The Transnational Smuggling Fueling Conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo
In eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), an escalation in fighting between the Congolese armed forces and Rwandan-backed March 23 Movement (M23) rebels has brought the Great Lakes region to the brink of another devastating war. Since January 2025, it is estimated that the M23’s renewed offensive for Goma, the capital of eastern DRC’s North Kivu province and a humanitarian hub, has resulted in more than 7,000 deaths and displaced several hundred thousand—many for a second or third time. Experts are sounding the alarm on a dangerous combination of conflict, food insecurity, and disease intensifying, in what is already considered one of the world’s most dire humanitarian crises.
Despite the catastrophic human toll, recent diplomatic efforts have stalled. One potential reason for this inertia lies in the economic architecture of the conflict itself: entrenched financial incentives tied to mineral smuggling and resource exploitation—enriching militias, political elites, government forces, and neighboring states. In a worrying turn of events, external mediation efforts appear increasingly focused on safeguarding access to minerals rather than protecting civilians. So long as combatants continue to profit from the status quo, it is unlikely that any negotiated settlement will endure. A more durable peace will require confronting both the political drivers of violence and the lucrative shadow economies that help sustain it.
Africa’s World Wars
The roots of the current fighting trace back to the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, when hundreds of thousands of refugees—including members of Rwanda’s former government and Hutu extremist groups—fled into Zaire (now the DRC). Escalating cross-border tensions led to the First Congo War in 1996, as Rwanda, Uganda, and other neighboring states backed a rebellion that toppled longtime dictator President Mobutu Sese Seko and installed Laurent Kabila in his place.
However, deteriorating relations between President Kabila and Paul Kagame of Rwanda triggered the outbreak of the Second Congo War in 1998. This conflict divided neighboring armies in support of and against Kabila. Following President Kabila’s assassination, his son, Joseph Kabila, assumed power and ushered in a regional peace settlement in 2003. These conflicts—dubbed “Africa’s World Wars”—set a precedent for subsequent Rwandan intervention in the DRC, often under the guise of defending ethnic Tutsis from Hutu rebels they accuse the Congolese government of sheltering.
These wars also laid the foundation for the systematic looting of eastern Congo by neighboring forces. In 2001, a UN panel of experts released a report laying out evidence of Rwanda, Uganda, and Zimbabwe utilizing criminal networks to plunder Congolese resources—including coltan, gold, diamonds, and timber—following their armies’ withdrawal.
The legacy of foreign intervention, combined with the Congolese government’s failure to establish effective governance, has contributed to the proliferation of more than one hundred militias in eastern Congo. One of the primary groups in the current conflict, the M23, emerged after refusing to integrate with the Congolese armed forces following the 2003 peace agreement.
In 2012, the M23 first captured the provincial capital Goma. The group later withdrew under a regional agreement, in large part due to the international community leveraging international aid to pressure Rwanda to back down. While Rwanda denies its ties to the M23, investigations from multiple international bodies, including a UN panel of experts, have found evidence of Rwanda’s government providing financial and material support to the group. Low-intensity conflict persisted until 2021, when the M23 launched a new offensive against Congolese forces and the UN peacekeeping mission, MONUSCO.
In December 2024, ceasefire negotiations between Rwanda and the DRC, brokered by Angola, collapsed. By early 2025, full-scale war reignited as the M23 recaptured Goma. The group’s current territorial footprint exceeds previous phases of the rebellion—capturing the capital of South Kivu province, Bukavu, in mid-February and the mining-hub Walikale in late March. Neighboring countries Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi have deployed additional troops into DRC, raising fears of a return to a broader regional war.
Going for Gold
While unresolved historical grievances play a role in fueling this conflict, it is impossible to ignore the financial incentives driving many combatants to maintain the status quo. Endemic conflict and porous borders in the DRC have facilitated large-scale smuggling of resources into neighboring Rwanda and Uganda. Eastern DRC contains some of the world’s largest reserves of critical minerals, including tin, tungsten, tantalum, and cobalt—crucial to technology and defense industries. Previous iterations of the Congo wars were marked by the smuggling of coltan, a mineral essential for the production of microchips. Recent years have seen a shift toward the illicit trade of gold, which is easier to transport across borders and harder to trace within supply chains.
Prior to the recent escalation of fighting, reports indicated that the M23’s control over mines in Rubaya generated more than $800,000 per month in income for the group. Its recent capture of mining hubs like Walikale provides additional revenue sources—not only through direct control of mineral trade but also by building parallel government structures to extract concessions from mining operations. The capture of key towns and transport routes in the border region allows the M23 to operate checkpoints and tax the local economy while providing smuggling routes for both coltan and gold to enter into Rwanda
In Rwanda, minerals account for roughly 3% of its GDP. The country holds relatively small deposits of coltan within its borders. Yet it consistently ranks as one of the world’s top exporters over the past decade, often surpassing the DRC in reported production. Similarly, despite Rwanda having “virtually no domestic gold mines,” gold exports accounted for 65% of its total exports in 2023, generating over $800 million in revenue.
By law, imports to Rwanda can be marked as Rwandan goods as long as 30% of their value is added in the country, allowing Congolese minerals processed in Rwanda to be exported with little acknowledgment of their source. Previous expansions of the M23’s control over mines and strategic transport routes have coincided with subsequent increases in Rwandan mineral exports. These patterns indicate that the Rwanda-M23 ties go beyond co-ethnic sympathies but also bolster Rwanda’s economic goals to cement its global footprint as a key mineral exporter.
