Guerrilla History - Mining the Congo w/ Josaphat Musamba, Germain Ngoie Tshibambe, & Ben Radley (AR&D Ep.10)

Episode Date: October 31, 2025

With this episode of Guerrilla History, we bring you another fascinating episode in our series African Revolutions and Decolonization.  This time, a big episode on mining in Congo - extraction, exploitation, environmental and economic impacts, as well as the history, regional variations, and the difference between industrial mining and artisanal mining in Congo.  For this, we are lucky to be joined by Ben Radley as a guest host, and two excellent guests from the Congo -   Josaphat Musamba and Germain Ngoie Tshibambe.  Given their academic work on this, plus Josaphat's actual experience as a miner himself, we could not ask for a better group to unpack this!  Share widely to help others understand this remarkably pivotal industry.  Also be sure to check out our two previous episodes from the series on the Congo (The First, and The Second).  Lastly, check out the Centre of Expertise on Mining Governance.   Josaphat Musamba is a Congolese researcher, and is a Ph.D. student at Ghent University. Check out Josaphat's twitter @MusambaJosaphat and his ResearchGate profile.   Germain Ngoie Tshibambe is a full professor at the University of Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where he teaches international relations and is the Head Advisor of the Rector's Cabinet. Check out his Academia page and ResearchGate profile.   Ben Radley is is a Lecturer in International Development at the University of Bath, is author of Disrupted Development in the Congo: The Fragile Foundations of the African Mining Consensus, and is an editor of the Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE). Follow him on twitter @RadleyBen and check out his website. Help support the show by signing up to our patreon, where you also will get bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/guerrillahistory 

You remember Den Van Boo? They didn't have anything but a rank. The French had all these highly mechanized instruments of warfare. But they put some guerrilla action on. Hello and welcome to guerrilla history, the podcast that acts as a reconnaissance report of global proletarian history and aims to use the lessons of history to analyze the present. I'm one of your co-hosts, Henry Huckamacki,

unfortunately not joined by my other usual co-host, who of course is Professor Adnan Hussein, historian and director of the School of Religion at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada. I am fortunate to be joined by a terrific guest host today, but before I introduce our guest host and kind of let you know how this episode was recorded because it is a rather convoluted process, I would like to first let you know listeners that you can help support the show and allow us to continue making episodes like this by going to patreon.com forward slash gorilla history. That's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A history. And you can keep up to date with everything that the show is doing by following us on social media. We're on Twitter at Gorilla underscore Pod, Instagram, Gorilla underscore History. And we have a free Substack newsletter, which comes out about once a month and lets you know what we're doing without having to rely on social media algorithms to show you what we're doing.

You can find that GorillaHistory.com and just note that Gorilla has two R's. I should also make one final note before I introduce Ben, my guest host for this episode, that the Gorilla History YouTube channel has recently been launched. Now, don't worry, listeners, you don't have to see Adnan and myself. We have a great animation, which was done by a Marxist Vietnamese artist, and she really did a terrific job on the animation. Basically, we're just uploading at the moment some of our 300 roughly episode back catalog onto the YouTube channel because a lot of people prefer to listen to things on YouTube than podcasts.

So if you have any comrades that you know would enjoy some of our back catalog and soon we'll also be uploading new episodes on there as well and would rather listen on YouTube than via podcast, you can send the YouTube link to them. It'll be linked in the show notes on this episode and it's pretty easy to find it's guerrilla history or I believe it's guerrilla history on YouTube. I probably should remember that.

But in any case, you look for guerrilla history on YouTube or if you follow us on Twitter, you'll find those links. So with that out of the way, I am joined by a terrific guest host, friend of mine, Ben Radley. Ben, can you introduce yourself to the listeners briefly? Yes, certainly. My name's Ben Radley. I work at the University of Bath in England. my research focuses primarily on the political economy of mining, energy, and labor, increasingly in the context of green transitions with a focus on Africa and Asia-Pacific, but most of my work to date has focused in particular on Congo.

Which is apropos of the discussion today. Ben should also mention that he has offered the book Disrupted Development in the Congo, the Fragile Foundations of the African, mining consensus and that focus on mining in the Congo context is exactly what the episode today is going to be about. Now, an important note listeners about how this episode is being recorded. We have a really great guest whom you will be hearing from in just a moment, Josephat, and he will introduce himself in just a moment. Ben and I had originally sat down with Josephat to record it live as we typically do on the show, but as a result of technical difficulties

and internet problems, we weren't able to get the recording done with Josephat live. And so what we did is we wrote out all of the questions that we were going to ask to Josephat and sent it to him and had him record his part separately. We will be asking those questions to the recording of Josephat. So it will sound conversational listeners, but in case there is a moment where the question does not directly coincide with the way that he's responding to it. Do be aware that these are being recorded over a week apart from one another as a result of scheduling and technical difficulties. A final note is that there will be a second voice that you will hear on the end of this episode.

However, that voice will be mixed under an overdub, which will be Ben. Thanks, Ben. So, Ben, we have a professor from the University of Lumum Bashi who will be answering. a couple of extra questions at the end of this episode after we discuss with Josephat because his expertise and his area of focus is slightly different than that of Josephats. And can you let the listeners know a little bit about who the professor at Lumumashi is? And of course, we will have him introduce himself as well when we have that recording. So yes, listeners, this is being recorded in about four stages and then edit it together,

not an enviable task. Can you tell the listen to is a little bit about the professor at Lumum Bashi and then also why we decided that we should have Josephat and him both having their own perspectives and how those perspectives can complement one another as a result of their slightly different focuses? Yes, sure. So we're going to be speaking with Professor Germain and Goye Tishibambe, who is a professor at the University of Lumbamashi. And the reason we think he's going to compliment so well, Josephat is because Josephat will be speaking largely to the context in the eastern Congo, which is a predominantly artisanal mining area.

That's where Josephat is from. That's where Josephat has grown up and that's where his research focuses. Whereas the professor in Lumbumbashi is based in the industrial heartland of Congo, where copper and coal bolt is produced. used. And so has a very different, I think, perspective and can bring us some sort of very different insights on the mining sector in Congo. So I think bringing those two together from the East and then from the Copper Belt in Katanga, Artisanal Mining, Industrial Mining, having those two perspectives together should hopefully give us a pretty rounded picture of the mining

landscape in the country. Absolutely. So without further ado, listeners, Ben and I are going to now start asking the questions to the various recordings that we have of Josephat Musamba, who will be the first guest that we hear from and then from the professor in Lumumbashi at the end of the conversation. So without further ado, we shall get into the conversation. We also are joined by Josephat Musamba, who's going to be our guest for today. Josephat's a doctoral researcher at University of Ghent in Belgium. He's from Bukavu, and he is a researcher on the conflict in the Eastern Congo and on mining within the Congo. Hello, Josephat. How are you doing today? Hello, I'm fine. Thanks. I'm happy that I can be part of for this podcast. Absolutely. And it's a

pleasure to have you here. And I have to thank Ben for connecting us with you. So, Josephat, we have known each other for longer than I think either of us would care to remember. I think going back about 15 years or so now when I first started living in Congo and we came across each other through our work on mining. So I know you very well at this point, but the other listeners won't. So are you able to tell us a little bit about your own background within the topic of mining in the Congo, both from an academic perspective, but as well as on a personal level? Thank you very much for your question. Let me just introduce myself.

I am Jennifer Rumsamba. I'm a Congolese researcher based in Bokoavu. I work for a Congolese research center, Jacques S.Rewki, which is really based in Bokavu. and I'm pursuing a doctoral program at Kent University in Belgium. I was born in Bukavo and revised in Ovira. So during the Banyamalingas rule or the first Congo war, usually said, I went with my family to Shabunda as my shelter was living in Ovirah. We went to Shabunda Center where I had to stay internally displaced.

We stayed there until 1997. Afterward, my mother sent us to Bokavu. On 2 August, 1998, Saskia, Saskivu plunged into the Second Congo War, what we know that they are sitting. So it had divided the country into several semi-euro autonomous and from Matta to Virgi. Once again, I was affected while my father, who passed away, got the sickness.

And my family decided to bring him to Kamitoga. They decided that I hate to travel with him. We went to Kamituga. One year later, my father was, he was back in Pokka. But the medication hadn't changed this situation. I stayed in Kamituga for a right. Now, my background with this topic started in Kamituka. On a personal working basis, I decided to mining, especially

additional small-scale mining. In Mungote, people used to say Mungote in Kamituga. The central Somenki mining location, people in Kamituga didn't overweigh the place. I had joined my cousin, who had been managing their private mining pit. My short career is a gold miner in Kamituga between, if I remember, 2001, 2004. and I had mine with them with my cousin. Firstly, I started as an assistant. I can say get keeper of meas,

it's what they call Lutanda. In occasion, where mine are keep meas, harmon, and other tools. So second year, on an academic basis, I was part of the larger doctoral projects in eastern India of Congo, which aimed at understand the impact of the mechanism of trustability. We used to say it's key. I would always recognize Christopher who brought me, who brought me especially into this topic.

when he hired me as a part of the project. So I was a research assistant. After what, I took the same routes working on the topic and the sector. I'm highly interested in the theme, and I'm dynamic across Eastern Congo's code or 3T supply chain. Yes, while studying civil war, I noticed that rebel group mainly controlled manual and their supply chains. In the same van, rebel group are providing and insecuritizing that activity. So I have published and a co-published paper and short analysis on mining,

sometime contributing to the debate and significant literature. Just to reply to your first question. Let's turn to the history of mining in the Congo now. Now, before we get to that, I would also want to remind the listeners that we have, two episodes that we did in our African Revolutions and Decolonization series relatively recently with Professor Georges Inzengola and Talaja on the history of Congo from pre-colonization all the way through the present. The first one takes us from pre-colonization up through the era of Mobutu,

and then the second takes us from Mobutu to the present, and with a particular focus on what is going on currently in the eastern Congo. So if you haven't already heard those listeners, I highly recommend that you listen to that because a lot of the discussion is going to be involving different periods of time in Congolese history and having a working knowledge of that history will be useful. I also highly recommend that you take a moment before I ask this question and look at a map of Congo, of Democratic Republic of Congo, because as Ben mentioned in the introduction of this episode and as will become clear throughout. this episode, the mining industry is different in different parts of the country. And having a working knowledge of the geography of the country will be useful to you in understanding that. So with those notes out of the way, Josephat, I know that you periodize the history of mining

in Congo into four periods. Can you tell us what those four periods are and why you've chosen to periodize it in this way? The history of mining in Congo, Myself, I approached it into four periods. According to my observation, the history of mining in Congo fall into four significant period. First of all, what I call the pre-colonial era, the colonial era, the post-colonial era from Mobutu to capital, I think it may be linked to the Chisakari era and the process of nationalization of and what I call chinalization and the global rush on cobras mining. This is like the I think the three and the third, what I call post-colonial, is really a process of rupture and continuity. So, linked to that, let me just develop this three or four period.

