45 pages • 1-hour read
Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives
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Chapters 2-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 2 Summary: “‘Here It Is Better Not to Be Born’: Lubumbashi and Kipushi”
Kara goes to the mining town of Lubumbashi in southern DRC, near the border of Zambia. He notes that the poor living conditions of those around the mines Ruashi and Étoile du Congo are similar to the conditions of workers back when Lubumbashi was called Élisabethville and run by Belgian colonialists in the early 20th century.
Upon his arrival in Lubumbashi, Kara meets with a government official to get approval for his research. He is given a stamped document that states he has the support of the governor to do his research. The nearby Étoile mine is no longer particularly active, but it was one of the first mines where the state promoted artisanal mining. Kara talks with an artisanal miner who works there named Makaza (Kara has changed his interviewees’ names to protect identities), who says the mining companies do not invest in local infrastructure like running water or electricity.
In 2019, Congo elected a new president, Félix Tshisekedi. Kara meets with the US ambassador to the region, Mike Hammer, who expresses hopes that Tshisekedi will combat corruption in the Congolese government and in the mining sector particularly.
Kara meets with three students from the University of Lubumbashi who are trying to help the artisanal miners. They tell Kara that a key problem is government corruption and weak institutions. They say that the former president Kabila sold the mines to foreign interests, who exploit the Congolese miners and the nation’s resources.
Kara goes to the nearby town of Kipushi, where a joint Canadian-Chinese venture runs a large copper mine. In 2000, China began pursuing more foreign direct investment in Africa. In 2006, China secured a deal with then-president Joseph Kabila for mining rights in exchange for infrastructure development. However, the promised infrastructure development has been slow to appear and the locals feel exploited by the Chinese mining interests. Kara notes that the Kipushi area in Tanganyika Province is “overrun by numerous Mai-Mai militias” (48). The militias supported Mobutu during Kabila’s coup in 1997 and since have fought for control of the mining resources in the area.
Kara speaks to some of the artisanal miners in Kipushi. At this site, as elsewhere, men and older boys carve out large hunks of ore from the rocks. Then, the large rocks are broken down into smaller ones that are easier to put in raffia sacks and carry. Women and children often work washing dirt off of the ore before packing it into sacks. He learns women who work alone mining are routinely paid less than men for the same ore.
Later, Kara goes to the depot area to learn about their work. None of the Chinese depot agents will speak to Kara, but because Kara is Indian American, two Punjabi depot agents agree to an interview. They tell him their boss sells the ore they buy to a processor, and they do not know where it goes from there.
Kara learns from a researcher at the University of Lubumbashi that mining exposes people to heavy metals at high rates. This is particularly detrimental to children and leads to serious health problems. Kara meets with leaders from a group that claims to support the miners by improving their working conditions. Kara’s guide, Philippe, later tells him that the group will never achieve its goals because the government is corrupt and allows the Chinese and other groups to act without oversight. The poor working conditions go unacknowledged by supposed monitoring groups like the Global Battery Alliance (GBA). These so-called monitors create a “smoke screen” for corporations to hide behind.
Chapter 3 Summary: “The Hills Have Secrets: Likashi and Kambove”
Kara travels from Lubumbashi to a town called Likasi. He notes that although the cobalt mined there is essential to rechargeable batteries, the land “still awaits the arrival of electricity” (72). The road is dangerously crowded with trucks transporting ore. Southwest of Likasi is the Shinkolobwe mine where the uranium used to create the first atom bombs was mined. Between Likasi and the nearby town of Kambove there are many artisanal mines in the hills and forests. Kara’s guide, Arthur, describes it as “lawless.”
Kara and Arthur drive to a remote mining village surveilled by a militia. The militiamen allow them to talk to some of the miners, who are as young as eight years old. Kara talks to one boy who says he has never been to school. The boy’s grandmother tells them things were better when the mines were run by Gécamines, the nationalized mining company, although she is also critical of state corruption.
Another boy, Kiyonge, tells Kara he was brought to the village by a “sponsor,” people who traffic children from other villages to the mines. Kara meets with a teacher in Likasi who tells him that the government does not pay teachers enough so they are forced to charge fees, which many people cannot afford. Additionally, children are obliged to work to support their families. As a result, many children do not attend school and enter the workforce instead.
Kara goes to the nearby town of Kambove, where the mines are run by a conglomerate of a Chinese company and the state-owned Gécamines called MIKAS. Kara learns from miners that government inspectors are present on site, not to oversee the working conditions, but to ensure the government gets its royalty payments from the mine.