Uganda has similarly used the instability of its neighbors to make Kampala a “regional hub” for gold exports. Uganda has a complicated relationship in the DRC, cooperating with the Congolese armed forces to combat the Allied Defense Forces (ADF) militia while also supporting the M23 and other criminal groups in eastern Congo.
In 2021, a UN group of experts found that gold mines under the control of armed groups sold and transported gold into Uganda via established routes in the Ituri province of eastern Congo. The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime has noted that Uganda’s refinery expansion has far outpaced the development of local gold production, suggesting reliance on illicit sourcing. Last year alone, Uganda’s Central Bank reported a “tenfold” increase in gold exports, generating nearly $2 billion in revenue.
The regional gold economy is not just a symptom of conflict—it actively sustains it. Scholars argue that resource exploitation can prolong conflicts and contribute to greater violence against civilians by enabling rebel groups to finance their operations independent of local support. Mines controlled by the M23 imposed harsher working conditions on miners and reportedly enforced salongo or “unpaid community labor” on civilians to improve local infrastructure. In the most recent campaign, human rights watchdog groups report rampant abuses against civilian populations from the M23, in addition to an “alarming increase” in sexual violence in areas under its control.
New Guarantors on the Block
In 2012, international pressure—including the suspension of foreign aid to Rwanda—played a pivotal role in forcing the M23’s withdrawal from Goma. Today, the contrast could not be starker. The far more muted response to the current crisis indicates how access to resources has increasingly influenced diplomatic efforts (or lack thereof).
The People’s Republic of China (PRC), the dominant global cobalt refiner and investor in mining operations in eastern Congo, has condemned Rwandan support for M23 and shown support for the DRC in “defending its sovereignty”—seen as a departure from its commitment to remain neutral in African conflicts. Beyond recriminations, though, the PRC has largely maintained that diplomacy should be led by the African Union (AU) or regional groups such as the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
The European Union has struggled to put forth a united front in response to the conflict’s escalation. In 2024, the EU and Rwanda signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on a strategic mineral partnership to foster “sustainable and resilient value chains for critical raw materials.” Although the EU eventually employed targeted sanctions on Rwanda for its role in the conflict, it stopped short of reneging on its MoU. Even more so, the initial package of sanctions proposed in February faced delays due to a veto from Luxembourg. Moreover, while the EU and United States have formally condemned Rwandan support for the M23 and sanctioned certain military officials, the pressure campaign falls far short of what was seen in 2012.
The United States has also recalibrated its engagement. U.S. diplomatic efforts during the Biden administration emphasized neutral arbitration, seeking to bring leaders from Rwanda and the DRC to the negotiating table. However, the Trump administration’s emphasis on securing access to critical minerals—particularly in Ukraine and Greenland—has inspired new diplomatic outreach from Congolese officials. The African Business Council (on behalf of Congolese officials) proposed a high-level meeting between President Trump and President Tshisekedi to negotiate long-term U.S. access to critical minerals in exchange for formal U.S. security cooperation. It is also reported that Tshisekedi has held talks with Erik Prince, the founder of infamous private military contractor (PMC) Blackwater, to increase the hiring of foreign mercenaries in the DRC to retake and defend key mineral infrastructure.
The prospect of these many mineral access deals remains in the air—a recent high-level visit from President Trump’s Senior Advisor for Africa, Massad Boulos, reportedly resulted in “a path forward for its development.” However, their prominent role in the response to this conflict points to two troubling shifts in the diplomatic environment. On one hand, they demonstrate a weak and fragmented response to Rwandan aggression. On the other, they illustrate a movement away from diplomatic interventions that attempt to demobilize militias and neighboring armies to those that focus on securing minerals. More broadly, these efforts distract from the urgent humanitarian issues at hand and pull in even more combatants to a region already saturated with armed groups.
A Diplomatic Resolution?
None of this is to say that diplomatic efforts are doomed to fail or that the presence of critical minerals inherently prevents the resolution of conflict. The rapid escalation of recent fighting has seemingly opened up the possibility for diplomatic efforts previously considered untenable —Qatar has agreed to host the first direct negotiations between the M23 and the DRC on April 9. In addition, despite rejecting peace talks brokered by Angola last week, the M23 has agreed to a ceasefire during SADC troop withdrawals—offering a narrow window for renewed diplomatic engagement.
Should a broader ceasefire materialize—a prospect that remains uncertain given the broader rebellions’ stated intent to reach Kinshasa—it would require robust oversight. A multinational, AU, or regional economic community response force would need to monitor and prevent a re-escalation of fighting. Diplomatically, officials from the regional economic communities will also need to keep a close eye on further meddling from neighbors Rwanda and Uganda—both of whom are adept at making their case for military intervention using the politics of the EAC and SADC.
Most importantly, the DRC’s leadership will need to address its crisis of legitimacy with the civilian population—prioritizing efforts on security sector reform and tackling systemic issues of state capture and widespread corruption among elites. Participating in local mediation led by civil society and faith-based organizations could bring more credibility to government efforts to build trust with the population.
Confronting the role of resource smuggling in fueling this conflict will be crucial for mediating among regional actors. Summits hosted by African organizations, such as the EAC and SADC, have been stymied by countries’ refusal to participate fully. And as new actors—regional patrons, private military contractors, and external mediators—enter the fray with ties to mineral exports, they will only introduce more entrenched financial and political interests for diplomats to navigate as they seek to build a lasting peace. Unless international diplomacy adapts to confront the war economy at the heart of this conflict, peace in eastern Congo will remain elusive—and temporary.
Views expressed are the author’s own and do not represent the views of GSSR, Georgetown University, or any other entity. Image Credit: Al Majalla