YAOUNDÉ, Cameroon – Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, who is also President of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), has issued a damning indictment of the exploitation of Africa’s mineral resources.
Speaking during a webinar organized on the 60th anniversary of the canonization of the Uganda Martyrs, Ambongo said it was paradoxical that a mineral-rich country such as the DRC should also be home to some of the world’s poorest people.
The country is rich in cobalt, lithium, and coltan, minerals needed to advance what analysts call the “Fourth Industrial Revolution,” fueled in part by artificial intelligence and advanced robotics. The DRC accounts for around 71 percent of the total production of cobalt in the world, and 35 percent of its coltan.
The UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) estimates that the DRC possesses untapped mineral reserves valued at $24 trillion. The country also holds half of Africa’s water resources and forest cover, along with 80 million hectares of arable land capable of feeding the entire continent.
In 2022, exports of copper and cobalt generated $25 billion, representing over a third of the DRC’s GDP for that year. In the same year, the World Bank found that around 74.6 percent of the DRC’s population lives on less than $2.15 a day, and about one in six Congolese live in extreme poverty.
The exploitation of mineral resources in Congo and across Africa, according to Ambongo, has led to war, death and destruction, and he referred to those who suffer and die from the conflicts as “modern martyrs.”
“The Church cannot remain silent in the face of this illegal exploitation of mineral resources, which generates war and violence, and which tear the social fabric of our countries and jeopardize their future,” the Congolese cardinal said during the conference that was titled, “Modern martyrs, victims of the exploitation of mineral resources in Africa: Realities and perspectives of the outgoing Church.”
“For more than a decade, our countries have become the theater of conflicts and wars, which sow destruction, disarray, tears, suffering and death,” Ambongo said. “Faced with this devastating and murderous violence, how can we celebrate with joy and gladness such a great anniversary of 60 years of the martyrs of Uganda, without reflecting together on this tragedy?”
“How can we think about the future of our churches without looking in the face of these many people who have aged prematurely due to subhuman living conditions, without seeing these faces of displaced persons disfigured by hunger, without listening to the shrill cries of these raped women, without hearing the clamor of these children working in the mines and these young people massacred gratuitously by warlords supported by international lobbies in search of wealth?” he asked.
He said the exploitation of such critical minerals such as tin, tantalum, gold, tungsten, as well as minerals of the energy transition such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, gives rise to armed conflicts in several African regions.
“These minerals are present in batteries of electric vehicles, smartphones, laptops, etc. Indeed, under the instigation of multinationals, armed groups locked in a vicious circle of financial logic are fighting in several African regions. War allows the control of the different mines, at the same time the sale of minerals is used to finance war,” he said.
Father Stan Chu Ilo, research professor at DePaul University and Coordinating Servant at the Pan African Catholic Theology and Pastoral Network, told Crux that besides the exploitation of Africa’s minerals by foreign conglomerates and industries –a reality that started with the slave trade – there is also “the raping of African resources by African office holders through the extractive leadership that we find in the resource-rich African countries such as Nigeria, DRC, Sudan, South Sudan, CAR, Cameroun, Kenya, Zimbabwe, South Africa and many others.”
He said it may be convenient to blame foreign companies “for the extraction and extroversion of Africa’s resources,” but he insisted that Africans too need to start taking blame for these problems.
“There is so much greed on our continent, and it runs deep and across the board from the top to the bottom. However, the people running the African states, and their religious accomplices and cheerleaders, should take the greatest blame for this client-patron relation of exchange that has created so much poverty, suffering, and pain for God’s people in Africa,” Chu Ilo told Crux.
He noted that the situation won’t be changed by those benefiting from the wanton exploitation of Africa’s minerals. Rather, it could be changed if the Church stands up to the “scandal of poverty in Africa in the midst of so much wealth.”
Cho said African youth need to heed Pope Francis’ call to “mobilize themselves against social evils in their countries,” and that African theologians need to make the issue a central concern of their writing, teaching and advocacy.
“Faced with the structural violence that is destroying our people’s lives, especially the poor and the vulnerable, and struggling as we all do with rising violence and restiveness among our people, it is no longer possible to continue doing ‘desktop theology,’” he said.
“I believe that the time is ripe for a new historical consciousness to emerge in Africa that will trigger an evangelically driven theology and pastoral life that can bring about social transformation in Africa and give hope to our people who have suffered enough,” Cho said.
Ambogo said the Church must denounce injustices, support the weak, and propose true reconciliation.
“It is up to us as an outgoing Church, despite all these tragedies, to continue to constantly transmit the message of hope in the risen Jesus,” Ambongo said.
“Christian hope is inhabited by a simple conviction that the future has a face and a desirable face, even if we are unaware of its features. It therefore also holds that the form in which the present is given is not unique or closed in on itself,” he said.
“Something else is possible, which must mobilize us to face the present time and its difficulties,” Ambongo said. “Strengthened by this Christian hope, the church plays its part in the transformation of our societies.”