Firstly, considering the pre-colonial era, it's closely linked to the situation before the arrival of Arab or even Beijing. Historically, evidence come from the former kingdom, kingdoms in the regions, as it's which for me became the Congo free state, the Congo independent state, and the democratic republic of Congo. Certain kingdom exploited the manor during this era, and it became strategic nowadays. They tried a certain minor role and changed, especially during certain ceremony,

like wedding ceremony before there is historically effective like that. If they couldn't transform them themselves, right? They were really limited. They depend on each other until the Congo free states come into control and occupy the Congo. However, they agreed to share their soil and the forest. Secondly, the Belgian states is a colonizing country commissioned

exploration to fuel industry and the global market so compared to current critical mine rules, rubber was at the top such as now manganese,

lithium, tungsten etc. So exploitation of rubber criticized knowing that it had produce violence, forced labor, and required workfolks among indigenous and amongst Congolese indigenous, especially in the Western India, Congo currently in the province of Equator and Truapa, and somehow the Mongala, what they call the Mongala, I know. However,

According to some historian, the Belgian state and Leopold II have shown diversity in investing in mining for their interest. It's clear that numerous mining industries such as mine of rich lakes, what we used to call M.JL. mean the ground lag, which became so many currently they call him Sakima and the former Ino Minir dihukatanga and then the other noun like

Kilomoto or Kobel mean exported manual in eastern year of Congo. So this era had challenged, you know, Missouri and local actions such as education, infrastructure, and road. Belgium,

the country, Belgium, had made money from its colonization. Until 1959, before our independence, the Congolese reclaimed their independence and self-determination to

govern themselves their country politically, economically, and to master their natural resources. Thirdly, there was the post-colonial era during which the Congo's political system and the regime changed into a dictatorship one. So former President Jus Mumbu Kungungu-Azabanda installed a violent regime and himself nationalized, ex-colonial industry.

So while some maintain their productivity, other failed or collapsed. This era was, let me just say, unprecedented in terms of corruption and embezzlement. The regime was

halted, if I remember, in 1997, by a rebellion that afterward, depending on mining as well, particularly in Hokatanga and Hesol. Finally, the fourth is the Chisakedi era, which combines Chinese, Western and a presidential washer on Congolese natural resources. The period is part of continuation of Kabila's origin, whose mining has played a vital role in its policies.

Still, it has to become a competition domain between Westerners and Asian as at least Chinese. Since Chisekei took power as president of the Republic, some of his family member are really involved in mining activity, mostly contract with Chinese as an umbrella for Chinese or facilitating the later to get access to mining. and other activities we have been observed, observing in South Kivu. We do not have much information about ituri, but still they were really involved in South Kivu. I think they have connection as well in Turi. All right, Ben, now that Josephat has periodized this history and explain to us why he does so,

can you take us through those periods of history in the Congolese mining industry and let us know what we need to understand to understand the present situation? I can certainly try. There's a lot of ground to cover there. But I will start with, and I think it was important that Joseph Fatt began with his first period emphasizing the history of pre-colonial mining in Congo, because indeed there is a long history. history of pre-colonial mining in Congo, of in particular copper, which was used in the copper belt region as it's known today. I believe it was used to make currency, I think in some sorts of trade and exchange, in making some ornaments and artifacts. I think this is an important part of the history to acknowledge in order to push back against what I think is still this very prevalent and powerful idea that is held today, both in the West but also in Africa itself,

due to the relics of the colonial education system, which continue there, as much as they do in the West, to push back against this idea that before the arrival of Europeans in Africa, it was, you know, an empty space or a void, right? Complete ignorance of the empires and the kingdoms and the civilization and the technological complexity and so on and so forth that existed. And so indeed, you do have a history of pre-colonial mining in Congo, but then, of course, with the arrival of Belgian colonialism and the arrival of European capitalism and the introduction of capitalist social relations and capitalist extractivist dynamics,

this relationship then between minerals in the region, between society and the economy fundamentally altered. almost overnight, really, in historical terms. And so moving into the colonial period, which, as Josephant mentioned, began with King Leopold II and then moved into the Belgian Congo from 1885 to 1960. I suppose the important, well, there's a lot to emphasize and where to start is somewhat difficult to know.

But I think, as Josephant mentioned, there are a number of Belgian mining companies that all began extracting at scale and exporting to Europe in around the early 1900s. You had Union Mineerre or Catanga, which was in the Katanga region, mainly focused on copper. You had four Minier working with diamonds. And then in the east, you had Minier-Gron Lac. And maybe that's a good company to talk about to give a bit of an illustrative example or story as to how this took place and what was going on.

So, Mignyre de Kornlak, was a Belgian subsidiary belonging to the Belgian industrialist, Baron Empan. Baron Empan was invited into the Congo by King Leopold II to construct a railway in the Congo, to begin to connect Congo to ports and for export. He was invited in, and in return for being invited in, he was given 4 million hectares of land. and all mining and mineral prospecting rights within that land. Now, four million hectares of land is certainly larger than Rwanda. It's larger than Burundi. It may be comparable to those two countries together, which they have around 20, 25 million people living in them.

So this is a seriously sizable piece of land that he was given. And so he started prospecting. King Nipod the second exited stage left. The Belgian Congo came in. And by the 1910s, 1920s, he discovered the many minerals that the Eastern Congo is famed for today. So plenty of lots of gold, lots of tin and other minerals. And through this mining subsidiary, Minier de Grande Lack, in the 1920s, they began production and export to Belgium. By the late 1920s, early 1930s, I believe they had dozens of mines.

that were active across the region, exporting these minerals to Belgium. And this was a period of super profits, really, for the firm. And, you know, I think this story is kind of generalizable across the Congo of what was taking place at the time. And I've done some archival research around this into this particular firm in the Eastern Congo. And what you see is that, you know, throughout the 1920s, 30s and 40s,

it was making annually extraordinary profits. I think by the early 1930s or late 1930s, the shareholders who'd invested in the firm had made an 18-fold return on their initial investment within the space of about 10 to 15 years. And all of the time, these returns and these profits were being made on the backs of super-exploited African labour. African labour was being paid below subsistence wages

during this period. Workers were being whipped, beaten, imprisoned for any sorts of infractions or perceived ill discipline. And so this is really the story of, you know, both in the Congo and globally of the time, this is the story of unequal exchange and this is a story of the uneven development of capitalism, global capitalism that you see taking place through the colonial history of mining in the Congo. you know, workers did going into the 1940s begin to organize both in Eastern Congo but also with Union Minejahou Katanga in the Katanga region and across the country, workers did begin to organize and to agitate and to revolt under the slogan of equal work, equal pay.

You had in the mid-late 1940s the first Congolese workers trade union was set up. and this did lead to some improvement in conditions in the 1950s and 60s that were won by Congolese workers themselves through their organization and their own mobilizing efforts. But yeah, I think that story of MGA is kind of indicative of the general clonial period and the way in which that was taking place and the way in which Europe primarily was being developed on the back of the impover. impoverishment of in this case African workers, and we would now call today Congolese workers. Then you move into following Joseph Fatt's periodization, you move into what he periodizes as the post-colonial period of mining in Congo, so from 1960 onwards.

I think, again, lots to say here, but perhaps worth focusing a little on the Mobutu period in particular, Mabutu in power for 32 years, 1965 to 1997. And I think the one thing that's maybe worth saying here in the context of mining is that, and you know, for many very valid reasons, I think we often associate the Mabutu period as one of, you know, huge embezzlement and, you know, corruption and mismanagement and so on and so forth. I think this is the way that kind of Mabutu is commonly understood. But I think one thing that's maybe worth mentioning here in the context of mining is that actually in sort of the early kind of decade, 10, 15 years of, of Mabutu being in power, Jekamines, which was the, which Union Minier Hootanga was nationalized

and became Jekamines, the 100% state-owned company. And, you know, throughout the 70s and 80s, as the copper price was doing pretty well, Jacquinez was also doing pretty well. And I think this is generally the story of mining. You see the Zambian economist, Grieh, Chalwa, has written about this in Zambia as well, that mining sort of rises and falls based on prices,

not necessarily on ownership. And I think that's the important point to maybe acknowledge in this period, is that this was also the case in Congo. And so Jacquemines was doing pretty well up until the 80s when you had the copper price crash. And it was after that that things start to unravel. But then what happens is that, you know, the World Bank step in with their own interpretation

as to why the mining sector began to stagnate and collapse from the late-198, mid-1980s onwards. And they understand this as basically the product of Congolese mismanagement and inefficiencies and so on. And that the state needs to be taken out of the mining sector. And these companies need to be privatized and handed over to foreign ownership, who can manage the mining sector in a more efficient and sustainable way. And so this is precisely what happens. You have from the 1990s onwards basically increasing reprivatization of the mining sector, particularly from the 2000s onwards when Joseph Kabila comes into power at the end of the two Congo wars.

Mobutu has since left. Joseph Kabila is in power. a new mining code comes in, which the World Bank directly oversaw the writing of, and it completely liberalizes and privatizes the sector. And it gets handed over to foreign multinationals who come in and take ownership. And broadly, that is the mining sector that the Congo has today. Through to the end of the Kabila administration in 2019, you now have Phileadishiki, the Cohen, president and the mining sector remains predominantly under majority foreign-owned structures.

