Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives

A mining concession is a license given by the government to allow mineral extraction in an allocated area. Companies pay the government for rights to mining concessions. This creates opportunity for exploitation and grift. Not all concessions are active mines; for example, beyond one open pit mine, the Fungurume 2 concession is “wilderness.” 

Debt bondage, also known as debt enslavement, is when people are forced into debt which they are then obliged to work off on behalf of their employer. Kara documents how employers will pay miners’ wages while they are searching for a vein of ore to mine. However, once the vein has been found, miners then have to work many months or even years to repay the advanced wages, as well as for any digging materials, such as picks or lights, provided during that time. Kara notes that child miners are particularly susceptible to this form of exploitation, writing, “Threats of violence, eviction from the work site, and the lack of any reasonable alternative kept the children ensnared in the system of bondage. In essence, they were child slaves” (149).

FARDC stands for Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo. They are the main military force of the DRC. The FARDC and the elite Republican Guard are omnipresent at mining sites that Kara visits. They are formally tasked with keeping the peace and defending mining areas. However, Kara documents that some miners report being recruited by the FARDC to work in mining areas. They are then prevented from leaving through violence and threats.

Gécamines is a Congolese state-owned mining company. It was established in 1967 under President Mobutu. In the 1990s, Gécamines collapsed due to a variety of reasons, including corruption and public unrest. The World Bank oversaw its restructuring from a wholly state-owned enterprise into a private company with the state as the primary shareholder. As a result, many people lost their jobs. In the modern era, Gécamines primarily serves as the state representative in partnership with foreign mining interests. The mine ownership structures can be somewhat complex. For instance, the Tilwezembe mine is owned 75% by Swiss-based Glencore via Canada-based Katanga Mining, and 25% by Gécamines.

Heterogenite ore is a mineral compound that contains “copper, nickel, cobalt, and sometimes uranium” (20). It is found primarily in the Katanga Copperbelt, which is where the mines that Kara researched are located. The Copperbelt stretches along the southern DRC border with Zambia. Heterogenite is known as mbazi in Swahili. Kara notes that it is “toxic to touch and breathe” (52), especially when it contains traces of radioactive uranium. However, many of the miners handle the ore, as it is often referred to in Cobalt Red, without any protective equipment.

An open-pit mine is a mine that consists of a giant pit or hole in the ground. Valuable minerals are excavated from the bottom and sides of the pit. An open-pit mine is different from other methods of mining, such as mountaintop removal or room and pillar mining, which is commonly used in coal mining. Since cobalt deposits are located relatively close to the surface and in large quantities, the most common form of artisanal mining observed by Kara are open-pit mines. This form of mining is also particularly accessible to artisanal miners as it does not require specialized mechanical equipment. One of the largest open pit mines that Kara observes is “at least 150 meters deep and 400 meters across” and has “more than fifteen thousand” miners working at once (135).

SAEMAPE, formerly known as SAESSCAM, is the Congolese government agency tasked with overseeing artisanal mining and protecting artisanal miners. SAEMAPE stands for Service d’assistance et d’encadrement de l’exploitation minière artisanale et à petit echelle, or Artisanal Mining Assistance and Management Service. Kara expresses skepticism that SAEMAPE is up to the task of overseeing the many artisanal mining operations throughout the Congo. For instance, he notes that SAEMAPE officials are present at industrial mines run by MIKAS when they are buying from artisanal miners and laundering them into their supply line. This would make them “part of the system of illegally utilizing artisanal miners on industrial sites” (88).

A supply chain is a network of resources, companies, and people involved in the production and distribution of a good or service. At the base of the supply chain are the raw materials, in this case cobalt. These goods are then refined and manufactured into finished goods, like lithium-ion batteries used in phones, electric vehicles, and laptop computers. Kara is critical of the finished-good manufacturers like Apple and Tesla for not applying due scrutiny to the working conditions of laborers extracting cobalt at the bottom of the supply chain. He writes, “as of 2022, there is no such thing as a clean [i.e., free from human rights abuses] supply chain of cobalt from the Congo” (17).