KAGAME MET HIS WATERLOO IN GOMA— HIS 30-YEAR PLUNDER IN DRC IS OVER

The US has crafted a decisive win-win strategy in the DRC-Rwanda quagmire. The DRC industrializes and reclaims its territorial integrity, while Kagame transitions from a thief to a legitimate businessperson. In this scenario, the US secures essential 3TG minerals for its industries.

Kagame meets Trump at Davos, January 26, 2018

"Meeting one's Waterloo" is an idiom that means to experience a final and decisive defeat or setback. It refers to the point where someone is ultimately defeated after a period of success or resistance. The phrase comes from the Battle of Waterloo, where Napoleon Bonaparte suffered his final defeat in 1815. 

From the bits and pieces of information from the US team plotting Kagame’s Waterloo, we learn of the four components of the American strategy to flush Kagame out of the DRC.

1—The US International Development Finance Corporation – the American body tasked with mobilizing private capital to further US foreign policy and national security goals, offering support like debt financing –  will support the DRC to industrialize the DRC mining sector.

Already, the Lobito Corridor railway project, supported by the US, aims to improve rail transportation through Angola, Zambia, and the DRC. This project, part of a broader US initiative to increase influence in Africa, focuses on refurbishing existing lines and extending them to facilitate exports, particularly of copper and cobalt, to the Atlantic coast. The US investment is part of a larger competition with China for economic influence in the region.

2—DRC will legitimately export its 3TG minerals (tin, tungsten, tantalum and gold) to Rwanda in a transparent and traceable manner.

3—US companies will set up operations in Rwanda and together will Rwandan companies, process and legitimately export the 3TGs to the US.

4—Most crucially, the US-led mechanism that includes other actors such as Qatar and the African Union will perform two roles: A) ensure that Rwanda respects DRC’s sovereignty; B) ensure that DRC integrates its ethnic minorities in the national political processes.

This is a win-win development. DRC industrializes, and restores its territorial integrity. Kagame transforms from a thief to a legitimate businessperson. The US gets for its industries the 3TG minerals of tin (cassiterite), tantalum (coltan), and tungsten (wolframite) and gold.

In conclusion, the Americans should keep a close eye on the Rwandan businesses that participate in the 3TG processing — ensure that Crystal Ventures Ltd (CVL) does not get involved. CVL is a corrupt Kagame group of companies that does not even publish its ownership, let alone an annual report. CVL’s involvement would be a self-defeating act by the US-led endeavour of flushing Kagame out of the DRC.

Kagame has met his Waterloo. Game over.