And as Joseph Fatt mentioned in his periodization, what he calls the most recent period Chinaization and the global rush for Congo's minerals, China has become in the last 10 years or so the main player in this landscape in terms of ownership of industrial mines in Congo. And I know you mentioned labor, and I know that your next question is going to be related to labor, which you'll direct to Josephette. But I also just want to take a step back briefly. It should be obvious that we're talking exclusively about mining, but it is worth noting that. And as Josephette mentions in the conversation that the DRC, if you look at the material wealth of the land, is one of the richest places on this.

the earth, and that is not limited to things that are might. We're not only talking about diamonds, copper, and tin. We're also talking about, I mean, originally, the Congo was colonized largely because of the interest in rubber and these large rubber plantations that were present. As Ben mentioned in that previous discussion, a lot of the precious minerals that were found in the ground weren't known about at all in the area until the 1910s. This is long after colonization took place. The interest in colonization was for things like wood, for things like rubber, which, you know, of course, is derived from the rubber tree. Other resources that are present, there's a lot of things associated with the Congo River, which of course runs right through

the area and many things have been taken out as well as the ability to transport things along the Congo River, you know, having that colonization take place there also allows for the penetration of the goods coming from the core into the area and then also the export of those natural materials from the periphery back out to the colonizing core. But it's also, you know, worth mentioning that this is also something that persists to today, the exploitation of resources of the Congo outside of mining. So I'm only bringing this up because the rest of our conversation is going to be focused more or less exclusively on mining. but it's also important to just note that this exploitation of natural resources from the Congo extends far beyond that up to the present day, even if we're talking about wood, which if we're talking about, you know, the exploitation of forest resources and wood in particular, that seems like

something that may be somewhat old-fashioned. But there's been a lot of reporting that's come out in the last few years about how extremely valuable amounts of, of wood, huge amounts and also valuable woods, so valuable both in terms of scale as well as in terms of what the wood is, are being smuggled to the east into Uganda. And Uganda is a huge market for Congolese wood both domestically and then also for export from Uganda, but the wood comes from the Congo. And so even if we're not talking about mineral wealth, but other natural resources, that exploitation and that smuggling and of the resources is continuing to today. I know that that comes through a little bit in the conversations that we had with Professor

Georgians Angola and Talaja, but it's worth mentioning at least briefly here that this exploitation of natural resources of the Congo, while it is tempting to focus highly on the mining sector and as we are in this conversation, it is worth noting that. it is not exclusively limited to this sector. But with that out of the way, Ben, if there's anything that you want to add on that, otherwise you can go in with your question to Josephan. Yeah, I think I'll go in with the question. I mean, other than to entirely agree with what you've laid out,

I don't have much to add to that. But in terms of returning to mining and thinking about the labor conditions, the labor conditions over time in the mines, which is something that looks different depending on what form of mining you're looking at. On the one hand, you have, as we mentioned it, as we mentioned at the beginning, predominantly, but not only in the east of the Congo, you have artisanal and small-scale mining, which is the predominant form of mining. And then in the copper belt and in the other industrial areas of mining in the country,

you have large-scale mining, capital-intensive mining, which is taking place. and so the labour conditions, you know, will vary considerably between these two different forms and also over time. So Josephat, with all of that in mind, are you able to talk us through how the labour conditions, what the labour conditions look like and how these conditions have changed in the minds over time? How can we talk about, you know, the important thing to consider, the condition of labor in the mine over time. So if I can talk how the condition have changed in the mine over time,

let me just explain a little bit. Regarding the condition of labor over time in the Congo, I approach it through geographical areas. The nature of mining and the earthful you know, what they call the law of trading, like the offer and the demand.

Also, also, also the Congo Ministry of Mine and geology had you know initiated numerous actions

on mining governance, especially cooperative formalization policy and regulation from relationship between large-scale mining and artisanal scale mining between large-scale mining and the local community, concerned at least by exploitation and exploration.

Labour conditions generally, I can say, it's the center of preoccupation comparing to large-scale mining. especially, for instance, in Ooka, Tanga, in De Walaba, Nath Kivu, Ituri, Tanganyika, and Thafkivu. Fasliam, many miners do not sign formal contract. They do not have formal contract sometimes when it comes from altruismal scale mining. the actions of a contract branched minor into precarity

they cut or claim their right right it's it's things like we should improve in Congo they don't have contract so even though

they have internal modules operandi it's mean how usually and for a daily basis or for a week weekly they have agreements

so they have their modus operandi usually minors have their division of labor so for those who work in the SM in the

artisanal small school you know mining and for those who work in the

the the Sien sector so labor conditions are so complex that they are a significant

risk if I consider or we consider the environment Adding to the pure argument, labor conditions are problematic regarding work situations like a work environment. SME like artisanal small-scale mining is thought, but conditions are alarming, shocking and terrifying. finally women women and young girl are really suffering let me just say women and the young girls are really suffering let me just say women and the young girls are really are suffering the social condition

I mean have been affected they have been working under discrimination brutality and sometimes they are part of a high level dynamic of exclusions. You can see it in certain region where they are bringing on the table or just addressing their cultural

or social limits to exclude women and the young girls. Secondly, labor conditions in large-scale mining such as industries and companies,

companies, industry. Differes is very different, considering salaries, industry policies, and the Congolese regulations when we check, when we look at the mining code, which was revised in 2018.

Sadly, other labor conditions are really crucial, especially in coal exploitation, and when it's come to European Chinese industry, the case should be scrutinized in Okatanga, in Rolaba. I must have known that Congo is working. You know, Congo is working with Chinese, you know, or Congolese who are working with Chinese industry across the country,

I think many of them regret the treatment, considering salary advantages and their efforts in the activities. Compared to the three, many of them regret. While Sime-Skal mining under Chinese investor is subject to contestations, we may see it in the center of the country, we may see in Eastern Congo, especially in Italy as well. And their efforts, I think, so that activity, that Chinese is subject to contestations. The activities, it lacks some ingredient to valorize the agents, the minors. So in contrast, Americans are also responsible when discussing labor conditions in Wallachal.

We might see Al-Famine in DCA. This is another case when it comes as well to Kibali gold mining in the northern side of Congo. But there is some differences over the typology of mining in Congo. So Ben, Josephette did a really great job of answering that question. But I also know that you yourself do a lot of research in this particular. field on labor within the mining industry. So I do want to make sure that we give you the opportunity to add anything that you would like to on this front before we go ahead. Yeah, I think what Joseph Fatt's done a fantastic job focusing in particular on labor conditions

in artisanal mining. Perhaps it's worth just adding something to give a bit of a flavor or feel for the labor conditions in industrial mining and how these have changed over time. perhaps here the first thing to start with is to note when we're thinking about how this has shifted over time is that if you take let's say you think about industrial mining in the late colonial period of Congo or early independence 1950s 1960s it was much more labor intensive than it is today and much less capital intensive and so over time up until today you know the capital intensity of mining has been increasing year on year today in one of the industrial gold mines in Congo, I believe I'm right in saying it's now running automated, automated mines. So trucks are going into the mines, no drivers, you know, automated trucks are going into the mines on kind of rail tracks, being loaded up and coming back out again. And so one thing is that I think today you have, when you think of industrial mining, there are far fewer

workers actually going either underground or doing the physical labor of mining than was the case historically. Not to say that there aren't any of those workers, but I think the number has been ever decreasing. And so that's been, you know, one big change that's taken place over time. I think the other big change in terms of the not so much the labor conditions themselves, but the organization of labor, let's say. I think the other big change that has taken place has been that historically during the colonial period and also during the 20th century, industrial mine workers tended to live together on site in mining towns or settlements that were run and managed by the mining companies.

They had primary schools, health facilities for families and for children. And so the workers were living and working in the same physical space and all for the same company. The big shift that happened around the turn of the century was that globally the mining industry restructured, whereas previously it was this vertically integrated project where you had a mining company basically taking control of all aspects of the operation.

It became much less vertically integrated and much more horizontally integrated in the sense that they began subcontracting out different firms. to do different bits and pieces of the operation. So a firm will come in and do catering, one firm will do security, one firm might do drilling, one firm will do transport, one firm might do road construction and maintenance, and so on. So the typical industrial mine now in the Congo, you'll have anything from sort of 15 to 30 different subcontracted firms who are being brought in.

So one of the things this has really changed in terms of sort of how labor is being mobilised and organized in production is that it is much more fragmented than it was historically, much more fragmented today. And so workers are fragmented across all these different organisations, but they're also fragmented geographically and much more dispersed than they used to be. And I mean, I think we're going to come back to the question of organising and resistance later, but this obviously has, you know, it's relevant when we're thinking about work, organization and resistance. But in terms of what this means for working conditions and labor conditions is that, again, if you take a typical industrial mine, you probably have around

half of the workers at that mine, say you have an industrial mine with one to two thousand workers, around half of those workers in the Congo are going to be working for hired labor firms. So they're basically working as day laborers. So they're coming through subcontracted labour firms run by, usually by Congolese. So around half of the workers are going to be working for these labour firms and around two thirds of labour will be unskilled labour. And when you look at, and they'll be working under particularly those who are working as hired labour, they're going to be working under pretty similar conditions to workers in

artisanal mining in the sense that they're not going to have contracts. They're not going to have, that have either no. or very limited protections in terms of either health insurance or, you know, paid leave. And they're basically working in sort of precarious, unprotected, flexible labour conditions. And they're also earning strikingly similar wages, comparable wages to people working in artisanal mining, right? Which kind of puts lie to this idea that, you know, wages are aligned to productivity. industrial mining is probably 30 to 40 to 100 times more productive than artisanal mining. This isn't reflected in worker wages for most workers working at these mines.

Their wages are sometimes less than but pretty comparable to those that are being earned by artisanal miners. And that's the majority of labour taking place in an industrial mine site. And then what you see at the top of that labor hierarchy, I mean, I've looked at this closely with one particular industrial mine. And what you saw there was that you only had around 5% of foreign land. labor within this managerial class, but they capture around the third of total wages going to workers at the mine. Now, part of that is because they have extraordinarily high salaries

compared to the workers, but they also earn double salaries. So they'll get half of their salary paid to them in whatever designated bank account internationally, or they'll have a whole salary paid in that bank account and another salary paid to them domestically. So they earn a double salary. And this goes back to that slogan I was talking about in the, when workers started organizing in the 1940s, equal work for equal pay. It was partly based on this double salary notion, which continues today. So you have a small managerial class of foreign labor taking a big chunk of the wages. And then in between this massive workers and this managerial class, you have a pretty narrow Congolese skilled and managerial class that lies in between. And that

given how narrow that is in terms of total numbers, even across the country, it's not particularly significant. It might be sort of 10, 20,000 people maximum, I would say across the whole country. So for the most part, in terms of, you know, working conditions and industrial mines, not only because of this move to subcontracting and to outsourcing labor,

but, you know, the bulk of the, bulk of the labor force is essentially outsourced and is employed pretty precariously. Yeah, and just so that Josephat also has the opportunity to discuss this, because as you mentioned, Josephat has a particular expertise in artisanal mining. And this is something that we've talked about already pretty extensively in this conversation, but might deserve a little bit of time to hear about what the actual differences between artisanal minds from large-scale industrial mines from Josephat are. So Josephat, can you tell us what the differences are from your. perspective as well as what the differences and conditions are a little bit what Ben was just describing and then also if you can talk about your personal experience in the artisanal mining

industry so um this being said i would like to just make a transition with uh just describing a difference between artisan um what we call usually artisanal and last call mining including, you know, how the conditions differ in this type of mine. So I will bring on the table. I will explain this question with my personal experience in the artisanal mining industry or what we usually call ACM, Artisanal Smokanines. So let me just. start by thank you very much for the question.

