As of yesterday circulating reports have been that the Congolese government has placed the Rubaya coltan mines on a shortlist of strategic assets it is “offering to the United States” under a proposed minerals deal. (With the country’s ruler Tshisekedi hoping the US will send troops to fight his wars).
There is only one inconvenient detail. Rubaya is under control of the AFC/M23 movement, not under Kinshasa.
One doesn’t need a law degree to understand that they cannot negotiate with what they do not own. You cannot sell land with no title deed.
Rubaya is not just another mine. It has one of the richest tantalum deposits in the world. The mineral feeds global technology industries. It is strategic. It is valuable. And it’s fully in AGC/M23’a territory. Yet Kinshasa is presenting it to Washington as if the keys are safely in its pocket.
This is where the utter lack of seriousness of Tshisekedi and his gang become glaringly obvious. How do you showcase assets sitting in the hands of others?
Is this an attempt to drag the United States into confronting M23 on Kinshasa’s behalf? To align American economic interests with a battlefield that Kinshasa has failed to stabilize? Or is it simply preparing an alibi?
Tomorrow, when delivery fails, the explanation will be ready. The mines are under rebel control. We tried. The situation is complicated. Another promise evaporates.
But the bigger question now sits in Washington. Who is duping who? Why should the US stay silent in the face of this fraud. The United States does not require a mountain of intelligence reports to see the obvious contradiction here.
If America chooses to ignore that basic fact, then perhaps the joke is not in Kinshasa. Because at some point, Washington must ask itself a simple question. Are we negotiating with a state exercising authority, or with political improvisation dressed up as strategy?
There is a difference between bold diplomacy and reckless gambling. There is a difference between ambition and illusion.
Whoever is playing who, the answer will not remain hidden forever. But if a global power ends up entangled in promises built on contested ground, it will have only itself to blame.