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Opinion | Blood on Their Hands: How the West Profits from Congo's Genocide

  • Tilourshita Thiagu
  • Oct 14
  • 5 min read

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Written by Tilourshita Thiagu, Senior Writer They call it investment. Congo calls it death. From Leopold’s whip to lithium batteries, imperialism has only changed its uniform. It no longer comes with a flag; it comes with a corporate logo. It no longer screams; it signs trade deals. And as the world congratulates itself on 'clean energy' and 'progress,' Congo once again suffers in silence. 

Congo's torment is not born of chaos; it is the child of empire. In 1885, King Leopold II claimed the Congo Free State as his personal property. Under the guise of "civilising" Africa, he unleashed a system of terror that enslaved millions. Men were mutilated for failing to meet rubber quotas. Women were taken hostage. Villages were razed. Ten million Congolese lives were erased during Leopold's reign of extraction and mutilation (Harvard Kennedy School, 1998). When Belgium seized control in 1908, it did not dismantle this system; it refined it. Forced labour persisted, and the machinery of exploitation continued, now hidden behind bureaucratic language and polished ledgers (Seibert, 2024). 

When independence came in 1960, Congo's sovereignty was a mirage. Patrice Lumumba, the nation's first democratically elected leader, was assassinated with foreign complicity (The Guardian, 2000). In his place, the West backed dictators and strongmen who understood their role: protect the flow of minerals, silence resistance, and call it stability (The Guardian, 2000). The whip became policy; the chains became debt. The objective never changed: extract without accountability. 

Fast forward to today, and the old patterns of control persist, dressed in new forms. Today, the global demand for cobalt, coltan, and copper, the building blocks of smartphones, electric cars, and clean energy, runs directly through Congo’s blood-soaked earth. The same nations that once colonised Africa now brand themselves as climate leaders, preaching sustainability while building their green revolutions on Congolese graves. 

In the country's east, that revolution takes its truest form. The M23 militia, backed by thousands of Rwandan troops, has unleashed a campaign of executions, rape, and forced displacement across North Kivu. In towns like Rubaya, children were crushed to death in mortars, women raped in front of their families, and entire villages emptied overnight. The rainforest, once a refuge, now echoes with screams. In displacement camps near Goma, girls as young as ten trade sex for food while men are beaten for venturing out after dark (The Guardian, 2024). 

But this bloodshed is not isolated; it is sponsored. The United Kingdom, European Union, and United States continue to fund Rwanda through aid, military contracts, and so-called 'development' deals, even as UN experts confirm Rwandan troops' direct involvement in M23 atrocities. London's £270 million "economic transformation fund," the EU’s €20 million payments for French gas protection, and Washington's praise of Kagame as a "stability partner" all prop up the same regime waging war on Congolese soil (The Guardian, 2024). The minerals ripped from those killing fields – cobalt, coltan, and gold – are laundered through Rwanda and reborn as 'conflict-free' exports that power the West’s electric cars and smartphones. What the world calls clean energy is built on Congolese suffering. 


Imperialism no longer wears a crown; it hides behind corporate logos and diplomatic immunity.

This is not a new war. It is the latest chapter in an old script. Neo-colonialism works by proxy: the West outsources its violence to regional allies, funds their militaries, and extracts resources through 'partnerships'. It does not need to occupy Congo when it can simply sponsor those who do. Aid becomes leverage. Trade becomes control. And behind every humanitarian statement lies a mining contract signed in blood. 

Congo's people are trapped in a war they did not start, one fought over minerals they will never benefit from. So far in 2025, thousands of civilians have been killed, over seven million remain displaced, and 28 million face severe food insecurity (Council on Foreign Relations, 2025; World Food Programme, 2025; Al Jazeera, 2025). The world calls it a conflict. The truth is simpler: organised murder for market demand. 

The Congo Basin, once the planet's second-largest rainforest, is being carved open by the machinery of extraction. Charcoal production, logging, and mining have transformed the green paradise into a wasteland. Rivers that once fed entire communities now run black with chemical waste (University College London, 2025). The same forest that steadies the planet's climate is being gutted so the world can power its devices, a slow-motion ecocide marketed as progress. 

Imperialism once justified itself with the language of civilisation. Today, it hides behind innovation. It claims to lift the world toward sustainability while crushing the very people whose resources make that possible. Western companies claim 'ethical sourcing' while turning away from the reality of child miners, mass rape, and environmental collapse. Governments issue press releases about ‘democracy promotion’ while sending arms to allies complicit in atrocities. It is hypocrisy masquerading as policy, a moral theatre where Congo is forever cast as the expendable backdrop. 

Every piece of technology that hums in our hands is wired with the labour of those who suffer unseen. Every electric car battery gleams with the sweat of miners who will never own one. The so-called clean energy transition is far from clean. It is built on the same logic that drove the slave ships and the rubber quotas: profit above humanity. 

Congo's suffering is not an isolated humanitarian tragedy. It is a mirror held up to the world's conscience. Imperialism was never dismantled; it was digitised, rebranded, and exported through global markets. The West condemns atrocities when convenient and funds them when profitable. It speaks of freedom while keeping others on a leash. It mourns genocide in history books while underwriting one in real time. 

And still, Congo stands. Its people resist through art, through protest, through survival. They bear the weight of a world that refuses to see them as more than resources. But make no mistake, their endurance is not consent. It is defiance. 

We cannot continue to mourn Leopold's crimes while ignoring their modern reincarnation. To stay silent is to be complicit. 

Congo is not bleeding because it is cursed. It is bleeding because the world keeps cutting. Until we confront the imperial machine, its corporations, its governments, and its lies of progress, Congo will remain a battlefield disguised as a marketplace. The question is not whether the West has blood on its hands. It is whether we will finally admit it.


References 

Al Jazeera. (2025, February 24). Fighting in eastern DRC kills about 7,000 people since January, PM says. 

Council on Foreign Relations. (2025, June 9). Conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/violence-democratic-republic-congo 

Harvard Kennedy School. (1998). King Leopold’s Ghost collection. 

Seibert, G. (2024). Belgian Colonial Rule in the Congo. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History. 

The Guardian. (2000, January 15). Patrice Lumumba: Murdered with foreign complicity. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/jan/15/ianblack 

The Guardian. (2024, December 21). Children executed and women raped in front of their families as M23 militia unleashes fresh terror on DRC. 

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/dec/21/children-executed-and-women-raped-i n-front-of-their-families-as-m23-militia-unleashes-fresh-terror-on-drc 

University College London. (2025, July 10). Blog: Driving on Destruction: How EVs Are Exploiting Congo’s Mines. 

World Food Programme. (2025). Democratic Republic of the Congo Emergency. https://www.wfp.org/emergencies/drc-emergency

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