I want to highlight significant differences between altosur mining and large-scale mine. Knowing that the logical function is different, differences lay on, first of all, mining techniques, mining techniques. You know, some are using machine, they are using tools, they are using different things, and the vehicle. So after Zorn mining, this is really, really different. The second difference I can just bring is like investors and investment. So the number of the amount of the investments is really different when comparing the two typology of mining. And the nature of the supply chains, the dynamics of their supply chain, supply chain dynamics, supply chain

regulations. This may see, we can see the differences when looking at internal and external perspective. And mostly the process and the mechanism of productions, we can see those differences in terms of process, the mechanism of production. Most important is a specific laborer division. starting by mining techniques so SCM differs from large-scale mine in terms of mining technique suppose the first has been alternating tradition method means you know SCM has been alternating traditional method in that case large scale mining mainly higher as a graduate technician for geology research and

exploitation. This is really interesting to see. S.C.M. doesn't need Academy or scientific expertise. At all are self-made men. Minor, you know, minor

have worked from their technique. They do have their technique, traditional techniques, using them in the activity. From my experience, is a minor in Kamituga. I experienced technique without learning them

at a classical university. Usually it was a matter of what I can say autodidactism like learning by, you know, practicing and by observing technique or the routine or the activities. So a process of knowledge transmission between experimental miners and the trainees. That's really interesting.

Large-scale mining techniques, mobilized machinery, professionals, precision, tools, and the scientific approach. SCMs use harm made of iron, iron stick for different usage, and bomb when this is really necessary. So, regarding investors and investment, the two types of mining vastly differ. although the migration is clear at this stage yes looking at the mining code when we are looking at the mining code the last one from which was revised

you know in 2018 SCM has a specific location what they used to call it Zeyer, or I can call it the Arjison Mining Zone, they call it technically Zeyer, which is different from large-scale mining. In Saskiavu, Na'avkivu, Ituri and Lurabba, it's essential to consider that,

even though sometimes it's not respected, Sien, actors walk outside the norm. Sometimes they are working outside the norms. Some may install the activities closer to large-scale mining perimeters. It's the core of conflict and tensions. This is really common. We can see it in different locations, in different sites of mining exploitation, when ACM has been interacting with large,

scale mining, some tension are really present. So, artisan mining scale and the major parties are mandatory working and grouping into what they call

cooperatives. Under its role of enterprises of companies, you know, cooperatives, now they are playing a key role in just a grouping or all the minor and the middlemen they used to call them in French Negotiang. So they are organizing miners into a well, let me just see the concrete word.

I can express like a well-structured piece. Channeling state taxes. They have to pay taxes. they have to pay a lot of documents, payment as well, and assessing minus rule and involvement in the sector. So if the state wants to control, to control all the activities they have to group themselves

into a cooperative. And Congo has many of them in eastern Congo. So at the same time, large-scale mining refers to a single company, enterprises or joint venture, like private, you know, between private-private or based on pastoral enterprises, this man works like that, on working together on a mining project on a large-scale. in terms of productions, in terms of assessment, in terms of and exportation to the global markets. This is really interesting.

So two well-known enterprises with American tiles have been exporting thin and sometimes some, it was a former American but gold in the Congo. I can just start by Alpamint, which is located in Wali Kali, and the former Banu Corporation, which currently now changed in Twangiza mining, was an American and Canadian industry before the Chinese re-bought it.

Banu was an American-Canadian industry before the Chinese came to take it. Now Chinese are leading, or managing the company. So a tiny difference may oppose sometimes

cooperative capital per year against companies. We can see difference between even though cooperative are as well enterprises as sort of companies, but in terms of

for, you know, capital per year, we see the difference between companies and cooperative. And it's, this makes, it makes a difference. As well, we can see differences in terms of for the dynamic supply chain and actors across their supply chains. We can see those kind of differences. So, looking at supply chains, we can see those kind of differences. and risk assessment and dynamics. But by supply chain, I refer to the process that start from mining pit to the south red in August, locally speaking, where mine has been trading with middenmen,

to manual transportation from its region, it may be a countryside rural area. So to the most significant capital, such as Bukavo, Goma, Bunya, Kourisi, and Lubombashi. So when looking at the four or five regions, especially Kalimi as well. So these are the main capital provinces. When I, Ibucavo is the main capital of the South Kew, Goman, main capital of Naskev, Bunyan, the main capital of the province of Ituri, and the Kulwezi, the main capital I think of Luraba,

and the Lubombashi, the main capital of the Hokatanga. We can see that differences. And the other, the process of certification before exportation of the minor rule, this comes before exportation of minor rule. to dismantle us and end users such as, I don't, I won't say here Intel or Apple, I do have another example of Phillips and the last one I had been observing like minor, mine was coming from Naskervo, he went precipit, I think through Rwanda and was the last destination was

the Grand Giche in Europe we know the the company called Traxis which have been really involved

in that activities so the chain are really different when scrutinizing the two tards of mine

we can see the supply chain they are really different even though we can even though the the

the the the processes, the amount of payment, and the processes are really, really different when it comes to supply chain and when it's come to large-scale mining. So about regulations, in this regard, highlighting a significant demarcation seems relevant payment and, you know, in terms of reference, require consultation with the community. So regulations, it's a matter of. another activity. At the same time, talking about regulation,

and in this regards, I think highlighting a significant demarcation seems relevant. Payment in terms of reference and require consultation with the community. At the same time, artisanal

small scale belongs to the community and local inhabitants, dwellers as well. It's agliance to them. Someone has to get asked to reach the region and negotiating with them before getting access. They have to fulfill some requirement in terms of care of charge. What will the enterprises, the company, do for the community to improve their social, like, to improve the environment, what kind of, you know, they had to follow the regulation in terms of health education. What's what they contribute in exploiting the mining aid in that region?

About the processes and the mechanism of productions, I think a clear demarcation makes processes and mechanisms precise while an artisanal small-scale mining or artisanal small mine largely depends on manual exploitation, hammers and iron tools, and it's specific to the classical type of ASEN. However, large-scale mining users, mainly machines and the tractors, machine characterizes the exploitation. Processes of mining production and treatments. It's really completely different.

When we see the first stage of processes in artisan loan, scale mining and when we scrutinize or we assist or observe process and treatments when it comes to large scale mining it's really completely different literally different finally another difference is in the division of labor between the two sectors and the role of some actors throughout their supply chain This is quite interesting to master on to visualize those kind of differences. For instance, Laskan mining does not care about middlemen sometimes. If they are not hiring or they do not have connection or agreement with this negotiation, this middleman, you do not care about that.

But do not negotiate a medium man, they are connected. connecting two sector, Artisanal Mind and not last, atollational money and amplitude of treatment. They do not care about that. At the same time, these actors are part of what Christophagell calls the Encounterer,

means the negotiator. Christopher Vogel called them the Encounterer because sometimes they have been negotiating with them. These are bringing the money. to fuel the exploitation, they can pay miners when it comes to artisanal scale money.

And for the last coal mining, it's really different. You know, when the enterprise invests the money, they need to follow up not only regulation, but the system, they need to see things how they go. They need to think

how they've been produced. reducing, what kind of increase, what kind of benefits. You know, so a list of actors is out. It's comprised middlemen. We can see middlemen in this negotiation. They do have different denominations in Congo. You can call them negotiations. Some people call them manager.

And when you cross, when you, according to different experiences, experiences in different locations. They have different names, but the practices, the the metier, the practice is the same. We have also what they call an entity the trade model or entity of treatment and actors who are really involved, who are really managing

crossability system. It's like assessing cross-ability system. they are really part of the really part of the activity. And we can see it when it comes to artisanal scale mining or large scale mining because system understood not location. It could be enterprises could be cooperative.

They have agents who are really responsible for trustability. See if the enterprises comply or its respecting regulation on that are activated. So if I want to share my experience with the audience, with the people, my experience in the artisanal mining industry was unique, was unique, particularly considering proximity to the topic, connection with minor

the connection with minor and their perception vis-a-vis my capacity to to implement or to add

to adapt right to adapt myself to this new sector so honestly from my experience is

an ex-mino, I had learnt a lot from my ex-colleague, considering the following significant aspect. First of all, solidarity. This is a side of my experience, solidarity. The ambition of survival is a key economic activity. Many of them, they do have the ambition, they do not have other materials. see other labor. So for them, their function is being is minor. And this is part of their social life, where they can earn the money and pay school fees for their family and, you know, provides many things for their family.

second set was like skills transfer between elders and newcomer in the field this was really interesting between those ones who especially has a greatest experience in my and transferring their skills to newcomer like me that was really interesting and security risk that was another it's a was part of not a legacy, the experience security risks people were just putting their lives in security and we are dealing with that.

We don't have choice. We have to deal with that. Let me start by explaining solidarity between miners if any problem happened on the site. It may be a security threat or a local incident. But solidarity, I understood the capacity of miners, chiefs, and the PDG is like the CEO, what we call

PDJ, like a CEO, chief executive officer, to help each other if the mining pits were productive. That was part of my experience in the historic. Secondly, my ambition was also to survive. As a man, mining allowed me to make money rapidly. without doing agriculture. Even though I'm fan of agriculture, right? I was part of my cousins' steam and mining pits, right? Unfortunately, my dream and ambition fell to materials into concrete as shit. I went to the mine, you know, because I expected that I could earn the money for school field, right?

it doesn't happen. My sister is the one who finally paid for my education. My sister, I always recognize and that I always tell to my family, to my kids, I will only recognize her sacrifice what she did for me, paying my education. The ambition to survive when observing ACM minor is. is vital. It's vital. So nevertheless,

one more concrete experience was typically the process of transferring skill to new commerce in the field. This was really, really interesting for me. It was utterly new labor for me. I was born in a

urban-centrales. And they then decided to experience a mining cities level wood and the serve is minor without any background. It took up a couple of months before I could save as they called palater. Just afterward, I became a for a hammer, working with hammer. Because they had, in terms of labor divisions, you have what they call penitaph.

