Home
Creators
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

Radio War Nerd EP #505 — M23 and the Congo Wars, Pt 2: Mining Profits Matter (Patreon)

Published:
2025-03-06 22:36:29
Imported:
2025-03
Tags:

Downloads

Content

Recorded: March 4, 2025

In part 2 of the War Nerd's series on M23 and the Congo wars, we discuss the origins of M23, the role of Canadian mining companies, and the enduring biases of the "international community" that happen to align with global capital. (Part 1 here)

First: We briefly discuss the latest news out of the Washington asylum...At 18:10 - Part 2 of the series on M23 & Congo begins

Maps & Images

*Second Congo War

*Fighting today

*Joseph Kabila, son of Laurent

*Bosco "The Terminator" Ntaganda

*Bishop Jean-Marie Runiga, first president of M23

* Félix Tshisekedi, current president of DRC

*Bertrand Bisimwa, current president of M23

Total time: 1:30:41Direct link to this episode's mp3 here

*

Subscribe to Radio War Nerd at patreon.com/radiowarnerd

Sound production by Telescope Audio

Check out the Radio War Nerd Merch store here!

Order your print or ebook of John Dolan's new book Erdogan Pizza: Dispatches from a Violent & Grotesque World

Files

Comments

NYCM&AHole

Zelensky should’ve had a bump before going in.

NYCM&AHole

Also I am looking forward to hearing about what my boss is up to when he goes back later this year.

William

Arby’s: we got the nukes

William

The only way out for zelenski, more and more, seems to be through a 9mm hole in his head, self inflicted or not

William

The exploitation of the mineral wealth in the Congo rhymes so much with what occurred in Afghanistan during the US war

William

Not sure how to make this work but “Hutu, Brutus?”

Soda enthusiast

Does anyone have a link to john's article on Georges ruggiu. I can't find it online

Benke

Let's hope he works something out with the Europeans

Benke

Trump fatigue is kicking in. One can only take so much clown at a time

Kawaii Leonard

covering m23 is why I subscribe. Thanks guys, for continuing on even in the absence of an available guest

Devin Pullman

Can you guys add an RSS link so we can listen in other apps?

Jonathan Penn

Another great episode with information and insight into an area most of us know very little about. Thanks in particular for observing out loud and quite clearly in the first part of the episode that the Democratic party is dead. I've been saying that to friends for a year but they keep thinking there is hope. No- no matter how many shocks you administer or how much adrenaline, that heart is not going to beat again. With respect to gold's use in semiconductor manufacture, its conductivity is of course excellent but not so much better than silver or copper to justify the cost of using it in ICs. What sets gold apart and makes it invaluable is its ductility- you can make gold into sheets only a few atoms thick and the thinnest wires can only be made with gold. I have not checked the figures, but I would be surprised if the industry uses a great deal of gold-you can draw many miles of wires that thin from only a few kilograms of gold. Thanks for all you do. Jonathan Penn

William

The stories of Rwanda and Armenia seem to have similar hues. Not superficially because of the genocides, but maybe what happens to a population that survives one? With no one to defend you, you have to learn to defend yourself.. and there’s also a “scrappy underdog” undercurrent as well. Kind of HAMAS/palestine too. Groups of people who are “annoying” to the rich western elite because they can’t serve any purpose in furthering their interests economically or politically

William

It’s all people who are living examples of liberal hypocrisy, not Marxist enough for the left, and not cowardly bootlickers eager to sell out to rich business interests primarily on the right, but across the spectrum

Yairo Martis

Canada is literally low key an extraction powerhouse. In addition to Congo, they've also ruined the Dominican Republic, and Canadian tar sands oil companies are salivating over the prospects of carving up Venezuela's tar sands.

William Brame

Love the episode as usual, but why do y’all never have a black or African guest on?

Joe S.

I don't really get the whole "progressives hate Tutsis" thing. I've never heard anyone try to defend the Hutus or cast any suspicion on the official narrative. Is that something that happens in academia?

