Chapter 1.3

Chapter 4

The rebels who oppose the Congolese army belong to the so”called Forces Démocratiques de la Libération du Rwanda (FDLR) and are part of the complicated ethnic and geopolitical table of that central region of Africa. Indeed, as the name implies, the militiamen originate from the neighboring Republic of Rwanda, the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They are members of the Hutu ethnic group, responsible for the appalling genocide carried out in Rwanda in 1994 in which they massacred more than 800,000 Rwandans of Tutsi origin in one of the largest butchers in recent years, in which thousands of bodies of men , women and the ethnic situation in Rwanda reversed, said FDLR militiamen had to flee from their country to avoid being massacred by the Tutsi (related to the widespread Watusi ethnic group of Africa). When they fled they entered the Congo, where they became a militia dedicated to prey in the North and South Kivu Provinces. They were also part of the complicated internal politics of the Congo, with alliances that protected them from expulsion despite rivalry with that nation's army. Congolese peasants are terrified of these occupants and are extorted by the guerrillas; particularly the poor wretches who exploit the mines and transport the coltan through the territories occupied by the FDLR.

The attitude of the rebels was arrogant from the beginning and despite his long experience in Africa Romain feared for his safety and a sense of helplessness in a no man's land, where the only authority is in the hands of hitmen armed with machine guns of unpredictable reactions dictated by emotions of the moment. Yusuf had to do his utmost to convince the leaders of the irregular group that they were simply a group of agronomists looking for land suitable for cultivation. The difference from the negotiations with the Congolese military was that the rebels should not report their actions to anyone. Finally, and after the usual extortion scene and the payment of the "toll" by Yusuf, the Toyota truck was able to continue traveling along the paths in the middle of the jungle towards the heart of the area where the coltan is exploited. On the long journey they were crossing long caravans of men and children carrying sacks of ore weighing about forty kilograms on their heads to the villages where the traffickers bought their cargo for a handful of euros or Congolese francs. The unfortunates knew that upon their return they would be extorted by both the FDLR militiamen and the Congolese army soldiers who would take away part of their meager earnings.

Since they could not get out of the vehicle on their way, Romain watched the sad human caravan with desolate eyes, and his stomach sank when he saw a boy fall to the ground bowed down by the enormous weight of the sack of mineral that he carried in his backs hanging from your forehead. The Canadian wanted to get out of the moving car to help him but Yusuf grabbed him firmly by the arm, preventing him from doing so.

After four hours of painful walking along the scarcely demarcated footprint, they arrived at a deforested area that had large open ditches in the ground, showing the bare soil under the vegetal cover. Many men worked with rudimentary means, picking out the white lumps of ore, breaking them into coarse powder and loading the selected part with shovels in buckets; These buckets were then transported by young children to a lower area where a stream ran.

The three travelers got out of the stopped vehicle and Romain took the opportunity to relax their muscles, seized by the tiresome journey. He climbed a mound of accumulated rubble that rose a few meters above the landscape and spread his eyes around him. What he saw shocked him deeply. The mine to which they had arrived “ in fact an open”pit quarry “ was very extensive and hundreds of men of all ages worked with their primitive means digging the entrails of the predatory earth.

The stranger sighed deeply. The mission that had brought him to Africa had begun.

Yusuf had moved away in order to make contact with one of the men milling around the mine who was willing to serve as an informant. He returned after a while accompanied by an African who was still young but who had an obviously useless arm and limped slightly when walking. Yusuf indicated to everyone that they should get into the vehicle without giving more details about the causes. Once inside he explained.

“Mokili is willing to talk to us but does not want to do it in public. All of these men are terrified of the punishments militiamen may inflict on them for the most trivial causes.

"Tell him that he has our discretion and that we will thank him for the information he can give us," Romain replied.

“You can tell him because Mokili speaks passable French.

“Well, first of all tell me what happened to your arm.

Mercier added, addressing the newcomer.

"I fell to the bottom of the mine and it took a day for me to surface." The Congolese's hoarse voice oozed resentment.

“How much does this make?

“Two years.

“And can you continue working in the mine?

“Of course not. Just carry food and tools from one place to another.

“ and it reaches you with what they pay you to do it?

“Of course not. But I have no alternatives.

Once clarified what was the feeling of Moliki in relation to the guerrillas Romain decided to change the tenor of the questions.

“How far does this mine go?

Moliki gave details on the extension of the quarry and added.

“But the surface mineral is running out so they have to dig deeper and deeper tunnels to find it.

“Did you fall into one of those tunnels?

“Yes.

“Do you think you can take us on a tour of the mine?

“In the early morning, when there are only militiamen without rank taking care of her because the chiefs have not yet arrived.

"Will the rank and file soldiers let us pass?"

“ By means of a reward, of course.

Then they decided how to organize the visit the next morning and Moliki indicated where they could leave the truck and make a camp without attracting attention.

“Tomorrow morning I will come to look for you.

“What time?

“ At five o'clock. Before the first lights appear and the miners go to their holes.

Indeed very early the next morning Yusuf entered Romain's shop and waking him said to him.

“ Moliki is here.