You have hammer, we have different sectors according to their organization. So I never experienced a sub-expertise in the field. You know, like it could be a breeders for secular reasons. I do not have that expertise, but I could see what was the situation, what kind of techniques or practice were those minor. especially we're just proving where, you know, transferring to the other. So what I can say is like transferring skills between two generations of minor, you know, transferring those skills between two, you know, generation of minors was, for me, significant.

and was significant. It was really different and still as a phenomenon as in what researchers like me and other across the world should dig deeper because it's still under-documented. All right, Ben, so we've been talking a lot about the experiences and the effects on labor within the mining industry in Congo. But I think that at this point, it will be important for us to let the listeners know about the economic scale of the mining industry in Congo.

And then also what the impacts of the mining industry are in Congo. So when I say impacts, there is going to be many. You know, I know that I open this question by mentioning economic. And of course, there's going to be economic impacts, but even that can be split between economic impacts in a large scale way in terms of just the sheer amount of capital that flows as a result of this industry. But we can also then split it off and look at what the amount of money that is coming into individual workers from this industry is like. We can talk about what it is like for communities that have a mine in their area. we can talk about what it means for the government budgets of the DRC, and we can also talk what it means for companies that operate within the DRC.

So there's all of these different scales of economic impacts, but then, of course, we're not limited to that. I know that in a little bit we'll talk also about the environmental impact, and we'll turn to Joseph at first for that. But there's a lot of impacts even socially, in terms of we've talked about labor already. So I'm just going to leave this really big. Can you talk about the economic scale of mining in Congo

and then also what are the impacts, broadly speaking, of the mining industry and we'll dive in a little bit more specifically on those later? Okay, sure. So in terms of the economic scale, I mean, starting with industrial mining, the three major exports today for Congo are copper, coal bolt and gold. and then diamonds comes after that. So to give a sense of scale, today the country is exporting more than 3 million tons of copper.

This is equivalent to around $32 billion in terms of value. Now, historically, by way of comparison, Jekyll means when it was in its heyday at its height in the 1980s, was exporting around half a million, around half a million tons of copper. So it's kind of a sixfold increase relative to what was taking place. Now, I think something really interesting to look at, and this is one of those many paper ideas I've had for a number of years

and never got around to doing. But I think it would be really interesting to look at to do a historical comparison where you say, okay, so there's a sixfold increase in production here. Has there also been an accompanying sixfold increase in fiscal revenue accruing to the Congolese state? I would suspect not, but that would be interesting to look at. So that's for copper. Coalbolt, which is produced as a byproduct of copper, is around 200,000 tons of coal bolts,

but that's about three quarters of global supply today, coming from the Congo, around half of global reserves. And just to add a follow-up question here, listeners surely have seen cobalt extensively talked about in the news relatively recently. But can you just briefly remind the listeners what why cobalt is so frequently talked about because you know things like copper and diamonds those are a little bit more you know superficially obvious what the the relevance of those are but cobalt has a lot of different functions so just briefly before you continue well cobalt sure

cobald is predominantly talked about a lot in the in the media today because it is a so-called critical mineral in green transitions because it's used used in the lithium iron batteries that go into electric vehicles and renewable energy storage, but it also has, you know, defence and other purposes and uses. But it's mainly its use in these electric vehicles. But I think also, I mean, particularly why it's a big story in the West, is because, you know, China has a pretty good lockdown in terms of almost a fully integrated supply chain of coal-bought extractions through to the manufacture of the end products of electric vehicles. And so there's a big sort of rush in Europe and in North America to try and secure

access to cobalt. So yeah, very big geopolitically. And sorry for the other interruption, Ben. I'll allow you to go through the rest of your information without interruption. But I would be remiss to not mention that, you know, as you say, there's a big rush to try to lock down that cobalt that is being my predominantly. in Congo. We see even in the news within the last month. And I'm aware that by the time this episode comes out, it'll be more like a month and a half or two months after this news broke.

But Felix Shisekati, the president of the DRC, was trying to make deals with the United States where the DRC would essentially sign mineral rights deals directly with the U.S. government for like extraction and kind of first option to buy rights on some of those critical minerals, particularly cobalt in the DRC, in exchange for security guarantees in the eastern part of the Congo, particularly vis-a-vis M23, which again, listeners, we talked about for about half the conversation in the last episode with Georges Nzingola and Talaja. So, you know, listen to that. But it's very ironic that as we discuss in that episode, the instability in the eastern part of Congo very much is manufactured by, you know, imperialist interests and has been historically. And now we have the president of the Congo to try to alleviate the threat coming from the east and the instability as a result of that incursion into the east of the country, which is a very big mining area.

as we've been discussing in this conversation, he's now offering to sign mineral rights deals directly with the United States so that this supply of cobalt is essentially permanently accessible to the United States and their Western allies and bypassing a lot of the other competition that would then be taking place.

As you said, China essentially has a beginning to end production of electric vehicle components and whatnot within China. So there is a very vital need for the imperialist West to lock down sources of critical materials like cobalt. So sorry for that second interruption, Ben. I'll let you go to the end before I try to say anything else now. No, interruptions are good. I mean, I teach students, so I'm used to being, I'm used to being interrupted often and they're usually right to do so. I mean, and the latest thing I've seen coming out of that story you're talking about is that one thing we haven't mentioned is that Congo also has one of the largest currently undeveloped deposits of lithium. And the latest thing I saw coming out around this whole kind of US minerals for security deal is that it seems like first rights, they're trying to offer first rights to a US firm which has the involvement of Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos.

So this appears to be something that's in the mix as well. So coal bolt, 200,000 tons, that's around 7 billion, around 28, 30 tons of gold. That's around 11.5 billion. 9 million carrots of diamonds. That's 90 million. You know, it's around 40 billion of value, dollars, U.S. dollars of value being exported annually. And, you know, the workforce, the industrial workforce underline that's around 150,000 strong. if you look just quickly as well at the artisanal and small scale side, which is important to mention here when we're talking about economic scale and impacts, much more difficult, obviously, to sort of get reliable sort of figures, but the estimates are probably something like 1 to 2 million people who are working in artisan and small scale mining across the country.

For coal bolt, for example, it's around 15 to 20% of total production is estimated to come from artisanal small scale, so not insignificant. about four tons of gold in the east. So again, not insignificant. So that's the sort of scale of production that we're looking at. Now, in terms of the economic impacts, you know, so what sort of levels of wealth are being produced and for whom and how's this being distributed and where is it going? You know, one of the places to go and people to look at for this is the Burundian economist, Leont and Dikumanah, who alongside, I think I'm right in saying his US colleague, James Boyce, have done a lot of work over the years on the issue of capital flight from Africa, but they've also looked closely at the case of the Congo. And what they document

from the Mobutu periods, you know, up until I think around 2010 in their work when they did their latest work on this, I think, you know, is billions of dollars of capital flight leaving the Congo to these multinationals on an annual basis. I think, I think, one of their calculations was something like between 1970 and 2010, it was about 300% of Congolese GDP. And these are, as I said themselves, these are likely underestimates due to the amount that they weren't able to identify. And so you're talking billions of dollars, which is kind of hemorrhaging out of the Congo annually. In fact, I mean, it's a bit of an aside, but it is relevant. Just yesterday or a few days ago, there was a lead editorial in The Guardian.

which was using the research of Professor Andrew Fisher on this issue in Zambia. And he's been showing a similar story, how Zambia defaulted in 2021. And the whole story was, you know, the kind of corrupt, mismanaged Zambian government. But the point he's making is, hang on, no, you look into the balance of payments of the Zambian economy and you see several billions of dollars annually that are being siphoned off and being hidden in sort of pretty opaque. hard to see and understand parts of the balance of payments. So the plunder of African economies, when you put it into that kind of scale, you know, is not is not taking place domestically or by domestic actors, but it's taking place by, it's predation by multinational companies using opaque corporate accounting practices. And so you see this in the Congo. And, you know,

if you look at, and I've looked at many of these subsidiary accounts of Congolese multinationals, what you see time and time again when you get hold of these subsidiary accounts, which is extremely difficult to do precisely because they're so sensitive. And when you look at them, as many Congolese researchers have done, you basically see they're either running at zero or they're running at a loss to avoid paying any sort of corporate tax. That's a common story across the country. And that's why if you're always say if you're Congolese or other government

dealing with mining, you should always probably focus on the royalties rather than trying to tax profits because it's a lot harder to hide your production levels than it is to hide your profits. But so, you know, the subsidiaries are made to kind of artificially run a loss to avoid the corporate tax to aid the capital flight, which takes place on a huge scale. And you mentioned the question of, well, what does the Congolese government get? You know, I think I'm right in saying that the Congolese, you know, the latest budget was around $15 billion, US dollars, the annual budget in the Congo. around 40% of that comes for mining. So I think it's in the realm of $5 to $7 billion a year that is currently occurring to the Congolese government.

So that $15 billion budget largely propped up by mining, but in the context of a country with a population of more than $100 million, I think to Africa would spend more on its health budget alone annually with a population of kind of half the size. Right. So it's entirely inadequate. it in terms of what is needed to do, I would argue, anything meaningful. I mean, if you've got $15 billion, 100 million people, it's at around $150 per person, right? So it's, you know,

it's in a country of that sex scale and size, right? It's not going to cut it, really. One thing to add on to this, and we've talked a little bit about, you know, kind of how wages are distributed. But one thing that I think is an interesting point of comparison to consider here is to look at artisanal small-scale mining and the economic impacts there. Because I think something that's worth highlighting, when you compare to, you know, the kind of value flows that come out of industrial mining, if you look at labor-intensive artisanal mining, you see something quite different. Now, particularly if you look at gold, but I think it would probably broadly apply to other minerals. What you see, for example, when you look

at the sort of value chain of gold production in eastern Congo that's being done by Congolese miners is that around 95% of the value that's being generated by their productive activity is being captured and distributed domestically among different groups of Congolese. And so the kind of level of hemorrhaging, for example, that you're seeing taking place in industrial mining doesn't quite look the same. So a lot of that economic value is being retained domestically. And I think something else worth adding there just to consider this point, this relation. I mean, we're talking about artisanal and large scale or artisanal industrial as if they're these two separate fields.

