The Real Rebels in Africa: How Multinational Companies Fuel Conflict in DRC and Beyond!
By Youngerson Matete
On September 11, 2025, I found myself on the outskirts of Accra, Ghana, visiting what used to be a thriving salt mining community. What I encountered there was not only shocking but also a powerful metaphor for the broader exploitation of Africa by multinational corporations disguised as investors to locals.
The land was confiscated violently by “foreign investors” who turned it into a mine, extracting wealth with reckless abandon. Although the locals managed to reclaim their land after years of fighting against foreign companies who had hired militias resulting in the death of many young people and women, with Margaret Kuwornu, a pregnant woman who was shot dead by the company security losing her life and unborn baby. She has become the symbol of both resistance and martyrdom in the community with her statue standing as a shrine in the village square.
What the locals have inherited now is hardly usable. A devastated environment that bears no crop or livestock anymore. Land is barren, no infrastructure, and no social services left behind. There were no roads, schools, clinics, or even toilets. It’s almost a joke, but myself and my colleagues had to line up in the bush, among the few trees that have survived the scarring, to relieve ourselves. I could feel the dehumanization in that moment, but what I felt for a few hours is what the locals have endured for years. They have been robbed of their land, their livelihoods, and their dignity. And though they have now reclaimed the lands, it has been destroyed beyond repair. The salt they extract, once their source of pride and sustenance, finds no meaningful market. It is bought for peanuts, their labor reduced to a commodity stripped of value by the very system that exploited them in the first place. When the local chief addressed us and vowed to die defending the land, people roared in anger but yet an icy shadow crept into my chest not because I had nothing to offer to the community but because I could also see that there was nothing to die for in the community anymore. The land is destroyed beyond utility and the salt is worthless anymore.
This microcosm of exploitation in Ghana reflects a much broader and deeply entrenched pattern across Africa, with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) being the starkest example. The DRC, rich in cobalt, coltan, and other rare earth minerals essential for modern technology, has been described as both a “geological scandal” and a “resource curse.” Rather than becoming a blessing, these resources have attracted waves of multinational corporations and their local intermediaries who profit by fueling conflict, exploiting labor, and stripping communities of their rights.
In the DRC, multinational companies have played a central role in perpetuating cycles of violence. Research shows that foreign corporations often work hand in glove with local militias and rebel groups, effectively sponsoring terror to secure access to minerals such as coltan, which is indispensable in the production of technological chips, smartphones, and electric cars . Amnesty International in 2016 documented how global tech giants benefit from cobalt mined by child laborers working in life-threatening conditions. These multinationals disguise their complicity through complex supply chains, making it nearly impossible for consumers to know the true human cost of their gadgets.
The comparison between my experience in Ghana and the situation in the DRC underscores a sobering reality. Multinational companies are the “real” rebels in Africa that escape scrutiny and the Africans who are victims of exploitation massacre each other during the conflicts. They are dehumanized through violence and western narratives crafted by capitalists. The foreign companies disguised as investors may not carry guns, but they sponsor those who do. They destabilize regions, prop up illegitimate governments, and turn communities against one another. This is all in pursuit of exploiting mineral resources. Nzongola-Ntalaja expresses this well, stating that Africa’s greatest tragedy is not the absence of resources but the presence of predatory forces which are both internal and external that collude to loot them.
Consider the case of Glencore, one of the world’s largest commodity trading companies, which has been repeatedly accused of corruption and environmental violations in the DRC as reported by Global Witness, in 2017. Similarly, Apple, Tesla, and Samsung have faced accusations of sourcing cobalt linked to child labor and unsafe working conditions. While these companies often issue public statements of commitment to ethical sourcing, on the ground little changes for the miners and communities. Most of them are children and women who live on less than one dollar a day.
The irony is painful, the same minerals that power the clean energy revolution and digital innovation worldwide are extracted under conditions of blood, sweat, and exploitation. Scholars describe this as the “paradox of plenty,” where resource-rich countries like the DRC are paradoxically among the poorest due to systemic exploitation. Africa’s wealth, instead of uplifting its people, strips away their dignity, fueling cycles of poverty, environmental degradation, and political instability.
