Book Review: Cobalt Red, How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives

Reviewed by Michael Drohan

August 25, 2023

Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives. By Siddarth Kara (New York:  St Martin’s Press, 2023. $22.99).

This book could have been entitled:  “How modern day slavery in the Congo is entwined with every click we make on our smart phones,” and tablets, laptops and electric vehicles, all of which inform and facilitate everyday life around the globe. The connector is the mineral cobalt which is the essential component of the cathode or positive terminal in every rechargeable lithium ion battery. The author brings us with him, metaphorically speaking, to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, specifically to Haut-Katanga and Lualaba Provinces, which provide 72 percent of world supply of  cobalt.

The focus of his journey was to investigate what is called the artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) sector of the cobalt mining operation. While the word “artisanal” may convey some kind of sophisticated high-skilled technical operation, he reveals that, in actuality, it is a very crude and dangerous process in which unskilled men, women and children employ the most rudimentary implements such as picks, shovels and rebar in unbelievably dangerous conditions, akin to slavery, for a paltry average of about $1 per day. He describes the dangerous conditions he evidenced that often lead to mine collapses and injuries many of which are fatal. The very first experience he described is that of a mine collapse in Kamilombe and the retrieving of a child crushed in the collapse.

Siddarth Kara shows what can be described as the continuity between the brutal colonial venture of King Leopold 2 of Belgium in the Congo in the 19th century and the earlier Portuguese slave hunting expeditions in the heart of Africa. Leopold’s brutality was immortalized in Joseph Conrad’s book, “The Heart of Darkness” which describes the slave conditions he (Leopold) enforced for the extraction of ivory and later rubber sap to make the rubber tires that made the automotive age possible. Kara estimates that 13 million people lost their lives under the Leopold years in the Congo (1895-1907). After the Belgian Government took control of the Congo in 1907, they began the massive extraction of copper in the South-East of the country, the Katanga Province. They formed a company called the Union Miniere de Haut-Katanga (UMHK) to exploit the resource which was abundant in the so-called Katanga Zambia Copper Belt. Congolese peasants were employed in semi-slave conditions and lived in poverty despite the immense riches generated.

The fate of the Congolese people is often described as that of the curse of having rich natural resources whose exploitation leads to nothing more than their impoverishment and immiseration. It is akin to the discovery of petroleum oil in the Middle East which has led to endless wars and the emergence of brutal regimes exemplified by the Saudi family and their likes in the region. Similar has been the fate of the fertile cane sugar and fruit producing countries of the Americas and the Caribbean with the enslavement of millions of people robbed from Africa into slavery to produce the sugar. Uniting all these strands of history is the imperial impulse from the European monarchs and their successors in the accumulation of capital without limit.

In the 1950s and 1960s glimmers of hope arose for the oppressed peoples of Africa and Asia in the independence movements of that time. Siddarth Kara describes the situation that took hold of the Congo at this time as he explores the hopes that arose in the person of Patrice Lumumba. On the occasion of independence when King Baudouin of Belgium boasted “The independence of the Congo constitutes the culmination of the work conceived by the genius of King Leopold II….”, Lumumba, just elected Prime Minister, responded with a fiery speech in which he declared “Nous ne sommes plus vos singes” – “we are no longer your monkeys”. From this moment the former colonial masters, the Belgian Government and their Western colonial partners, were intent on his r

This book could have been entitled “how modern day slavery in the Congo is entwined with every click we make ” on our smart phones, tablets, laptops and electric vehicles, all of which inform and facilitate everyday life around the globe. The connector is the mineral cobalt which is the essential component of the cathode or positive terminal in every rechargeable lithium ion battery. The author brings us with him, metaphorically speaking, to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, specifically to Haut-Katanga and Lualaba Provinces, which provide 72 percent of  the world supply of cobalt.

The focus of his journey was to investigate what is called the artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) sector of the cobalt mining operation. While the word “artisanal” may convey some kind of sophisticated high-skilled technical operation, he reveals that, in actuality, it is a very crude and dangerous process in which unskilled men, women and children employ the most rudimentary implements such as picks, shovels and rebar in unbelievably dangerous conditions, akin to slavery, for a paltry average of about $1 per day. He describes the dangerous conditions he evidenced that often lead to mine collapses and injuries many of which are fatal. The very first experience he described is that of a mine collapse in Kamilombe and the retrieving of a child crushed in the collapse.

Siddarth Kara shows what can be described as the continuity between the brutal colonial venture of King Leopold II of Belgium in the Congo in the 19th century and the earlier Portuguese slave hunting expeditions in the heart of Africa. Leopold’s brutality was immortalized in Joseph Conrad’s book, “The Heart of Darkness” which describes the slave conditions he (Leopold) enforced for the extraction of ivory and later rubber sap to make the rubber tires that made the automotive age possible. Kara estimates that 13 million people lost their lives in  the Leopold years in the Congo (1895-1907). After the Belgian Government took control of the Congo in 1907, it began the massive extraction of copper in the south-east of the country, the Katanga Province. It formed a company called the Union Miniere de Haut-Katanga (UMHK) to exploit the resource which was abundant in the so-called Katanga Zambia Copper Belt. Congolese peasants were employed in semi-slave conditions and lived in poverty despite the immense riches generated.