But in fact, that's very much not the case. And there's, you know, very much an interaction between the two. And what you see, you know, what you have seen in recent years in the case of the Congo, I think there's often this assumption that artisanal mining in Congo is this. low productivity, subsistence activity. But actually what you see when you study it and look more closely is that there is a mechanising dynamic in artisanal and small scale mining. They're introducing machinery, introducing capital, reinvesting in production and expanding.

Of course, the multinationals are dead against this and they're completely horrified any time that artisanal miners begin to mechanize production. because of course when they start to mechanise, they start to, you know, extract the deposits at a much quicker rate than they were doing previously. And so what you've seen from examples in Eastern Congo is, I mean, I've spoken specifically to some mining representatives

and a story you often get is we can tolerate artisanal mining as long as it remains artisanal. As soon as they start to mechanise, they call on the Congolese state, they call on the police, they call on the military, they come in, they cut down the electricity pylons,

they take out the capital equipment, they physically appropriate it, put it on trucks and drive it away. And so there's also, I think, a really interesting sort of story here around the way in which labor-intensive mining, led predominantly, of course, by Congolese workers, is, you know, actively and repeatedly suppressed by this alliance between the Congolese state and multinationals to keep it at that level of low productivity, even though it's a, form of mining production where much more the value being generated is being captured and retained domestically, which is very different to the economic impacts of industrial mining, where this is predominantly associated with a hemorrhaging out of the economy internationally.

Joseph Fatt, the environmental impact of mining is something I think we need to spend considerable time on. Arguably, I think it's often somewhat neglected compared to, We've been talking about the economic impacts, the labor conditions. In some ways, I have a sense that sometimes we tend to gloss over these environmental impacts. But I know that you yourself have done a lot of research on this and have a good understanding of these impacts. So I was wondering if you could try and tell us about how you see the impact environmentally of the mining industry in the Congo. And as a sort of add-on question to that, there's a lot that's made, I think, of the negative environmental impact of artisanal mining. So how do you see this?

Do you see this as comparable to the impact generated by industrial mining? Or are there differences? So, mining could be large-scale mining and artisanal-scale mining. these two typological semi large-scale mining they have affected impact on

environment in different regions in different region so if I can tell about I can occur that can share my experience or my observation

when it's to the mining industry environmental impact. According to a certain, I don't know if it's a researcher, Korea-patenton, DRC is rich in laboratory sources, including timber, oil and the cast, golds and diamond, and the mineral critical, you know, essential for energy transition, especially cobalts in the copper. We may see it in the other type of miner.

So, one of the, Congo is one of the world's most, is part of the world most biodiversity, in terms of, you know, its area. And the dear Congo is now facing many, development challenges like the country. However, it's right. It's 179 out of 191 91 countries

and the territory worldwide on the 20131 Human Development Index. So we can see the level of poverty. We can see the problem issue. So, nevertheless, over 70%

of Congolese, you know, about 60 million people, they lived in less than 1.90 U.S. dollar daily in the day basis. This is our

what Correy Patinson said. So if the Congo detains, I think other research study has shown that Congo detain 70% of the global production of Kobach, and its exploitation is subject to preoccupation, even though Congo is detaining that percentage, but its exploitation is subject to preoccupation. Large-scale mining and artisan scale mining have difference in, environmental impact in the Congo, according to my personal observation and experience. And this lay on the impact on human rights as other studies has shown.

Human rights in environmental and ecosystem around mining, rotation, and other impacts on processes and the treatment of, my name. Firstly, mining has affected several persons and they have affected several persons or especially the local community in terms of

forced evictions. And many studies have shown that in Roraba, in South Kibu, in Naskivu, bya they had their lot of tensions when it comes to forced evictions sometimes

and in Kalimbi, the pilot's mining's in sub-kebou. And I think in a notorious way, forced eviction and the delocalization without accurate compensation. Sometimes it's happened, sometimes they may give compensation sometimes. It's not realized to the... the land occupied. So according to certain studies and publication, especially in Hokatanga and Lurabha, we look at afterwards reports released in 2024. So I recommend some people to read that report they may see.

They did research which is really interesting, especially in Okatanga and Lurabha. There were other research in South which are related to South Kivu and Las Kivo. Considering then, considering it for a world context, child labor is part of this indirect impact of our life scale mining and additional small artisanal skull mining. And the major aspects of staff are just working in subhuman degrading conditions. Well, it comes to artisanal scale mining because what have been observed in the grounds in terms of in Nafkivu, in ituri and Tavikivu, when researching

Arsuland, small-scale mining, I can see some people are working in subhuman conditions, but they do not have choices. If they would help the choice, they would decide

in a different way, but they do have the choice. That doesn't mean that they are subhuman, but these people are just trying to adapt into their environment. And this is really interesting how resilient they are

really strong than these people. Secondly, mining has the local ecosystem. It may be an artisanal small-scale mining, maybe large-scale mining. The two have, you know, mining has the local ecosystem. It affects the river, it affects fish, especially, We have research and have

pointed out that mining affects or affect fishes in Luraba especially. And it's contaminating

crop and the vitality of soil. It's contaminating as well in the soil, including toxic pollution is the region. Sometimes sometimes

it's clear that the both activities SM and large-scale mining they have responsibility and they have the I think how we can measure but the the

the lights of impact when it comes to large-scale mining comparing to the at the non-smouth scale mining, this is really different. We can see when Chinese are now exploiting mining in Mwenga,

when other Congolese and Chinese in a tour rate, they have been affecting the location, forests, cutting trees, and all these practices of techniques have affected as well. world. So it has affected the river, have affected as well as a ecosystem. Thirdly, it is, my thing, it is at the center of skins and dermatologist problems. This is a side of study which caused children's health problem as well.

and even though in the year of Congo, it's mandatory to protect water and the environment regarding the Congolese local framework, but mining have been a decode center of preoccupation. For Flee, large-scale mining or artisanal scale or small-scale mining are threatening the forest ecosystem in the Congo. Means they are changing sometimes, they may change the land scab. And they have impacts on indigenous practices. When changing, affecting forest ecosystem, they have impact on indigenous practices, habitats, and live wood sometimes.

And large-scale environmental degradation. This is a really, really, really part of this impact. About this aspect, large-scale mining has its ecological impact. It is clear that they have as well around its location, around its regions, means they have some kind of botanical impact, you know, when exploiting around the river, around lakes and other things. It impacts as well, has impact of aquaury system and aquaic life sometimes. It has impact as well on air quality.

It has affected as well the fauna and the flora sometimes. And they have a social impact as well when speaking about ecological system. Finally, both, before going to both, I think other consequences concern, you know, the system of waste treatment of material in the country. This is a subject of concern and preoccupation. Finally, both large-scale mining and the H.C.N. are at the center of drastically affecting the environment. health and the water mining activities. They have, I think, long-term impacts on individual and collective basis.

So earlier in the conversation, and at points throughout the conversation, we have talked about organizing and resistance. And these two things are linked. So Josephette, can you tell us about how organizing takes place within the mining industry and then also how resistance to the mining industry takes form both within organized structures as well as from the outside and in particular I'm thinking about communities in the area you know we just talked about environmental impacts

and looking at examples from around the world not just in mining but in places where the communities themselves are being directly impacted not only by labor injustices, not only by people being injured on the job, but also when there's environmental destruction that's taking place to people's homeland and making it so that their water is unclean or their food is unable to grow, or even if it's just destroying the natural landscape of the area, we often see resistance pop up in that context within the communities, as well as within other organized structures.

So what do you have to say about this? Between this impact on environment and resistance, or how minor or mining have been organizing themselves, connecting organizations and the resistance, I think speaking about urbanizing and resistance, they are really linked to considering tensions and relationship between the local community and industry, large-scale mining, semi-scale mining, or artisanal-scale mining.

So according to the mining code, and or according to what? mining code or the commune and the number of regulations, numerous regulations, I would say. And conflicts are the root causes of tensions and resistance between the local community and industries. However, other forms of resistance emerge

due to a lack of trust, perhaps when industries failed to fulfill their commitment vis-a-vis the community and their contractual obligation. In the same van, resistance arrives between land owner from those who proclaimed their rights to the land against a third person who got location and could claim their right to mining. resistance arises when the community is less involved

while the company makes money without investing in the area resistance depends on actors and their ability to question the company to confront the management of for the necessity of investing and deal with the local community, which treats them in the second and the third person. It's deeper, you know, typology or resistance when starting HM, large-scale mining, and harder.

The first type concerns in non-violent resistance or contestations. It might be a random organization with people from different backgrounds reflecting on the future of their country. The second embracing violent resistance against industry. The Chinese or the management of the actor. A series of evidence is present, which is so provable, while the goodwill of politicians has somehow rejected. it. This start is the most popular and accessible. The organizations may be

initiated by local NGOs or led by Congolese for different regions. It might be ecological, environmental delocalizations for delocalization health problems, environmental

consequences, etc. Finally, and resistance against industry and their projects in the Congo. But this is a part of resistance actions. Once again, this phenomenon

has been observing differently if we consider region like Ituri, Safkivu, Na'iw, la'a, laba, casayin, deho, katanda. The most well-known case I had experienced

our eastern Dierre Congo. They were tremendously difficult to imagine. at his beginning Alfa Min which is an industry that has been producing tin for several times in Wariqari

was locally contested when a rebel group attacked its installations machin and Idros its representative in around BCA in Wari we know the history of Shekha and its rebel group Similarly, former Canadian and American Junior Industry Baner Corporation

changed into Twangiza under Chinese governance. It changed into Twangiza and now it is under Chinese government, Chinese leadership. So the community around the Winger and especially Tungiza location has contested it, decentralization policies. In Manema territory as well, this is another case where the same company has its branch. Namua mining, the community alongside the rebel group, MIMI-1, resisted the localization and contested the industrial policies

that aimed at exploiting the richest location and chasing them out of that region. They even in Manjima, in Namwe especially, they even kidnapped a banro engineer for many days before he was released. So most tensions and resistance in the tour oppose ASEM minor against large-scale mining. Now conversely, semi-large scale mining led by Chinese or commercial. Congolese, led by Chinese especially, I think has played a key role here. Congolese has played a good role in tension between local community and the Chinese. So we might see those tensions between Chinese who are just working together or cooperating

with local investors. So sometimes it's posing a huge problem. posing huge consequences. Finally, in Hokatanga and the Rwaraaba, most tension occur when large-scale mining resists paying their due the amount they are supposed to benefit from current. Resist that within an organized structure is widely different.

