The DRC: When “Peace” Becomes a Business Opportunity for Imperialism

The Democratic Republic of Congo remains one of the clearest examples of the contradiction at the heart of imperialism in Africa: the louder the international powers speak about peace, stability and humanitarianism, the more deeply they become entangled in the political and economic structures surrounding the country’s enormous mineral wealth. The latest developments demonstrate that the so-called peace process has failed to resolve the fundamental contradictions underlying the conflict. Rather, diplomatic agreements, ceasefires and international monitoring mechanisms risk becoming instruments for managing the conflict while the struggle for control over Congo’s strategic resources intensifies.

The Washington Accords for Peace and Prosperity, signed in Washington, D.C., on 4 December 2025 between President Félix Tshisekedi of the DRC and President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, with Donald Trump as witness, were presented as an important step towards ending decades of conflict in eastern Congo. The agreement incorporated the earlier June 2025 peace agreement and established a framework for regional economic integration, including cooperation around mining and infrastructure. Yet the signing of another agreement has not automatically produced peace. The continuing violence demonstrates the limitations of diplomatic processes that are negotiated largely by governments and external powers while the interests and voices of ordinary Congolese people remain marginalised.

The central contradiction is glaring. Washington, Doha, Qatar, the African Union, Switzerland and the United Nations have all been involved in different aspects of the peace process, yet eastern Congo continues to experience insecurity. The parties have repeatedly committed themselves to ceasefires and de-escalation, but implementation has remained fragile. In June 2026, the Joint Oversight Committee involving the DRC, Rwanda, the United States, Qatar and African Union representatives expressed concern over escalating fighting, drone strikes and the deteriorating humanitarian situation. Even in August 2026, negotiations were continuing, with the parties agreeing on further steps under the Doha framework and ceasefire monitors beginning to deploy in eastern Congo. The persistence of negotiations months after the original agreements were signed tells its own story: the so-called peace process remains incapable of addressing the deeper forces driving the conflict.

An anti-imperialist analysis must therefore go beyond the personalities of Tshisekedi and Kagame or the immediate military confrontation between the Congolese government and M23. Congo's crisis exists within a much wider geopolitical struggle over territory, political influence and natural resources. The DRC possesses some of the world's most important deposits of cobalt, copper, lithium, tantalum, gold and other strategic minerals. These resources are indispensable to contemporary capitalism and increasingly important to batteries, electric vehicles, electronics, advanced manufacturing and military technologies. As the global capitalist powers compete to secure access to critical minerals, Congo has inevitably become a major arena of geopolitical competition.

This is where the language of peace and prosperity must be examined critically. The United States has openly sought to strengthen alternative critical-mineral supply chains and reduce dependence on China. Its strategic partnership with the DRC includes cooperation on critical minerals, infrastructure and investment and seeks to increase mineral exports through the Lobito Corridor linking the mineral-rich Copperbelt to the Atlantic through Angola. There is nothing inherently wrong with developing railways, roads, electricity infrastructure or international trade. The Congolese people have every right to demand modern infrastructure and industrial development. The fundamental question, however, is who owns these projects, who controls the minerals, who determines the terms of extraction, who processes the resources and where the profits ultimately go.

If Congo continues to export cobalt, copper, lithium and other minerals in raw or semi-processed form while importing expensive manufactured products, the basic colonial economic relationship remains intact. The names of the companies and the sophistication of the technology may change, but the underlying relationship remains one in which Africa supplies raw materials and external centres of capital capture most of the higher-value economic benefits. The development of the Lobito Corridor therefore deserves scrutiny from an African perspective. A railway carrying Congolese minerals to international markets can be an instrument of development if it contributes to African industrialisation and regional integration. But if its principal function is to move African resources more efficiently from the mine to foreign markets, then infrastructure becomes an extension of the extractive model rather than a pathway out of it.

