YAOUNDÉ, Cameroon – A leading African priest and intellectual, Father Stan Chu Ilo says Africa’s history can be explained as “a history of extraversion and violence,”- the idea that the wealth and resources of Africa – material and human – have been taken from the continent through violence.

“So whether it goes back to slavery or to colonialism and then modernity, it’s been extraversion… the resources and the wealth of Africa have always been stolen, through violence or by deception,” Ilo told Crux.

Ilo is a Research Professor at the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology at DePaul University in Chicago. He was reacting to a recent outing by African bishops condemning the continued exploitation of the continent’s natural resources by western nations and multinational companies and the wars associated with such exploitation.

“We know that Africa’s rich mineral deposits, truly a potential source of prosperity, have instead continued to be a source of conflict,” the bishops said in a statement February 11 at the end of the Standing Committee Meeting of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM).

“The desire to control and appropriate these resources motivates powerful nations and multinational corporations to fund armed factions in some African countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Nigeria, Mozambique, Sudan, etc, – fthereby perpetuating violence, displacement and instability,” the bishops said.

The statement, signed by SECAM President Fridolin Cardinal Ambongo of the Catholic Archdiocese of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) echoes the words of Pope Francis when he visited Kinshasa in January 2023.

“Hands off the Democratic Republic of Congo! Hands off Africa! Stop choking Africa, it is not a mine to be stripped or a terrain to be plundered,” the pope said –a statement that highlighted the continued plundering of African resources by powerful nations and multinational companies.

The resource wars have however continued. Recent fighting in eastern DRC for instance has resulted in the deaths of at least 3000 people, according to the United Nations.

As of July 2024, reports indicate that over 4,000 people had been killed due to the conflict in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado Province. The violence has also led to the displacement of more than 600,000 people within the province.

SECAM bishops said they were saddened at the sheer number of deaths in these resource wars, and told victims that the Church will always be on their side.

“We acknowledge the immense suffering that many of our brothers and sisters are enduring due to conflicts, violence, massacres, and instability in various parts of our continent,” the statement said.

“We stand with you, pray for you, and continue to call for justice, peace, and reconciliation,” the bishops say.

Ilo highlighted that powerful nations and multinationals use very deceptive language to access Africa’s minerals-such as neoliberal capitalism and global economic convergence.

“The narrative that Africa, by adopting neoliberal capitalism, would see an equal distribution of wealth and resources globally has been proven false,” Ilo told Crux.

“This idea was heavily promoted even before globalization took full effect, by institutions like the IMF and the World Bank. These organizations propagated the notion that economic convergence was achievable. However, the reality is a divergence, where Africa’s wealth and resources are being used to enhance the quality of life in other parts of the world, rather than improving the living standards for its own people,” he said.

Very often, violence has become a characteristic of Africa’s mineral wealth whereby violence becomes consistent with the possession of wealth.

“So the wealth, rather than being a source of prosperity, peace and progress, has become a source of violence, war, extraversion, corruption. You can look at what is going on in Congo. You cannot separate that violence from the wealth that is in the northeast. Look at Nigeria. The violence in Nigeria is as a result of extraversion, the oil wealth. You can look at the Central African Republic. You can look at Sudan and South Sudan, Mozambique and Angola…. Wherever you find violence, there is wealth,” the priest said.

He said the mineral wars of Africa are a contradiction of the economic convergence promised by neoliberal capitalism and noted that western multinationals as well as the Chinese and now the Russians are not being interested in the development of Africa.

“The ethical question is often abandoned… the question of abundant life, human security, food security…those things are abandoned. Rather, it is a battle to, if you like, empty Africa of its wealth,” Ilo.

He, however, noted that it would be wrong to cast the blame wholly on the powerful nations and their multinationals. African leaders and their militaries, as well as some religious leaders are also complicit in the rape of the continent.

“And the international community, I don’t think is interested in what goes on in the continent of Africa, beside using Africa, abusing Africa, misusing Africa,” he said.

The priest doesn’t believe that with the current leadership in Africa, the situation could change anytime soon, “except if there is some new agency and new historical consciousness that emerges in Africa.”

“I don’t see most of the leaders today in Africa capable of this historical consciousness that looks beyond their own narrow ethnic, political, and economical business interests; to look at the more pan-African vision that the early founders of Africa thought about,” Ilo said.