What is the source of the conflict in the Congo?
The source of the conflict in the Congo is the scramble to control Congo’s vast natural wealth of gold, diamonds, coltan, copper, cobalt, uranium, tin and many other precious and strategic minerals. Nobel Laureate Wangari Mathaai says “these wars when you look at them, they are all about resources and who is going to control them.” Is this an ethnic conflict between so-called Hutus and Tutsis? No. It is a resource war. Ethnicity is being used as a pretext to access and control Congo’s natural resources. Former Chief of the UNHCR famously warned in an interview he gave to the Financial Times of London, that “we must not forget that the international community has systematically looted the Congo.” Exactly where is the crisis taking place? The crisis is taking place in the Great Lakes region of Africa, primarily in the East of the Congo. Click here to view map. Is it true that Rwanda invaded the Congo? Yes! Rwanda and Uganda invaded the Congo twice, first in 1996 and again in 1998. These
