#kivu

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Three of the world's biggest football clubs are being urged to drop their sponsorship deals with Visit Rwanda by the government of neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The United Nations recently said almost 3,000 people have been killed in fighting in DRC after M23 rebels, backed by some 4,000 troops from neighbouring Rwanda, seized the city of Goma.

These killings happened in only two weeks, with bodies left to decompose in the street & 10s of 1000s displaced.

DRC's foreign minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner told Sky News' Yalda Hakim that, despite calls to ditch the lucrative shirt sponsor, Arsenal, Paris St Germain (PSG) and Bayern Munich appeared to be "still soul searching".

In a wide-ranging interview on The World on Tuesday, Ms Wagner accused the clubs of being sponsored by "a country that is wreaking havoc... and that is de facto a warmonger".

"How do these clubs know that the money used is not money that is derived from the sales of minerals... mined in the DRC through horrific human rights violations?" she asked.

"How do these different football clubs reconcile with their conscience with the ideals that football represents of bringing people together?

"In the DRC, thousands of people have been killed, including children... children who certainly also cheer for Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich or Arsenal. And so there is a need to reconcile that."

[…]

Earlier this month, Ms Wagner wrote to Arsenal, PSG and Bayern Munich to "question the morality" of the sponsorship deals and call for them to end.

The deal is believed to be worth around £10m a year for Arsenal alone.

PSG and Arsenal told Sky News they would not comment. Bayern Munich has not responded to a request for comment.

Rwanda President Paul Kagame dismissed the appeal for the European clubs to break ties with Rwanda as "wasted efforts".

He told CNN that DRC should instead "direct the effort towards managing their own problems, own politics properly".

Mr Kagame also said he didn't know if his country's troops were in the DRC.

[…]

But Ms Wagner described the rebels' takeover as a "de facto occupation by Rwanda behind the facade of the M23".

She also called on the international community to impose "firm sanctions" on Rwanda and ban Rwandan minerals on the global markets.

Ms Wagner accused Rwanda of "pillaging" the DRC's natural resources by using forced labour - involving Congolese men, women and children - to mine minerals under the threat of violence.

She claimed the resources are "transported over to Rwanda and exported as Rwandan minerals". {*}

She said: "We welcome the fact that, as of December, we have seen the UK stance be much more firm, much more transparent, and has also been much more clear in condemning the actions of Rwanda."

But she also insisted that "firmer action has to take place and that has to happen faster" adding that "we need firm sanctions... that actually target the Rwandan leadership".

— 11 February 2025

{*} Congolese activists have repeatedly claimed that Rwanda’s profiting from coltan (& more) mining, the materials for which don’t exist within its sovereign borders, but theirs. Their claims are supported by external investigations:

By taking control of Rubaya in North Kivu, the M23 now has its hands on one of the richest coltan deposits in the world, whose production is estimated to account for 15% of the world’s supply and half of Congolese exports.

The ore – from which tantalum is made – is used to manufacture the capacitors used in most smartphones and computers. The armed group has thus taken over a site as strategic as it is profitable.

Since it took over the mining town on 30 April, the M23 has controlled “the monthly trade and transport of 120 tonnes of coltan, earning at least $800,000 a month” by imposing taxes on miners and traders, according to the latest report by the United Nations Group of Experts on the situation in eastern DRC, published 7 January.

Supported by testimonies, satellite images and documents, the UN report shows how some of the precious metal extracted from the Rubaya mine is then exported to Rwanda, where it is mixed with national production. The experts believe that this setup constitutes “the greatest contamination ever recorded of mineral supply chains in the Great Lakes region”.

— Marie Toulemonde, 6 February 2025