Leo Silverstein

has anyone read mahmood mamdanis “when victims become killers”

No

Great episodes, really appreciate an overview of this very confusing and intentionally obscure war. I hear "free congo" alot from alot of people, well meaning of course but thats about as deep as it goes generally. I never ask them what side we should be on and who we are supposed to be freeing and from who, because I don't know and nor do they

GoyBulletStopper

Dude wtf is up with your boss. Second time I've seen you mention this. My old boss (tree work job) also is an engineer and went and worked on an offshore drilling rig of the coast of Angola and I thought he was super gross for that but they said if he got yellow fever a third time he'd probably die so I don't think he's gone back....

NYCM&AHole

Lol I’m just joking about my boss. We do have French clients. Not sure what or if they have anything to do with this trip or the previous ones.

Methew

They mentioned in one of the episodes that they don’t know a guest who would be a great fit and asked for suggestions from the audience

William Brame

I feel like that’s an excuse at this point because it’s a pattern now. I know they frequently get guests from the audience, but realistically, they are more than connected enough to do this. It’s their job.

J

What is your problem with Israel and Netanyahu if you celebrate their counterparts (and allies) in Africa, Rwanda and Kagame? You also use the exact same tropes as the supporters of the former do: “the Tutsis/Jews need to defend themselves from another genocide,” or “the left and certain plutocrats interested in African mineral/ Middle Eastern oil extraction are conspiring against this tiny ethnic group” etc. as well as the same anti-UN talking points.

Doug Cartel

If Haaretz is correct, it's going to take a long time to reconstitute the IDF. apparently the motivation to fight for many reservists was to get the hostages back, but when they realized that wasnt happening, morale dropped and now some units are seeing only 50% of reservists answering the mobilization reqs. So, Qassam might have more prep time than previously anticipated. It's like stopping in the middle of a marathon, very hard to get back up to speed. It wont be as simple as throwing the genocide lever into the ON position again.

Quinn

Yeah I am very confused by that as well. I've heard it mentioned as being a phenomena in the Francophone world but never encountered in personally or in reading in Anglophone sources. I'm also confused by the insistence that Tutsis are consistently treated by media as the villians and aggressors, because until very recently in the latest M23 offensive I've only seen major english language publications, including in Africa, talk about RPF governed Rwanda and Kagame himself with praise for their economic development, cultural initiatives, etc., with very slight lip service paid to authoritatian tendencies etc. Tbf I have come across some genuinely sensationalist accounts of RPF reprisals against Hutus, but 1. those absolutely did happen, I made a post about that under the last episode 2. even in their sensationalism, I wouldnt at all consider those accounts "anti-Tutsi" or at all minimizing the genocidr, as much as simply tone deaf and unprofessional considering the recency and sensitivity of the genocide. And as far as I'm aware, the west generally much prefers doing mineral trade with Rwanda without asking too many questions, so I'm not sure how that reflects anti-Tutsi bias in any way. (Though I have seen people claim that RPF are in some way western proxies, which seems absolutely untrue, I've seen nothing to indicate that, and the trade and diplomacy seems about as mutual as it can be considering the imbalance of influence.)

Quinn

Really everything said I just dont see the current incarnation as a conflict where any faction can be cast as particularly sympathetic besides the people caught up in it, which sounds lukewarm and obnoxious maybe but I think that's the reality. The RPF ending the genocide is absolutely admirable even considering the brutal reprisals that most definitely did happen. Rwandas fighting capabilities and discipline are really impressive from an amoral military history perspective, and the Kivu Tutsis probably stand out as having the most righteous cause for involvement in the wars in eastern DRC. Its hard to overstate the malicious incompetence of the DRC government and military (so far as they can even be said to exist as halfway cohesive institutions). RPF Rwanda is hard not to respect as a competent operator in developmentalism, military, and diplomacy, and consistently punch way above their weight after returning triumphantly from exile with a cause that is uncontestably righteous, however you prevaricate about their overall intentions or character (as if sincerity of virtue means much when ending a genocide). But there's also no way around the fact that Rwanda under the RPF has been brutally pragmatic in maintaining and developing its regional interests, and is absolutely complicit in the continuation of the wars around Kivu in a way that I don't think protecting Tutsi minorities is at all a plausible explanation (with the exception of the Kivu Tutsi militias themselves for obvious reasons).