Kara and his guide go to a remote artisanal mine in the hills near Kambove. He meets two teenage mothers who have their children with them at the mine. While talking to a child miner named Peter, Kara and his guide are surrounded by a militia and threatened with violence. They let Kara go when he shows them the document showing his approval from the governor.
Later, Kara goes with two government officials to a remote mine in the mountain wilderness near the Zaire border. The area is controlled by the military. On the way to the mine, the group hears gunshots. Soldiers talk to the government officials, who tell Kara a boy has died in the mine. Later that night, Kara’s guide, Arthur, tells him that the army brings poor people out to these remote places to work in the mines.
Chapters 2-3 Analysis
Kara uses the geography of Congo mining country as a loose framework to organize his narrative. He writes, “Our journey will […] begin in an old colonial mining town called Lubumbashi. From there a single road traverses the mining provinces deeper into the heart of cobalt territory” (17). In Chapters 2 and 3, Kara describes the conditions in the first towns he visits on his “journey” through “cobalt territory”: Lubumbashi and Kipushi followed by Likasi and Kambove. This structure is for narrative purposes rather than a literal description of a single journey Kara took. As he describes in his Introduction, Kara traveled to the DRC on three separate occasions, in 2018, 2019, and 2022. Kara has thus combined all three of these visits into one single narrative.
Within this framework, Kara toggles frequently between his observations and visits to mining sites, interviews with experts, and historical narrative. For instance, Chapter 2 opens with an eyewitness description of the Ruashi mine and then segues into an account of the history of Lubumbashi when it was under Belgian control and called Élisabethville. Kara’s method of connecting the present to the past emphasizes The Persistence of Colonialist Practices. For instance, he writes, “the inhabitants of the villages near the mine lived in itinerant, Stone Age conditions similar to those endured by the African laborers UMHK first brought to Élisabethville to work at Étoile in the early 1900s” (42). Kara uses this historical parallel and others like it to draw similarities between past and present labor exploitation in the Congo, arguing for the need for change in Congolese working conditions.
Anticolonial writers such as Dipesh Chakrabarty have criticized the use of characterization of poor people in places like Congo as being “Stone Age,” or as somehow stuck in the past, which implies that certain living conditions are a necessary component of modernity. As Chakrabarty writes in Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference, using “historical time as a measure of the cultural distance (at least in institutional development) that was assumed to exist between the West and the non-West […] legitimates the idea of civilization” (Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe, 2000, Princeton UP, 7). In other words, this kind of language suggests the Congolese miners can only be seen as fully “civilized” and “modern” when their lifestyle looks like those in the West, even though modern Western consumerist lifestyles are reliant upon Congolese exploited labor and poor living conditions. Congolese reviewers of Cobalt Red have therefore criticized Kara’s tendency to decry neocolonial exploitation while relying on colonial tropes (See: Background).
In these chapters, Kara’s particular focus is on The Problem of Government Corruption. Kara uses information gathered in interviews with Congolese people to illustrate the problem of government corruption in Congo. For instance, he quotes a University of Lubumbashi student who states, “In Congo, the government is weak. Our state institutions are impotent. They are kept this way so they can be manipulated by the president to suit his ambitions” (42). To buttress such claims independently, Kara traces the structure of mining conglomerates, observes the work of the government agency tasked with overseeing artisanal mining operations, SAEMAPE, and describes his interactions with the two branches of the military that guard mining operations, the FARDC and the Republican Guard.
The structure of the mining deals is often complex, but Kara describes them in detail to emphasize how they ultimately benefit corrupt politicians. As just one example, Kara describes a mining concession deal with China called the SICOMINES agreement. The Chinese firms are largely tax-exempt, and so the country makes no money from it. However, then-president Kabila established a private firm to collect the tolls paid by the trucks transporting ore from the mines and became very personally wealthy. Kara uses this and other examples to criticize how members of the Congolese government enrich themselves while the country is in dire need of critical infrastructure development, such as fully-funded public schools and consistent electricity.
Kara often uses detailed imagery to describe his observations of mining sites. For instance, at the KICO mining site, he describes the “ferocious sun and a haze of dust. With each hack at the earth, a puff of dirt floated up like a specter into the lungs of the diggers” (51). He highlights the brutality of the landscape as a reflection of the brutality of cobalt mining, particularly its health and environmental costs.
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