Congo: The Conflict Spiral Fueled by Networks of Interest

 

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, peace is a word that has been signed at tables for over three decades but never lived on the ground. After every negotiation, another city in eastern Congo falls, and news of a new massacre emerges from the country.

For Congo, which returned to the negotiating table with Rwanda under the mediation of US President Donald Trump in December, the picture remains unchanged. Just one day after the signatures were dry, the M23 terrorist group seized the strategic city of Uvira in South Kivu, massacring dozens of civilians.

Peace remains unattainable in Congo because in these lands, the crisis is more than a security issue; it is a system where the absence of a solution has been turned into profit, a setup that is not meant to be shaken. In this order, peace is the least desirable scenario. The controlled continuation of chaos is the guarantee for the permanent presence of America and other imperialist powers in the region.

As Burkina Faso's President Ibrahim Traoré recently stated, "The problem is not terrorism, it is imperialism. A system is at work that wants to keep African countries in a perpetual state of war to hinder their development and continue plundering their resources.

From imperialist powers to financial magnates, from warlords to private military companies, from international peace missions to aid organizations, numerous actors operate in an implicit collaboration to prevent this resilient, self-perpetuating system from breaking down.

 The Congo crisis is a conflict trap, a war economy produced by vast networks of interest: Violence enables the plunder of resources, revenue from the plunder finances violence, and violence, by collapsing state authority, facilitates further plunder.

What is happening in Congo is a 30-year war of occupation, pillage, and attrition, led by Rwanda and Uganda with the political, military, and diplomatic support of the United States and other Western powers. 

Since the war began in 1996, its roots stretching back to the Belgian colonial era, nearly 6 million Congolese have lost their lives. Over 7 million have been displaced. Systematic mass rape, looting, and violence have become part of daily life in these lands. 

Who Doesn't Want Peace? 

Imperialist Powers and Regional Proxies

Global competitors such as the USA, China, Israel, the UAE, and European states reap maximum benefit from the chaos to access the mineral-rich resources of Congo in the cheapest and fastest way possible and to expand their geopolitical spheres of influence.

Today, rather than direct occupation, imperialism conducts its military, commercial, and intelligence activities through "shadow actors"—private companies, security firms, and proxy states. Through a broad alliance encompassing arms dealers, warlords, multinational corporations, and organizations in the role of "saviors," it keeps the Congolese state weak. While peace is strategically obstructed, covert maneuvers are made to prolong the war.

 Local Collaborators and Mining Companies

Political elites—ministers, parliamentarians, generals—who displace their own people for mining and infrastructure projects, sell mining licenses, and negotiate with armed groups, are among the internal actors of this chaotic system.

 Companies and individuals plundering the country's rich mineral resources in a conflict environment proliferate illegal mining and cross-border trade.

 Arms Dealers and Drug Traffickers

 War zones create ideal working areas for drug traffickers and arms dealers. Drug barons supply narcotics to warlords, mercenaries, and child soldiers, making the violence sustainable.

Drugs become the key to all this savagery, enabling soldiers to kill, rape, maim, loot, and burn. Arms smugglers, especially in the east of the country, play a crucial role in sustaining the conflicts.

 Warlords and Financial Circles

 Every war produces two types of warlords: those in power and those opposing it. Both sides are intertwined with looters, arms dealers, drug barons, and mercenaries. Peace means the dismantling of these structures.

 The process that begins with bullets is completed with credit, debt, and money laundering.

 The World Bank, IMF, and other international commercial banks burden war-torn countries with unpayable debts, thus systematically hindering their empowerment. Due to structural adjustment programs, states lose their service delivery and oversight capacity.

 In the DRC, money laundering is known to play a key role, particularly in the transactions of looters and arms smugglers. Illegal money is laundered by being converted into assets, enabling ostensibly legal operations.

 Private Security Companies and UN Missions

Private military and security companies providing soldiers and security services to weak and collapsed states also profit from the chaos economy under the pretext of providing so-called security services. Numerous companies, from the UK's Defense Systems Limited to America's AirScan and Israel's Levdan, are hired by weak states, "savior" organizations, imperialists, and drug barons. The security companies operating in Congo at different times and in different roles protect not the people, but the looters and terrorists.

Soldiers hired with high salaries abandon the country at the first serious threat. The departure of Romanian mercenaries at the first sign of threat clearly demonstrated this reality.

 The arrival of peace means the end of billion-dollar profitable contracts.

 The position of the increasingly discredited United Nations in Congo is no different from that in other war zones. Despite being deployed in Congo for years as one of the most expensive peacekeeping operations, MONUSCO, instead of ensuring peace, further confronts society with crises by being implicated in human rights violations. It does not end the chaos; it merely manages it at a tolerable level. 

Sincere actors striving for a regional solution are not permitted. For example, the effective establishment of a military presence by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in Congo was deliberately hindered by all these actors.

 "Savior" Organizations

 On the other hand, the humanitarian crisis in Congo also suits aid organizations that thrive on poverty. Such organizations, lacking goals like eliminating the root causes of poverty and underdevelopment, profit from aid aimed at sustaining structural dependency serving imperialism. Therefore, their desire for peace is not genuine but opportunistic. Of course, there are individuals and limited projects in the field that truly save lives; but at a systemic level, the number of those benefiting from the multi-billion dollar aid network (the poverty industry)—composed of food, medical supply, and equipment providers—is significant.

 

Refugees and disaster victims become sources of immense profit in the wide range of activities of aid organizations and similar institutions, extending from rehabilitation to resettlement and integration programs. If there's a crisis, there's funding; but the moment the crisis ends, the funds are cut. Yet, the suffering of the people continues.

The media renders this immense system of interests invisible. A journalistic approach that presents Congo and Rwanda to international public opinion as "two tribal countries at war" strips the crisis of its historical, economic, and political context. While the responsible parties fade into the background, chaos is normalized. As long as the system remains unquestioned, chaos continuously reproduces itself.

 Conclusion: It's Not the War, It's the System

 All these actors collaborate to prolong the war because the structure in question only survives through the continuation of conflict.

 What is happening in Congo is not an exception; it is how the current global order functions. Crises serve as fuel for the existing imperialist order.

 This is why the Congo issue should be approached not with the question, "Why does peace not come?" but with, "Who does peace not serve?" Silencing the guns is not enough; all the economic, political, and humanitarian networks of interest that feed on chaos must be made visible.

 Nor is Congo an isolated tragedy. The "chaos economy" perfected in Congo today will be rebuilt tomorrow in another geography, with different actors, but with the same cruelty.

 The original text of this article was published in Independent Turkish.