Quinn

And to be clear I don't think John and Mark are exactly intending to cast Rwanda & M23 as especially sympathetic, let alone "righteous", I am just likewise confused about the references to widespread anti-Tutsi sentiment, because I've never seen it. I also believe that it is factually untrue that the RPF and associated forces did not conduct reprisal massacres, as I mentioned (I hope clearly respectfully) in a comment on the first episode.

Ander Pierce

Ha, Dolan might sing a different tune on the Tutsis if they were seizing territory and annihilating civilian populations at breakneck speed since 1948. Confused about your position here, do you think the Tutsis had the genocide coming?

Ander Pierce

It's a niche interpretation that pops up on the left. I heard it from a Party of Socialism and Liberation organizer back in undergrad. Luckily it seems kinda niche. If you scroll up in the comments though you can see someone equating the Tutsis with Israel, it's kinda odd

J

Why would I think that? I am just simply against the exploitation of the memory of past genocides to justify expansionist, militaristic and authoritarian policies. Pace John’s narrative, the single biggest instigator behind the current crisis is Kagame and Rwanda’s regime, which makes them responsible for the displacement of millions and the death of thousands. The Rwandan regime justifies its support for the MS23 with the the threat of another anti-Tutsi genocide. These worries seem less justified if we consider that the Tutsi rebels in the RDC are powerful and organized and the Hutu genocidaires are in disarray, holding sway over a few impoverished refugee camps. The real reasons for Rwanda’s intervention in its neighbor and the MS23’s unlikely success are revealed by a simple fact: Rwanda, a country without any significant mineral resources, has become a major exporter of cobalt and other metals in recent years. John seems to imply in this episode that it makes little difference if the wealth of the Congo are looted by Rwanda or end up in the coffins of the kleptocrats of Kinshasa and Western mining magnates. But for the millions displaced and wound up in a combat zone this would make a world of difference.

radiowarnerd

Well, for starters, it wasn't the Palestinians who massacred the European Jews whereas it WAS the Rwandan Hutu who massacred the Tutsi then fled across the border and started reorganizing.

radiowarnerd

I'm trying to find a copy but a lot of NSFWCorp has been removed from the internet, I don't know why.

J

I think we are well past the point of justified Rwandan intervention in the RDC against the FDLR and their ilk. Pointing to the presence of the Hutu genocidaires is now a cheap pretext for Rwanda, a regional power backed by not all but at least some sections of the elites in the West, to enrich itself at the expense of its poorer and weaker neighbor.

DumbDumDumbDumb

Macron himself proposed extending France’s nuclear umbrella to cover Ukraine to the EU the day after this was recorded

