TRANSCRIPT
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a country whose name has become synonymous with conflict, poverty and exploitation.
The Central African country is the second biggest in the continent - about the same size of Western Europe - and is incredibly rich in critical minerals that are essential to modern electronics including those in your laptop or smart phone.
Despite this, it remains one of the poorest countries in the world.
And now, a longstanding conflict in the country's eastern region has reached new heights.
This week, the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group captured the eastern city of Goma, escalating a widespread humanitarian crisis.
"There are 6 million people displaced in the Eastern Congo. It's a humanitarian catastrophe, two million of those, roughly speaking, are displaced by the M23 conflict. They don't know where they're going to eat, they're going to drink, where to get healthcare. You don't know what tomorrow is going to bring. It's extremely militarised. There are people with guns everywhere. So you're talking about a population that's now living, it's in its 29th year of conflict. It's a generation of Congolese that's known nothing except that sort of precarious existence."
That's Jason Stearns, an Associate Professor at Simon Fraser University and Director of the Congo Research Group at New York University.
But where exactly did this cycle of violence in the Congo begin?
"It really goes back to the colonial period. It went through an extremely brutal colonial period. It was the private fiefdom of the Belgian King, Leopold II that was then handed over to the Belgian government and those administrations created the notion that the state was apart from the citizens, was unaccountable to the citizens, was often very extractive and predatory of citizens. The post-colonial period didn't get much better. We saw then within six months of independence, the assassination of the first Prime Minister with the complicity of Belgium in the United States."
After achieving independence in 1960, the Congo dealt with three decades of dictatorship under President Mobutu Sese Seko.
This led to the First Congo War in 1996 where several African nations, including Rwanda, banded together to overthrow the leader.
A new ruler was installed by Rwanda and Uganda but he quickly fell out of favour with the two, leading to the Congo's neighbours supporting rebel militias to capture Goma in 1998 and launching the five-year Second Congo War.
The conflict caused the deaths of over 5.4 million people.
And now, a new three-year campaign by the Rwandan-backed M23 rebel group has culminated with the city of Goma being captured once again.
"What we're seeing today with the M23 rebellion and the fall of Goma is in some ways the latest in a succession of conflicts that have pitted the tiny neighbour of the Congo, Rwanda, against the Congo. Once again, Goma has fallen to Rwandan-backed rebellion. And so this really is for many people living in Goma today. This is Deja vu. This is the fifth time that this has happened."
While the Rwandan government has often denied links to the M23 movement, the group has grown from the same rebel militias backed in earlier conflicts and United Nations experts say a Rwandan military presence has also been seen supporting rebels in the region.
And with the militants now taking Goma, a city of 1.5 million, international attention is now drawn to a conflict which has long flown under the radar.
"It comes at a cost to Rwanda to have the focus put on them so clearly, and so most people thought they're not going to risk that kind of backlash. When this happened in 2012, Rwanda faced $204 million in aid suspension. Rwanda is a country, a small country that relies on aid. It also above and beyond that, it relies on its reputation. You have 'Visit Rwanda' emblazoned on Arsenal jerseys in the UK on Paris Saint Germain jerseys in Paris. But I think what's happened over the last three years of this rebellion is that the Rwandans have realised there's actually no condemnation for what they're doing. People are looking elsewhere, Gaza, Ukraine. People don't really care about this."
But what is Rwanda's motivation in supporting these rebels and what would they have to gain from controlling territory in the eastern Congo?
Well firstly, the DRC sits on an abundance of critical minerals including tin, cobalt, tantalum and - perhaps most importantly - gold.
"And around a decade ago, the gold price in the world rose dramatically, and it continues to rise, and the Congo started producing much more gold. Rwanda's entire budget is $3.5 billion dollars. It's a small country. It doesn't have a big economy, doesn't have a lot of resources. Rwanda last year exported over a billion dollars in gold and other minerals, mostly gold. Much of that - we don't know how much - but much of that I would estimate most of that comes from the Eastern DRC. All of that goes from Rwanda to Dubai."
But, in the meantime, millions living on the ground continue to suffer.
"This is not a war where most deaths are on the front in the trenches. This is a war where a lot of the deaths happen in fairly banal circumstances of people being displaced, no longer having access to clean water. They get a waterborne disease and their child who's vulnerable dies from diarrhea or dies from pneumonia. And just because it's not in a sensational way doesn't make it any less tragic. And there have been certainly thousands and thousands of deaths due to this conflict because of those humanitarian consequences."
So, where does the conflict go from here?
Professor Stearns warns that, without international intervention against this rebellion and Rwanda's role in the bloodshed, more war and suffering in the Congo is inevitable.
"There are some people who speak openly in Rwanda in favour of annexation. But the government itself has never said that. I don't think that's in the cards at the moment. But Rwanda, the way it works is that it will advance a little bit and then it'll reconsider its situation. And if it finds no resistance, then it will continue. And so I think if the international community is complacent about this, then we could be headed in that direction."