Whether the latter has military objective or not, whether it has been involved in protection. the community rather than discussing, mobilizing into armed group conflict. So considering, once again, considering a case around Ituri, Mongolia, where in 2020 and 21, the city was divided into influential zone, local community around a village and local combatants mixing dispositions of being minors. some combatants are really they are mobilizing two dispositions

and they might be minor themselves at the same time they were occupying Mongu general mining sleep as you know as a combatant and they are bringing together two

dispositions so recently confronts it in Mwenga territory the Chinese left. Some of them left the country. They were confronted with militia. The local community and the state represented at a regional level.

I do understand but some communities have been just trying to threaten the Chinese when they feel like they do not investing more locally and they're exporting their

natural resources without injecting, without investing or without posing clear actions in terms of transformations of their land sky confirmation of their infrastructure and so

on. Finally, the situation of M-33 and the robot group is more specific in that they had been benefiting from the chaos on the ground and the lack

of strong information about their practices. Because it's really now that some of them had been involved in controlling, catering first the supply chain and sometimes taxing

the activities and the controlling those of the activities, the mining. Ben, do you have anything to add to what Joseph had said with regard to organizing and resistance? Yeah, I think maybe I'll come in and just add something about the community level resistance and then also try and touch a little on organizing and resistance taking place among industrial mine workers themselves. At the level, I mean, as Josephat has kind of rightly talked about and drawn attention to at the local levels of the community. You have many people who are being forcibly displaced from their homes and from their land to make way for the construction of industrial mines subject to increased pollution and all sorts

of other negative effects and impacts. And you do see, as he mentioned, a lot of activity and organized resistance taking place at this local level. To give one example from a story that I know or knew quite well at the time was of an industrial mine in the Congo, which had a lot of issues at the local level for these issues at Joseph Vats discussed and a lot of problems and tensions. And the mine had one road that went in, one supply route in and out, up an extremely steep hill. and the local community got organized and barricaded the entrance into the mine, put down blockades, organized a solidarity fund amongst community members to support people who were holding the barricade down and who were physically present at the barricade for a number of days to cook food for them, to bring them food, to bring them refreshments and some funds.

This went on for about three years. days and then eventually the mining company predictably to some extent called in the Congolese military who then came in firing gas canisters and rubber bullets and also vandalising and laying waste to some homes and shops that were lying along the road and basically put the resistance down and cleared the barricade but you know it does give an indication of the sort of level of organization, the level of tensions, sort of the level of

resistance that can take place locally. But I think what's worth adding to that is, at least in my experience, what I've tended to see in the Congo is when these levels of protests and organizing take place amongst the community, local communities, it tends to be, they tend to be seeking to claim

a greater distribution of the benefits from the mining activity than resistance to the mining activity itself. So I would say it tends not to be characterized as kind of anti-mining or anti-extractivist. It tends to be about how those benefits are being distributed. In this particular case, that I was talking about, they wanted to have, you know, they felt that there were not enough people locally

who were being employed by the mining company, and that was the main sort of claim they were trying to put forward. And I think that's worth noting because, you know, for example, Patrick Bond recently published a piece in Rope Journal where he was talking about, I think in southern Africa, he sees a lot more anti-extractivist organizing and resistance. My sense is that's not currently the case in the Congo and that when resistance is taking place, it's more about who's getting what.

But of course, and then the big difficulty, I think, with these local level, community level resistance is how to connect across those different sites of struggle. And I think that is an enormous. challenge in a country like Congo where these mines are so widely dispersed, often in pretty rural, hard-to-reach areas. And I think a big problem has been, which has yet to be surmounted, is how can you connect and build something that goes beyond that local level of resistance? And then maybe to add something on, so yeah, Joseph Hatt has talked a lot about dynamics at the community level. But in terms of the industrial workers themselves,

We've talked already a little bit about the size of the workforce nationally, around 150,000 people. But I think what's interesting is that I think around 1950, it was a similar number of people who were employed by the mining industry in Congo. In the meantime, the population has grown from about 10 million to 100 million, right? So whereas in the 1950s, it would have been quite a significant percentage of the working population. no longer the case today, not to say they've lost to significant in the sense that, you know, they're obviously still central to the kind of,

you know, the mainstay of the Congolese economy. But there's a similar number of people working across a far greater number of mine sites. So they're straightaway much more dispersed on that sense as well. But I think the major shift you've seen over time is that, yeah, from the 1940s onwards through to, the post-colonial periods and Mobutu throughout the 20th century, a relatively high level of militancy and relatively frequent strikes. I mean, there's one strike which in 1992 that a lot of the

older trade unionists in Congo will still talk about as, you know, with fond memories of. It was a 58-day strike that took place at one particular mine. And, you know, I think partly this was facilitated by the concentration of workers that we were talking about earlier, the fact that workers were generally all living in the same mining towns and working for the same companies. You don't tend to see this level of labour organising and militancy today. And I think that is again going back to we talked about the fragmentation of labour and how workers are now separated across multiple different firms. But you also have this kind of this hierarchy of labour almost. It didn't exist quite so starkly, I think historically.

So now you have the hired labor and the subcontracted laborers and then you have maybe a third of the workforce who are working for the mining company itself. And usually that's where the level of unionization takes place. And at least again, from what I've seen and my general sense is that the workers who are working for as hired laborers

or for subcontracting firms have big challenges to organize themselves. and again from what I've seen the workers who are employed by the firm and who may have union representation from what I have seen tend not to be trying to reach out beyond the firm and bring in those hired labourers and subcontractor workers

to their struggle. So you have this sort of much more segmented segmented workforce and you had historically and I think that has really kind of weakened worker power and the ability and capacity of workers to sort of organize and fight back against their conditions. Again, you will have, similar to what we're saying with the community level, you will have at various different mindsites.

You might have some sort of local level protests or some kind of wildcat strikes that are taking place, but very little that has taken place in a sustained manner at the national level, organized by sort of cohesive, coherent union that's bringing everybody together. And so I think that has been the big chance. I think that remains the big challenge, is how to bring a workforce together that's so highly fragmented and dispersed geographically by firms and within this new mining labor hierarchy in the 21st century. And I think trying to bring all that together in the Congo is an enormous challenge. And so you tend not to see today the levels of militancy that you that you had historically. I mean, that's a familiar story as well, right? It's not just mining in the con. I mean, this is labor, you know, writ large, to some extent, right? It's a global story as well.

Absolutely. So at this point, listeners, and just to remind you that we are recording this asynchronously over the course of four sessions and then editing it together, at this point, Josephette is going to exit the conversation, but stick around listeners. we are then going to have a couple of questions that we post to Professor Jermaine Ngoi Tishabamba at the University of Lumombo. So stick around to hear those, but I also at this point will have Josephat. I want to first express to Josephat that it's been a pleasure getting to work with him on this episode. I know that it wasn't the easiest given the technical difficulties that we faced during the course of recording, which necessitated us doing this asynchronously on the second try. but I really enjoyed the conversation that we had to abort last time and really enjoyed listening to Josephat's responses to the questions that we had posed to him.

And I want to let Josephette know that I hope that he enjoyed the discussion as much as I did. And Josephat, can you tell the listeners how they can keep up with you and the work that you're doing and where they can find more of that? So, thank you very much for inviting me. Thank you very much for your podcast. And if someone wants to contact me, I suggest send me a private message on X on my link, social media or meta. This is very easy and I will reply.

They can also follow me on X. It's the name at Joseph Fatimuzamba. very much. So listeners will be right back then with a couple of more questions for Professor Germain Ngoi Tishabamba at the University of Lumomboche.

Okay listeners, so an additional bit of information. As this interview with our professor from Lumombochie unfolds, Ben and I had written out the questions in English for him, which Ben then very kindly translated

into French and asked to the professor in French. Ben then also took the responses of the professor and translated them back into English and recorded essentially a voiceover in English for you to listen to. In order to not just hear Ben asking the question and answering it as the voiceover, I will be asking the question in English which Ben had conducted in the interview with the professor. And then you will hear Ben respond to me. Ben's response is the response from the professor. So keep that in mind that in this next section, what you hear is, my voice was Ben asking the question in French, and Ben's voice is the response from the professor. So without further ado, we will get into this part of the

interview. Could you first simply introduce yourself to the listeners? Thank you very much. My name is Jermaine Ngoy Tishibambay, full professor in the language of the DRC. I'm a professor in the Department of International Relations, Faculty of Social, Political and Administrative Sciences at the University of Lumban Bashi. And currently I hold a director-level position at the University of Lumban Bashi. So if I have to add anything else in my area of research, I've published a lot in the field of migration. I've published articles in the field of the geopolitics of knowledge, a collective book published in England by Longman, I believe, a recent publication in 2024 in a collection in Latin America

on an interesting title about the idea of the South. I'm interested in this and for the moment I'm also interested in the field of regional integration. Well, that's about all I can say. I'm a visitor at the official university of Bukavu. With the recent outbreak of war, I won't be able to go to Bukavu again. Thank you very much. Thank you, Professor. We discussed in our previous conversation with Josephat Musamba

that the mining industry in Congo is very diverse. After all, it's an extremely vast geographic area. You yourself currently reside in the Katanga region, and Josephat is originally from eastern Congo. The mining industry is very different in these two regions. Can you tell us a little about the different between the mining industry and its impacts in these regions of the country. I'm thinking in particular of environmental impacts of this, but not only.

Thank you very much. What's interesting to note is that myself, I saw in what has always been called in the technical language or jargon, the copper ridge. This ridge practically runs from Lua Lava, descending south eastward through Lumbumbashi to the Sakanya Port. This copper ridge is characterized by the abundance, if not the overabundance of copper and cobalt. If I can briefly present a difference in topography, I think mining in the east is characterized by gold mining, coltan mining and cisterite mining. But it must be recognized that since the war began,

this mining has been carried out in a predatory manner. And many investments have been withdrawn. But I also know that in the east, they live off the artisanal mode of extraction. Rwanda positioned itself as a buying post for international resale. Let's now return to the Copper Ridge. For this Copper Ridge that runs from Lulibah to Lumbumbashi all the way to Sarkhanya,

first there are investments in the mining of cobalt and copper. In Lumbumbashi, for example, there's the Malta Forest Company that mines slag where copper and cobalt residues are found. We learned that, you know, certain things are not reported, such as germanium. How are these investments characterized? First of all, they are large investments. So for the moment, Luwala, the province of Luwala, of which Colwezi is the capital, has practically become the hub of all these investments with mining companies like

Comoa. So I won't go into all that. So a portion and the majority of the mining investments are in Colwezi. But what's interesting to note is that for some time now, the mining sector, as far as large investments are concerned, seems to be dominated by the Chinese. It's the Chinese who have invested. They even bought Tenke-Fungarume mining, for example, as we also learned. In Lubbamashi, I believe there are also Indians with Kymath who have invested in the mining sector.

