There may be a light at the end of the tunnel as representatives from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Rwanda are hoping to end the violence between them by signing a peace deal in a joint signing ceremony in Washington today.
This comes after the United States and Qatar have been working for months to mediate an end to the conflict roiling the eastern DRC for years.
As a corollary to the peace accord, the United States is also in the process of negotiating a minerals deal with the DRC and a separate deal with Rwanda, which is expected to bring billions of dollars of American investment to the region. For the U.S. government, access to precious minerals in the region has been an incentive for helping to end the war.
Many of the minerals essential to modern technology flow from the troubled region. In the DRC, vast deposits of coltan, cobalt, and gold that power smartphones and electric vehicles, among other technologies, have become a driver of the decades-long conflict. This resource-driven struggle has transformed the eastern DRC's extraordinary mineral wealth into a source of persistent violence and instability.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member