But the DRC is not alone. Across the continent, multinational corporations destroy environments and livelihoods under the guise of development. Total Energies, one of the largest oil and gas giants, has left scars across Africa. In Uganda and Tanzania, its East African Crude Oil Pipeline project threatens biodiversity hotspots, displaces communities, and contributes to carbon emissions as reported by Friends of the Earth in the 2022 report. Yet, the same company projects a benevolent face by funding events like the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON). This is nothing but a symbolic gesture of generosity that camouflages the devastation beneath. Sports sponsorships are used to sanitize reputations while the company devastates African ecosystems and livelihoods.
Chinese companies, hailed by some African leaders as “development partners,” are equally complicit. In Zimbabwe, Chinese mining firms have been accused of ravaging ecosystems, including mining inside Hwange National Park and near rivers that sustain entire communities. Reports reveal how villages were displaced without consultation and how water pollution from mining operations destroyed agriculture and livestock. Instead of uplifting communities, these ventures strip away their environmental foundations, leaving them dependent and impoverished.
These companies also play a darker role that is funding and enabling violence. In Somalia, investigations show that companies, including foreign logistics and extractive firms, have paid “taxes” to Al-Shabaab to secure safe passage for goods and personnel (United Nations, 2020). Similarly, in the Sahel, the illegal gold trade that is facilitated by corporate buyers has enriched armed groups and sustained their campaigns of violence as reported by International Crisis Group in 2019. In the DRC, as Global Witness in 2017 highlighted, corporations’ payments to militias have prolonged one of the world’s deadliest conflicts since World War II. These are not isolated cases but a systemic pattern. Multinational companies act as financiers of instability when it suits their interests.
Returning to the salt mine in Accra, I realized that the devastation left by foreign investors was not just physical but psychological. The community’s dignity has been stripped away, their environment poisoned, and their economic future compromised. Though they reclaimed their land, the damage has already been done. Their salt fetches only meager prices on the local market, echoing the plight of Congolese miners whose coltan, cobalt, and gold fetch billions on global markets while they remain trapped in poverty. In both cases, communities are left to pick up the pieces of lives and lands shattered by multinational greed.
This reality calls into question the legitimacy of multinational corporations operating in Africa. While states and rebel groups are often blamed for violence and underdevelopment, the role of corporations as shadowy rebels remains underexplored. They operate across borders, exploit legal loopholes, manipulate governments, and perpetuate dependency. Their “weapons” are not always guns but contracts, trade agreements, and exploitative labor practices. As Ferguson argues, globalization has not erased power asymmetries but rather entrenched new forms of exploitation where corporations wield more influence than some African states.
For Africa to break free from this cycle, several steps are essential. First, stronger regional and continental frameworks must hold corporations accountable. The African Union’s African Mining Vision provides a foundation, but it must be enforced with teeth. Second, global supply chains must be made fully transparent, compelling companies to trace and disclose the origins of their minerals. Third, local communities must be empowered through fair compensation, sustainable livelihoods, and genuine participation in decision-making. As my experience in Ghana shows, when locals reclaim control, they at least begin to redefine their futures, even if the scars of exploitation remain.
Ultimately, the greatest rebellion in Africa is not carried out by armed insurgents but by multinational corporations that disguise themselves as investors while robbing the continent blind. From Total Energies’ greenwashed sponsorships to Chinese firms ravaging Zimbabwe’s environment, and from Western tech giants relying on Congolese child labor to companies funneling money to terrorist groups, the evidence is clear. International companies are Africa’s real rebels. The salt mine in Accra and the cobalt mines in the DRC are two sides of the same coin. Stories of wealth extracted and lives destroyed. Unless Africa reclaims its resources and demands accountability, its people will continue to live in the shadow of exploitation.
And yet, perhaps the deepest irony is that I am using a MacBook to write this very same blog and my iPhone to capture the very same communities that have been ravaged by corporations such as Apple, contributing to my own oppression. The tools of my voice are at once the chains of my silence. That realization is not just sad, it is infuriating. It reminds me that until we promote local innovation, Africans will remain trapped in a vicious cycle where even our resistance is dependent on the fruits of our exploitation.
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Email:youngmatete0@gmail.com/ director@projectvote263.org.zw
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