But what's interesting is that, according to our investigations, the various deposits are supposed to belong to the state-owned mine. minor jekamines. And it's jekamine that subcontracts them, that has them exploited by selling this or that concession to this or that foreign investor. So as far as the Congolese are concerned, unfortunately, they remain practically in what we might call artisanal mining, getting by. Or even some Congolese have concessions, but they create what we call cooperatives, so that those, the Chinese who have the means, or others who have the means, come and hook on to these cooperatives.

By giving them money, then all the minerals they extract are sold to the trading house that belong to the one who accompanied the Congolese, the owner of the mining area. I think it's a chain of resource exploitation in the artisanal form which benefits certain Congolese but under conditions of maximum exploitation. For those of our Congolese who are artisanal miners, who enter, who are suffocating and who bring back bags on their backs to sort them and resell them to certain trading posts, So that's more or less it. So two types, two formats.

Industrial mining in the hands of foreigners, especially the Chinese, and artisanal mining. But here, where mining is artisanal, there are also two formats. There are the Congolese chieftains who have bought mining areas which they resell or subcontract. during the mining process they offer their stake but now there are also the Congolese they earn little they have nothing who enter these pits to work when they stay at the end of the evening

they count what they have earned they're given a little something and that's it so you can see that in this chaotic exploitation the question you're asking is about the environmental impacts. Sadly, in this regard, I would first like to inform you that studies have been conducted as part of the assessment of the level of air pollution. These studies were conducted by the environmental analysis laboratory of the University of Lumbabashi through the Polytechnic Faculty. We found that in the areas where the mining is located, there were

we mine, sadly, sadly, there are no precautions, no provisions, no compliance with environmental standards. Pollution is at its peak. Obviously, I'm not a hydrographer, but most of the rivers in our area, what I call the copper zone, most of the rivers are polluted. There are heavy metals, lead. I can cite, for example, the case of the Kappaloa Lowe River. When I invite you to Lumbabashi, I could share these fish with you. The Kappaloa River was famous because it allowed us to catch fish, but for some time now it has been discovered that all the fish in this river contain lead, heavy metals, the health consequences of which really need to be managed. So all the rivers are polluted. There is also another analysis, an environmental analysis, that was demonstrated near Kapushi.

Kapushi is a town south of Lumbabashi bordering Zambia. When you look at the map, you will see how there has been a decline in vegetation. 20 years ago, there was vegetation. now the photos effectively demonstrate the drought. So the land is drying up, drying out. Even rivers are losing what we might call their effects of having unpolluted water flowing, but the water is polluted.

And even when the water flows through on the shores, you'll see that there's degradation. So another important impact is on the social level, level. In areas where industrial and especially artisanal mining proliferates, people are turning away from agricultural activities from which they can ensure their survival. They prefer, as someone said, to get into a hole and at the end of the day they have their money. They don't have time to invest in agricultural work for which, as you know, you have to invest and then wait for the harvest after three or four months. They want to live day to day, but it's a trap.

But another consequence is that our children, the children who live in these areas, don't have time to go to school. They're all looking for money, looking for money, money from day to day. There's a widespread level of school dropout, a lack of interest in certain activities that could ensure their long-term survival. That's what I can say about the fact that most of these agricultural activities create a somewhat subtle relationship where government agents live from day to day by collecting taxes on mining activities, which maintains what I would call the dynamics of exploitation. That's what I can say on that issue. Thank you very much. Is there another question from you? Yes, thank you. Looking to the future, can you imagine an alternative to the current

system in Congo? That is, an alternative in which sovereign development is made possible, independent of the systems and structures currently in place. And an even more difficult question, how do we get there? I can start with how to get there. How do we get there? I think that's the question. What to do? What to do here? It's about will.

Whose will are we talking about? Is it political will or the will of society? I think we need a great deal of will to say no and see how to envision a new future with other alternatives. So if this future is possible, I think we need to change our mental software. So we really need work formatting, perhaps at the level of civil society actors,

but not this civil society here, which lives by the logic of deprivation and the politics of the belly. But really, make the Congolese understand that we must face the future, counting on promising sectors like agriculture, like the development of the tourism sector. But in short, there is work that needs to be done at the level of those who lead all the institutions,

administrative, political, so that we can give new impetus, In any case, moving forward as we are currently, it's truly a dead end. A dead end. As you know, even the current exploitation, our economy with 90% mining is a predatory economy, where those in positions of power have alliances, partnerships, which allow them to rake in a lot of money without even the Treasury account having anything. So we must break away from this logic. Breaking away from this logic is possible through transformative social work, which requires

everyone's commitment to say no. But I think we will say no to this dead end. That, sir, is what I can say. Thank you, Professor. To conclude, could you please tell the listeners where they can find any of your work, your publications, or anything else that you would like to direct them to? Ah, yes, thank you very much. Generally speaking, as we are in the Netscape era, where the internet is becoming the immaterial space for the circulation of information, anyone interested in what I publish simply needs to write my name clearly. N-G-O-I-E, T-S-H-H-I-B-A-M-B-E, Jomaine. If you write that name clearly, you can find the various publications I have, and they can be found on the Internet on practically all search resources, all search engines like ResearchGate, Google.

In Google search engines, you can find all my publications in English, French, and even Spanish. There are many publications in these three languages. bearing my name. There are many. There's even an interesting article I can tell you from a major British publishing house on diamond mining in Kassai, copper mining in Katanga, a comparative study on the state's intentional strategy and the population's survival strategy. I published this book with Keneto Medi. He's a Nigerian who was a Nigerian who was in. in Bradford, I think he created a structure there, a think tank in England, and that's what I can say. Thank you, Professor, for sharing your time with us, and I wish you a very good evening there where you are in Kampala.

Thank you very much, Ben. Any time. Thank you for everything. We'll stay in touch. All right, listeners, we are at the end of this episode, which again, was a very strange episode to try to put together because of how asynchronous it was. But I want to certainly thank our guests, Josephette Musamba, and Professor Jermaine Ngoye Chisabamba, for their contributions to this episode.

It was a fabulous conversation. I certainly learned a lot. And I'm hoping that you found it not only informative, but also useful in terms of analyzing the history of the Congo, but also the present situation that's taking place in the Congo, and I'm hoping that this has rounded out your knowledge of the Congo in addition to the previous conversations that we've hosted on the Congo on the show in the past. I also certainly want to thank my guest host and friend for this episode, Ben Radley. Ben, it was a pleasure working on this with you. I apologize that, you know, we had to collaborate so much to get this episode

over the line, but I'm hoping that you had fun. I certainly enjoyed all of the conversations that went into the making of this episode and also this conversation that we had. have at the very end here. So thanks a lot. Can you tell the listeners how they can find your work and keep up to date with the work that you're doing? Sure. Well, I'm going to try and politely sidestep that one by directing listeners instead. If they're interested in finding and accessing research on the Congolese mining sector by a mix of Congolese and international scholars, there is a website they can go to which is www. www.c e.m.com.

That's the Centre of Expertise on Gestion Mineer, which is the centre of expertise for mining research, let's say, C-E-G-E-M-I.com and there's plenty of blogs and papers and videos and resources there to give more insight into into mining in the Congo. Although I am going to nail you down one final time, you know, we didn't mention at the top of the conversation. I just realized that we forgot that, you know, you're involved with rope. And we also didn't mention what the listeners can find on rope and where they can find

rope. So we would certainly be remiss to not take the opportunity to advertise rope. So Ben, since you're the one involved with rope, let the listeners know what rope is. I know we've mentioned it on the show, dozens of things. of times in the past, but let them know what Rope is and where they can find it. Yeah, sure, happy, happy to do so. And also worth mentioning as well that Rope, as of a few years ago, is now fully open access. So all the articles published in the Rope Journal can be downloaded as a PDF for free anywhere.

So you can find Rope at Rope.net, R-O-A-P-E dot net. That is both the website, sort of an activist space. where we publish regularly blogs, interviews, book reviews, but you can also access the journal through that website as well. So, r-o-a-pe.net. Yeah, and of course, I know that we've been saying Rope that is short for the review on African political economy. So if you're at the end of this episode, which is going to be, what, two and a half hours long or thereabouts for the listeners, and you aren't already reading the review on African political economy.

I have a feeling that the review on African political economy is probably going to be up your alley, so do check out rope. As for the, as for me, listeners, you can find me on Twitter at Huck 1995, H-U-C-K-1995. I will advertise since at this point the show will be out that I recently started a new show. Not one that's going to go for 300 plus episodes like guerrilla history is, but a 25-part series on Russian history from pre-state foundation all the way up to the present. That show will already be out by the time this episode is, and it is called Tsars and Commissars from Roost to Modern Russia.

You'll be able to find that on YouTube. Don't worry, you don't have to see me there either. We'll just have a supplemental visual material for you to look at. And also, it should be available on podcast feeds in most places. So Tsars, T-S-A-R-S, and Commissars, commissars, two-Ms, two S's. Check it out, and I'll have it linked in the show notes. My usual co-host, Adnan-Husain, was not able to make this discussion, but you should follow him on Twitter at Adnan-A-Husain, H-U-S-A-N.

You should check out his other show, the Adnan Hussein Show, which is also on YouTube and on podcast platforms. And as for guerrilla history, a reminder again that we have our YouTube, channel up and running at this point. You don't have to see us, thankfully for you. But you can find that on YouTube, Guerrilla History. We're currently working on uploading our back catalog,

but very shortly, probably around the time that this episode comes out, we'll also be putting up new episodes at the same time on the podcast feed and on the YouTube channel. So just look for Guerrilla History on YouTube. It'll also be linked in the show notes of the podcast feed. And lastly, you can help support the show and keep up to date. With everything that we're doing, you can support the show by going to patreon.com forward

slash guerrilla history. That's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A history. And keep up to date by following us on social media. We're on Twitter at Gorilla underscore pod, Instagram, Gorilla underscore History, and we have a free substack newsletter that comes out about once a month, guerrilla history.substack.com. And for each of those, Gorilla is spelled G-U-E-R-I-L-L-A. So on that note, then, listeners, and until

Until next time, Solidarity.