Former Blackwater CEO and and mercenary boss Erik Prince is to lead a team helping the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) secure and tax its extensive mineral wealth, news reports reveal. The deal, reached before the M23 rebels launched a major offensive in January, was just confirmed to Reuters by Congolese officials and diplomats. M23 has since January seized the eastern DRC's two largest cities, Goma and Bukavu, and is threatening to march on Kinshasa, the capital. The Prince-led initiative runs parallel to a broader "minerals-for-security" deal being negotiated between the DRC and the Trump White House. (Mining.com, TNH)

A UN report released on March 5 found that armed groups operating in the Haut Oubangui region of the Central African Republic (CAR) have been carrying out attacks against Muslim communities and Sudanese refugees, resulting in grave human rights violations. The report, prepared jointly by the UN Human Rights Office and the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA), mainly attributes these attacks to Wagner Ti Azande (WTA), a militia affiliated with the national army.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported Jan. 17 that the European Union's insufficient action regarding Rwanda's support of the M23 rebels has exacerbated the violence and atrocities in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

On Feb. 13, the European Parliament adopted a resolution urging the EU to freeze direct budget support to Rwanda until it ceases backing the Tutsi-led M23 rebels and permits humanitarian access in rebel-held territory of the DRC. The resolution also recommended suspending agreements related to Rwandan strategic minerals until Rwanda halts its interference in Congo. However, this resolution is non-binding, and the European Commission has not enforced these recommendations.

In a dramatic escalation of the ongoing conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the M23 rebels on Jan. 26 seized Goma, the capital of North Kivu province on the Rwandan border. The UN Security Council held an emergency meeting to discuss the situation, with the DRC accusing Rwanda of sending hundreds of troops across the border to support the M23. The DRC is caling for an arms embargo on Rwanda, and sanctions on its mineral exports.

The M23 armed group is continuing to pursue expansionist objectives across eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to a report by UN experts. The report underscores the failure of the ceasefire deals and peace talks held between DRC and Rwanda (which supports the rebels) under the aegis of Angola. It argues that the M23 plans the long-term occupation and exploitation of conquered territories, where it has been setting up parallel administrations and recruiting thousands of new members, including children. It states that the group has been consolidating support from other armed movements in Ituri, South Kivu and North Kivu provinces, forging non-aggression pacts and building new proxy forces. The rebels are also making a large profit from taxing mineral production, especially at the Rubaya mining sites in North Kivu, one of the world's largest sources of coltan. The minerals are being "fraudulently exported" to Rwanda in what amounts to the "largest contamination" of mineral supply chains recorded in the region to date.

Prospects for quelling the renewed M23 insurgency in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo have hit a snag after more recriminations between the Congolese government and Rwanda, which is supporting the rebels with troops and weapons. The two countries participated in talks in late August as part of a long-running Angolan meditation, but several disagreements have since arisen. Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe said Kinshasa refused to sign an agreed-upon deal that would have seen Rwanda withdraw its "defense measures" from DRC after Congolese efforts to neutralize the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a DRC-based militia founded by exiled Rwandan Hutus behind the 1994 genocide against Tutsis. Nduhungirehe said Kinshasa objected to the sequencing of the plan, and wanted the Rwandan withdrawal to happen at the same time as the anti-FDLR operations, not afterwards. By contrast, Congolese Foreign Minister Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner said Rwanda was responsible for obstructing the negotiations, promising to withdraw from DRC but "with no guarantees or concrete details." The M23 conflict reignited in late 2021, and has displaced around 1.7 million people, according to the UN.

In Episode 239 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg provides an overview of the protest waves and popular uprisings going on across the planet—in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Bangladesh, India, China, Serbia, Venezuela, and in Israel. This as worldwide protests in solidarity with the Palestinians of Gaza continue. Amid ongoing protests against Netanyahu in Israel, there have also been protests against Hamas in Gaza. Despite internal dangers and contradictions in all these upsurges, there is a sense that we could be approaching a revolutionary moment such as that seen in 2011—the year of the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street. And with the planet on an accelerating trajectory toward world war, the linking of these upsurges through conscious solidarity and the infusion of anti-war content to their demands is urgently mandated.

The attempted coup d'etat in the Democratic Republic of the Congo may or may not have been assisted by the CIA, but one of the Americans arrested in the affair is named as a "cannabis entrepreneur"—pointing to the possibility of legal cannabis playing the same destructive role in Central Africa that bananas have played in Central America. Yet while corporate power sees a lucrative new cash crop, lives (and especially Black lives) are still being ruined by cannabis prohibition in the United States. In Episode 228 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg argues that the old anarchist slogan "Neither your war nor your peace" can be updated as "Neither your prohibition nor your legalization!"