It had not yet dawned so that you could barely see the lights of some distant stoves that the miners left lit every night to ward off possible predators. The stranger quickly changed his clothes and joined his two traveling companions for a quick and frugal breakfast. Then Romain and Yusuf approached a shadow that waited behind some trees while Jerome stood guard in the vehicle.

The three men slipped noiselessly across the distance that separated them from the edges of the quarry where the miners already began to arrive, full of picks, shovels and buckets; meanwhile it quickly cleared in the short time between darkness and light in that period near the equinox. When they arrived at the site, they were surprised by the number of miners that emerged from all over the world and set to work to begin the very long and exhausting day without losing precious minutes of light.

"They are hundreds of men," Romain said with a gasp.

“In other mines there are thousands.

“There are children among them. This is completely inhumane.

“They use them to transport the sacks of crushed ore to the ditch where they separate the ore from the gangue. “Yusuf replied.” I recommend that you do not make unfavorable comments while they are listening to us. They can kick us out of here or take more… extreme measures.

“I understand.

The miners were rushing through the gaps in the ground with their pickaxes in order to determine if there was the mineral sought in what they were mining but their task seemed unsuccessful. Romain looked skeptical at what caused Moliki to say to him in his half tongue.

“The mineral on the surface is already depleted, so they must make tunnels deeper and deeper

“Can we see them?

“Yes. About two hundred meters further on.

In fact, after walking a short distance, approximately circular holes of between eighty centimeters and one meter in diameter appeared, of which men already located inside brought to the surface buckets and bags with unprocessed mineral. The Canadian approached the mouth of one of the wells and could barely overcome his vertigo. The vertical tunnel to the bowels of the earth was very deep and you could not see the bottom, just the lights of the spotlights that each miner had attached to his head by means of an elastic band, since they did not wear safety helmets.

"Are there collapses or other accidents in here?" Mercier asked.

“Many; men cannot hold on to the walls and fall to the bottom.

That was your case.

“Yes.

“Are there miners who die?

“Almost every week there are one or two cases. Furthermore, when it rains torrentially, the tunnels are flooded and those that cannot get out in time are drowned. There are also collapses in the tunnels, as they are not underpinned.

Overcoming all his instincts, the stranger said.

“I want to enter this tunnel.

“I do not advise you. What do you want that for?

“To see for myself if there is still removable coltan inside.

“Let me speak to the manager of this well.” Yusuf added. It's the one with the red cap. You will not like a foreigner to be exposed to accidents at your mine.

After a while the guide and the manager came speaking in Swahili.

“It says that you will enter to where the mineral begins and that he will tell you when to leave.

“Agree.

Romain went into the tunnel verifying that he was made for lean Africans and that a man with a large physique like him could move with difficulty. Little by little, his body learned to descend step by step, holding himself only with the pressure of his feet on the rough wall, while using one of his hands to hold the flashlight. Thus he came to a place immediately above a miner who was beating the interior wall with his beak and detaching small pieces of rock, which he later kept in a kind of backpack tied to his waist. At one point, he stopped to receive a burlap sack, delivered by the miner immediately below, possibly from the bottom of the mine. Mercier gestured for him to hand it over and after observing its contents passed it on to another miner who had entered behind him, thus forming part of the human ore conveyor belt to the surface.

After satisfying his curiosity about the internal state of the mine and testing his courage, he decided to get out of the hole, which he did helped in the last section by Moliki and Yusuf. Once on the surface, he opened his hand and analyzed the handful of material he had extracted from the bag, verifying that it was basically a bargain in which small pieces of what could be coltan could be seen. Then he dropped the handful into one of the empty buckets.

"The valuable mineral content is very low," he said, addressing himself apparently to Yusuf but actually to himself.

Now I would like to see where the coltan separates from the useless rock.

"We must go down to the stream," said Moliki.

At the bottom of the valley a narrow stream ran, from which the miners had separated a vein that

…

they made them cross a narrow channel whose bottom was covered with semicircular sheets.

A couple of men loaded crude ore with shovels and flowed the liquid over it, dragging the lighter gangue particles and precipitating the coltan along with other impurities. The enriched material was lifted by two other men with shovels and filtered through rudimentary screens, then placed in burlap bags, which were closed building the product of that extraction stage. The filled bags were then carried by children over their heads, leading them to an out”of”sight spot. At one point Moliki said quietly.

“We have to leave right now. The guard militiamen are approaching and we do not want to confront them without giving explanations.

Upon returning to the vehicle and its stores, while Jerome was preparing lunch, the Canadian wrote in his travel notebook.

"... extraction methods are completely primitive using outdated technologies and have very low performance. The coltan obtained is undoubtedly very low concentration and its value is low ... the pay obtained by the miners does not exceed two euros a day with luck ... the working conditions are precarious, the men have no protection elements of any kind and suffer numerous accidents that are killed or disabled ... the human rights violations committed by the militiamen are countless ... the exploitation of children is one of the most abominable facets of this production system ...

After completing his work with the careful geo”positioning of the place where they were, he called Jerome to eat. As he passed he said to Yusuf.

“Tell Moliki to join us for lunch. I want to question him about other deposits.