearly a year later, Bahati Eraston, the new M23-appointed governor of North Kivu, made his first visit there on Wednesday.
The mine shafts gnawing away at the mountain slopes are deserted. And the miners were urged to attend the meeting organized by the M23.
After calling on the population to remain calm, the M23 began a recruitment campaign for its “revolutionary army”, which the armed group claims is designed to overthrow the regime in Kinhsasa, the capital of the DRC, some 1,500 km away as the crow flies.

“Where are the young people? Let them come and join us”, says Governor Bahati Eraston into the microphone.
A few dozen young men and women split the crowd to register, to the cheers of the audience, whose sincerity of support is difficult to assess.
“My job no longer allows me to support myself, so I decided to join the M23 to defend my country,” says Dieu Merci Bahati, an artisanal digger.
Representatives of the local authorities and shopkeepers from the area came to express their sympathy for the new masters.
The M23 has set up a “state-like administration” in Rubaya, including a “ministry in charge of mineral exploitation” which issues “permits to diggers and economic operators”, according to the UN experts.

– Land war –
Ravaged by conflict for 30 years, eastern DRC is estimated to hold between 60% and 80% of the world’s reserves of coltan, the ore from which tantalum, essential to the manufacture of modern electronic equipment, is extracted.
UN experts estimate that the Rubaya deposits bring in around $800,000 a month for the M23, thanks to a tax of seven dollars per kilo levied on coltan production and trade.

These sums represent only a fraction of the revenues generated by the movement’s taxation of trade.
With the recent capture of Goma and Bukavu, the armed group now controls all the trade routes leading to the Rwandan border.
According to economic operators and security sources, the M23 collects taxes of several thousand dollars per truck at the Goma border posts.
Eastern DRC relies heavily on imports of manufactured goods from Rwanda, but also exports its agricultural production throughout the Great Lakes region.
Sources close to the Congolese government accuse Rwanda of waging a “land” war, against a backdrop of old communal tensions inherited from colonization over control of the region’s particularly fertile farmland.
The M23 claims to have put an end to the multiple taxes imposed by pro-Kinshasa armed groups on farmers and transporters, which were holding back economic development in the area.
In any case, economic players such as the Rubaya diggers welcome the return of relative security, which is conducive to business.
The pro-Kinshasa militiamen “used to steal money and telephones from us, but since the M23 arrived I’ve never been the victim of an attack”, asserts Grâce Mugisha, a digger from Rubaya.

But this security comes with new constraints. In all the areas under its control, the M23 has imposed “salongo”, an unpaid community service in which all inhabitants are obliged to participate once a week.
For Germain Nkinzo, an M23 executive in Minova, a commercial port in South Kivu on the shores of Lake Kivu, the aim is to instill “discipline” and “change mentalities” in order to accelerate economic and social development.
“Development must be the fruit of everyone’s will, not forced labor”, says a local resident, still shovel in hand, on his return from a morning of community work.

Humaniterre avec AFP