The tragedy is that while governments and corporations negotiate mining agreements, ordinary Congolese people continue to pay the price of war. Millions have experienced displacement, insecurity, destruction of livelihoods and disruption of essential services. Communities have faced massacres, sexual violence, looting, destruction of homes and the loss of agricultural production. The humanitarian crisis has also been compounded by a devastating Ebola outbreak. According to the World Health Organisation, by 30 July 2026 the DRC had recorded 3,605 confirmed cases and 1,587 deaths from Bundibugyo virus disease, making it the largest outbreak of its kind ever recorded in the country. By late August, reported deaths had risen further. This humanitarian catastrophe exposes the profound inequality of the international system: enormous political and economic resources can be mobilised when strategic interests are involved, yet humanitarian assistance remains chronically underfunded.

The situation facing Congolese refugees in neighbouring Burundi is another illustration of this contradiction. More than 130,000 refugees have been dependent on humanitarian assistance, while the World Food Programme has warned that inadequate funding threatens the continuation of food assistance. The possibility that vulnerable refugees could lose essential food support while international actors continue to negotiate mineral, infrastructure and security arrangements should provoke serious questions about the priorities of the international system.

It would nevertheless be simplistic to argue that every foreign investment project is responsible for the war or that the conflict can be explained exclusively through the activities of Western multinational corporations. Congo's crisis has complex historical, political, ethnic, regional and security dimensions. Rwanda has its own security concerns, while the Congolese state has suffered from decades of institutional weakness, corruption, political instability and inadequate control over its vast territory. Armed groups operate for different reasons and are supported through complicated regional networks. Yet acknowledging these complexities does not invalidate the broader anti-imperialist argument. Rather, it strengthens the case for examining how external powers repeatedly intervene in African conflicts while pursuing their own strategic and economic interests.

The United States' recent policies towards Rwanda and the DRC illustrate this contradiction. Washington has criticised and sanctioned senior Rwandan military officials over alleged support for M23 while simultaneously deepening its strategic engagement with Kinshasa around critical minerals. This demonstrates that imperialist foreign policy is rarely driven by humanitarian considerations alone. Great powers pursue security, commercial and geopolitical interests simultaneously. African governments must therefore be cautious about presenting external powers as neutral guardians of peace.

The DRC does not need another externally imposed settlement that temporarily freezes the conflict while leaving its underlying economic structures untouched. It needs a genuinely African and people-centred approach to peace. Such an approach must defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the DRC, oppose foreign military intervention and support for armed proxies, strengthen democratic institutions, address the legitimate security concerns of neighbouring states and place Congolese communities at the centre of decisions concerning their own future.

Most importantly, Congo must break from the colonial pattern of exporting raw materials and importing finished products. Cobalt should contribute to the production of batteries. Copper should feed African industrial manufacturing. Lithium should contribute to technological development on the continent. Gold and other mineral wealth should finance schools, hospitals, electricity, transport infrastructure and decent employment. The enormous mineral resources of the DRC should become a foundation for African industrialisation rather than a source of wealth for foreign shareholders.

This requires democratic control over strategic natural resources, transparent mining contracts, stronger public institutions, greater domestic processing and genuine regional economic cooperation. It also requires African countries to resist becoming instruments in the geopolitical competition between external powers. Africa should not be forced to choose which foreign power gets privileged access to its resources. The strategic autonomy of the continent requires Africans to determine how their resources are exploited and how the resulting wealth is distributed.

The Congolese people therefore deserve more than a peace agreement signed in Washington, another round of negotiations in Doha or another international monitoring mechanism. They deserve a peace that ends foreign interference, dismantles the networks that sustain armed conflict and creates the conditions for genuine social and economic transformation. A ceasefire that merely allows mining operations to resume is not sufficient. Peace must mean security for communities, dignity for refugees, justice for victims and economic sovereignty for the Congolese people.

The fundamental question is therefore not simply who wins the next military confrontation or which diplomatic formula eventually survives. The deeper question is who controls Congo's immense wealth and for whose benefit that wealth is used. Congo does not need peace merely so that multinational corporations can mine more efficiently. It needs peace so that Congolese workers, peasants and young people can determine their own future.

The DRC's mineral wealth belongs first and foremost to the Congolese people. Its exploitation should contribute to national reconstruction, regional integration and continental industrialisation. The country must not remain a battlefield where foreign powers compete for strategic minerals while ordinary people suffer the consequences. The future of Congo must be determined in Congo, by its people, and in the interests of African development rather than the accumulation of wealth by external capital.

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