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Rwanda's economic surge reflects unseen impact of conflict and critical raw minerals

Nicola Palmer
By Nicola Palmer
3 Apr 2025
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Since April 2024 the M23/AFC rebels have received an estimated $800,000 per month in tax from the movement of coltan into Rwanda from the DRC.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) is beginning its phased withdrawal of troops from the eastern DRC. The rebel group M23 (Mouvement du 23-Mars) and its politico-military organisation the Alliance Fleuve Congo (AFC) are winning.

I have just returned from Kigali, Rwanda’s capital, where business is booming. Tantalum, tin, tungsten, gold, niobium and lithium continue to move through Rwanda, fuelling the country’s 8% annual GDP growth and the rise of skyscrapers, boutique hotels and the new BYD electric vehicles that line Kigali’s streets.

This is one of the new extractive frontiers of so-called green capitalism. These are the minerals needed to fuel an AI-tech and battery-reliant future.  They are the “critical raw minerals” that formed the basis of the Rwanda/EU Memorandum of Understanding on Sustainable Raw Materials Value Chain signed on 19 February 2024.

The memorandum remains in place despite the European Union sanctioning five Rwandan nationals, including the commander of Rwandan Special Forces Ruki Karusisi, and Francis Kamanzi, the CEO of Rwanda’s Mines, Petroleum and Gas Board alongside the Gasabo Gold Refinery, accusing them of illicitly exporting Congolese minerals.

The lines of this frontier run from Masisi and Rutshuru districts in the DRC to Rwanda’s capital. Alongside the movement of gold, the recent UN Group of Experts Report claims that since April 2024, M23/AFC have received an estimated $800,000 per month in tax from the movement of coltan from Rubaya mining area out through Kabuhanga and into Rwandan territory.

New territorial lines


Inside Rwanda, these new territorial lines are now spoken about as legitimately forming part of what was the pre-colonial Nyiginya Kingdom — a unification of the Banyarwanda people that the Berlin Conference divided and German and then Belgian colonial rule exploited. A decolonial justification for extractivism. 

The Mutobo Demobilisation Camp is on this faultline, just off the road that links Goma to Kigali. Here many of the decommissioned soldiers who came to greet us look well under 18 years of age.

Of the 79 people included in “Phase 74” undertaken by Rwanda’s “Demobilisation and Reintegration Commission”, the majority of fighters have crossed into Rwandan territory in the past six weeks. M23/AFC are winning the war and these are the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) fighters who provide Rwanda with its justification for ongoing military engagement, including its — still publicly denied — support of M23/AFC. 

“Colonel” Alphonse Habimana addressed us, explaining that he had been in Congo since 1994. His wife returned to Rwanda in 2019 and assured him that if he laid down his weapons, Rwanda, through its demobilisation camps, would provide medical care, food and skills training and a return to communal living in rural Rwanda.

The camp officials kept their word and the Colonel is now back in the community and returns to the camp for further skills training.

But the majority of these decommissioned fighters weren’t even born in 1994 when the genocide began. One young man, who introduced himself as “Sergeant” Ndahimana, is hoping for an opportunity to register with the Rwandan Defence Force (RDF) reserve forces. Fighting, this time for the other side, remains his most lucrative and feasible employment option.

Demoralised and corrupt


The opportunities presented to these young people are better than those found in what they referred to as the “jungle” on the other side of the border where, as The New York Times reports, a demoralised and corrupt Congolese army often flees in the face of M23/AFC’s advance, while a host of other armed groups are realigning their allegiances accordingly.

Yet these limited opportunities pale in comparison to where the real wealth is moving.

Back in Kigali, the glamorous Pinnacle boutique hotel has reopened its doors. Its refurbishment has been undertaken predominantly by South African firms. 

South Africa is a relatively small player in these regional and international political moves. Its military presence, which increased in the wake of the death of 14 of its soldiers, has not stopped the M23/AFC advance nor its increasingly established governance structures in both Goma and Bukavu.

Similarly, unlike 2012, the suspension of diplomatic aid to Rwanda by the UK, Belgium and Germany has had little, if any effect, on M23’s actions. It has however jeopardised major access to justice and freedom of expression projects that Rwandan civil society actors have been working on for many years.

The real question of whether M23/AFC will retain effective control of the Kivus lies not only in the East African Community/Southern African Development Community peace negotiations that Angola has been leading, but in the specific actions of Paul Kagame, Felix Tshisekedi, Yoweri Museveni and, if the Congolese press is to be believed, Joseph Kabila and the international commercial interests and networks that sustain them.

For now, it is business as usual in Kigali. Global circuits of minerals, raw materials and capital are moving smoothly, and South African business interests continue to play their small part. DM

This article was updated on 4 June 2.09pm with the following corrections: An earlier version of this article incorrectly referred to Rutumba rather than Rutshuru district and incorrectly claimed that the Lemigo Hotel had been previously owned by Patrick Karegeya.

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