David Gyllenhaal

It is a definite strand of thinking in the anti-imperialist left. For a recent popular example see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGQt-VUOUPY For an academic example see: https://podur.org/2020/06/28/americas-wars-on-democracy-in-rwanda-and-the-dr-congo/ There had also been journalistic reporting about the ugliness of the RPF and the Kagame regime that has flirted with false-flag allegations regarding the 1994 genocide itself (deep cover RPF provocateurs were substantially responsible for the force and onset of the violence): https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/546081/in-praise-of-blood-by-judi-rever/ I would probably rank these in descending order of seriousness or analytical value (Rever certainly did real shoe-leather, there's just a lot of question about which sources she credits and in what proportion). I do think that a lot of this strand of thinking is marked by lazy campism. I don't mean campism in an entirely pejorative way—which is why I qualify it as lazy campism. The defining feature of lazy campism, to my mind, is a tendency to take "who is the US proxy" as the only meaningful question, and to treat all analytical and moral questions as basically solved once you've pinned the tail on that donkey. The major problem with that approach is that the empire has only a very few stable and privileged proxies. In most parts of the world, it changes its proxy relationships very quickly and very pragmatically, and is not much troubled about backing many different horses at the same time. This is I think a big analytical question that doesn't necessarily get raised in this episode: when does the state capacity and military power of the Tutsis make them a good candidate for proxy relationships, and when does it make them a pain in the ass? When it comes to the proposal by British political parties to ship their own migrants off to a Rwandan super-jail, it's clear that Kagame's state capacity is very much in the plus column. However, when it comes to mineral extraction, I suspect it's probably in the minus column. In this case, state capacity tends to mean that a foreign multinational's 'cut' in extractive industries is reduced—as true of cobalt or gold as it is of oil. I do think John is probably right in the sense that Canadian multinationals and other assorted Western vultures are highly aware of the fact that they currently get a better cut out of Kabila-run mining than they believe they will get out of Kagame-run mining. (And Kagame may well be much more driven by those potential profits in his backing of M23 than by threat of the FDLR or the fate of the Banyamulenge, it's hard to say). But, if the cookie does crumble Kagame's way, I'm sure they will rush to make a deal with him too. "Pin the tail on the proxy" doesn't get you all that far when dealing with situations like this.

Samuel Edson

17 min in, an Id-ee-ho getting its come-upins. Yee haw 💪 🤠 💪

Hugo Turner

Actually it’s at least 6 million dead if not 10 million as a result of Rwanda’s invasion and proxy war in Congo.

Hugo Turner

Terrible episode fails to cover the vast suffering that Rwanda has brought to Congo with millions dead doesn’t even mention that Kabila was assassinated and his successor was widely believed to be Rwandan or that the peace deal forced the Congo to incorporate Tutsi militias into government forces which is why they are useless at fighting M23. I guess Dolan will never get over his romantic fascination with the worlds greatest mass murderer since Hitler Paul Kagame. Why not invite a Congolese guest like Kambale Musavuli to set the record straight? Or do they all refuse to appear because of how insanely biased your past coverage has been?

Quinn

Joseph Kabila was widely believed to be Rwandan?? HUH?

Hugo Turner

One of the most outrageous errors of this episode is implying that M23 are somehow resisting the mining interests in Congo. In reality they and other armed groups are looting the country on behalf of the mining interests and are in practice blackwater type mercenaries for multinational corporations. Rwanda’s whole economy is based on selling the loot from the Congo and half of M23 members are in reality the Rwandan army.

Matthew Thrunnowicki

To arbitrarily start the clock in April 1994 is to completely miss the context of all of this. This isn’t to deny the slaughter of Tutsi during the 100 days, but rather to situate it in the context of a larger picture in which: Hutus are slaughtered in their southern neighbor of Burundi in 1972, the RPF illegally invades Rwanda in 1990, the democratically elected president of Burundi is assassinated by Tutsis in 1993, Habyarimana’s plane is shot down (almost assuredly by RPF forces)…this was a two way street, which is born out by squashed evidence like, oh I dunno, the Gersony report (which only looked at atrocities in , what, 1/3 of RPF controlled territories?). The mainstream narrative misses the fact that about the same order of magnitude of Hutus were crushed under the invading RPF, but that’s the magic of the Lemkinian concept of genocide in currrnt discourse- it’s the trump card over any other massacres, regardless the comparatively similar number. “Genocide”, stupidly, always beats crime against humanity, which the RPF has been roundly accused of, as their death toll is assuredly in the hundreds of thousands to millions. (Also, dude, commenting on body habitus as you did in part 1 is not the preferred nomenclature…and does actually seem to invoke some sort of ancient phrenologic/other eugenic themes.)