Last week, Global Witness manufactured a mining scandal when it released a much-publicized report accusing Rwandan companies of smuggling conflict coltan from the AFC/M23-controlled Rubaya mines in eastern DR Congo. The international press, including the Guardian, dutifully amplified the allegations. ALSO READ: Selective accountability will not bring peace to eastern DR Congo But beneath the headlines, the report collapses under the weight of its own flimsy evidence and a transparent political agenda. ALSO READ: Sanctions, sovereignty, and Rwanda: A small nation in the crosscurrents of global power Let us start with the most glaring problem: Global Witness offers no concrete evidence for its accusations. None. There is no paper trail, no shipping manifest, no customs declaration, no bank transaction linking Rubaya’s coltan to specific Rwandan exporters. There are no quantities, no dates, no photographs of illicit smuggling or transfers. What the organization calls an investigation is little more than anonymous hearsay and unattributed testimony. In any court of law, any research, or any journalistic standard worth defending, this would be laughed out of the room. ALSO READ: Global double standards are existential threats to Tutsi in Great lakes region But Global Witness proceeds to name five Rwandan companies as buyers of conflict coltan. The problem? The report has not proven that the crime these companies are accused of exists. More importantly, these firms are privately owned by foreign multinationals, or individuals. They are not state-owned enterprises. By implicating Rwanda, Global Witness is committing an elementary category error: conflating the actions of private actors—assuming the allegations were true—with state responsibility. This is absurd. ALSO READ: When the teachers fail the test: The crisis of Western human rights credibility The colonial logic of the report is impossible to ignore. Western companies are presented as innocent, unwitting victims of a shadowy smuggling network. They are allegedly duped, their supply chains infiltrated. Meanwhile, Rwanda—a small, resource-poor country that has built one of Africa's most transparent mineral certification systems—is subjected to a moral crusade. This is the classic colonial script: the Global North extracts, the Global South is blamed. The report whitewashes the ultimate beneficiaries of Congolese mineral wealth while pointing accusatory fingers at the very countries that have been historically exploited. Perhaps the most revealing admission buried in the Global Witness report is this: the only thing that has changed regarding artisanal coltan production in Rubaya is who collects the levies. It used to be a chaotic patchwork of state agents, rogue generals, and armed groups. ALSO READ: The Great Lakes challenge: A genocide ideology and complicity Now it is the nominal authority, the AFC/M23. Global Witness cannot deny that there are no AFC/M23 soldiers inside the mines. Production remains in the hands of local cooperatives. And according to other field reports—conveniently ignored—these cooperatives and their workers have seen their remuneration increase under the new arrangement, partly because the new authorities reduced multiple illegal checkpoints and streamlined taxation. This is not a story of conflict minerals. It is a story of good governance in the making. ALSO READ: Why genocide ideology doesn’t dissolve three decades after dispersion of genocidaires Global Witness fails to talk about miners enduring abuse, extortion, and arbitrary confiscation of minerals at checkpoints operated by the Kinshasa-backed genocidal FDLR militia and elements of the Congolese army (FARDC). Miners in areas now controlled by AFC/M23 have experienced significant changes in their working conditions, yet these perspectives remain conspicuously absent from many international reports. Unfortunately, Global Witness contributes nothing to the search for peace in the Great Lakes region. Instead, it joins a well-funded propaganda campaign aimed at Rwanda, a country that insists its security concerns and the rights of Congolese citizens in eastern DR Congo deserve greater attention than the narrow interests of foreign extractive agendas. If Global Witness is genuinely committed to uncovering the truth, its investigations should focus on identifying and exposing those responsible for the systematic exploitation and looting of Congolese minerals, rather than shielding well-known beneficiaries and then directing blame elsewhere. The writer is a political and diplomatic analyst specialising on Africa and countries of the Great Lakes Region.