The fate of the Congolese people is often described as that of the curse of having rich natural resources whose exploitation leads to nothing more than their impoverishment and immiseration. It is akin to the discovery of petroleum in the Middle East which has led to endless wars and the emergence of brutal regimes exemplified by the Saudi family and their likes in the region. Similar has been the fate of the fertile cane sugar and fruit producing countries of the Americas and the Caribbean with the enslavement of millions of people robbed from Africa into slavery to produce the sugar. Uniting all these strands of history is the imperial impulse from the European monarchs and their successors in the accumulation of capital without limit.

In the 1950s and 1960s glimmers of hope arose for the oppressed peoples of Africa and Asia in the independence movements of that time. Siddarth Kara describes the situation that took hold of the Congo at this time as he explores the hopes that arose in the person of Patrice Lumumba. On the occasion of independence when King Baudouin of Belgium boasted “The independence of the Congo constitutes the culmination of the work conceived by the genius of King Leopold II…”. Lumumba, just elected Prime Minister, responded with a fiery speech in which he declared “Nous ne sommes plus vos singes” – “we are no longer your monkeys”. From this moment the former colonial masters, the Belgian Government and their Western colonial partners, were intent on his removal so as to protect their control of the mineral rich Katanga and its copper abundance.

There they had an ally in Moise Tshombe, a collaborator with the colonial rulers, who declared secession from the newly independent state. The US entered the fray with the CIA hatching a plan to assassinate Lumumba using toothpaste poisoned with cobra venom. Eventually Lumumba was actually tortured and executed, not poisoned, by six Belgians and six Katangans including Moise Tshombe and his second in command, Godefroid Munongo. After four years of turmoil, an old ally of Lumumba, Joseph Kabila carried out a coup in 1965. He was what the US, Belgium and the capitalist world wanted, a brutal collaborationist who ruled the country for 32 years in which he royally enriched himself in a way King Leopold would be envious of. Meanwhile, for the people of the Congo the country became “a hell on earth” in the words of Kara (p. 111). The immense mineral riches that flowed from the Congo left the people of the Congo impoverished and racked by hunger and poverty.

An interesting and important question that Kara does not explore is the difference between the fate of Castro in Cuba and Lumumba in the Congo. Their struggles for the people of their countries took place at the same historical moment and bear similar characteristics. Castro was subjected to the same imperial forces and was an antagonist on the doorstep of the US but he survived whereas Lumumba was eliminated. One of the differences was that Castro had an army and a peoples’ movement behind him whereas Lumumba lacked such forces to confront the imperial monster. Once Lumumba appealed for help from the Soviets in the struggle to keep Katanga as part of the Congo, he had the wrath of the US to cope with, and even the UN came down upon him.

Having amassed an enormous fortune over 32 years, Mobutu himself was overthrown in another coup by Laurent-Desire Kabila in 1997. Kabila’s coming to power resulted from support from Rwanda and Uganda and their interest in cashing in on the Congo’s enormous mineral wealth. Although Kabila promised to be another Lumumba, he, like Mobutu and Leopold before him ran the Congo as a kleptocratic system of personal enrichment. Kabila’s reign lasted four years marked by continuous wars described as “Africa’s Great War” as nine African countries and thirty militias scrambled for the Congo’s enormous mineral wealth. The Democratic Republic of the Congo became the center of a great African game for control of its vast mineral resources. In the confusion and fray of these forces Laurent Kabila himself was assassinated by one of his bodyguards on January 16, 2001. He was succeeded by his son Joseph Kabila who made peace with his neighbors by dividing the Congo into spheres of influence. Rwandan forces took control of the coltan mines in the Kivu province; Ugandan forces took control of the gold trade and battled with others for control of the diamond riches.

Under Joseph Kabila’s presidency, the cobalt sector in the Katanga province came to prominence due to international demand and to consolidate his control he opened the doors for the Chinese entry and semi-control of the cobalt mines in that province. As Siddarth Kara embarked on his investigations of the artisanal cobalt mining in Katanga, it seemed that much of the sector at all levels was controlled by Chinese personnel. According to Kara’s recounting, the Chinese gain of control of the cobalt market in the Congo did not result in any significant improvement in the conditions of labor for the Congolese miners and population. The same brutal conditions and remuneration of the Leopold and colonial periods were basically continued. So much for hope from a so-called socialist country, at least in the case of the Congo.

Siddharth Kara’s book is a valuable investigation of the slave-like conditions that characterize the production of the minerals and materials that are part of the warp and woof of modern society. He introduces us to the hidden exploitation that lies embodied in the devices that make life convenient and enjoyable for those far removed from the pits, tunnels and mine shafts of cobalt mining.

-Michael Drohan has a B.S in Physics, Chemistry and Math from University College Dublin and a Ph.D in Political Economy from Bradford University, UK. Taught Physics at Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya and Economics at Penn State University, Duquesne and Edinboro U. of Pa. Specialization is the political economy of underdevelopment using a Marxist analysis. He is also a political activist involved in anti-war movements and nuclear abolition from an anti-imperialist perspective.