The heart of Africa is also the place where the continent ripped. The western branch of the Great Rift Valley is called the Albertine rift, and here unheard-of mineral riches lie exposed. Apart from oil deposits, copper, rich enough to hammer out of the rocks, tin ore, Coltan, essential for cell phones and other electronics, cobalt, gold, and even uranium are found beneath the verdant forests.

Since the beginning of humanity, these forests also harbored the gentle Twa people, sheltering them from the harsh open savanna nearby. Soon others began trading their superior gardening technology for herbs, meat, and other delicacies from the forests. The interaction between hunter-gatherers, agriculturalists, and later pastoralists may run into several dissertations. 

These fertile hills and valleys developed a complex tapestry of cultures. Several migrations complicated politics.  Twa in the forests became subservient to the settler farmers in the valleys and lowlands. Cattle herders, at the summit of the socio-economic pyramid, preferred the open grasslands on the hilltops. 

And then colonialism came.

Arab slave traders only rarely penetrated this far into the interior. The Germans from Dar es Salaam came, exacted tribute, and left. The Belgians came, settled priests, and registered people according to the then-popular ethnic divisions that later fed the Nazi ideology. The Tutsi or aristocratic cattle herders were considered the 'ubermensch' and given leadership roles, while the Hutu "Untermensch" were relegated to laborer status. But, if you were a diligent Hutu and earned enough to buy more than ten head of cattle, you could be reclassified as a Tutsi. And if a Tutsi chief allowed his Hutus to work on a Sunday instead of going to church, the priest could have him flogged in public and demoted to Hutu status, at least, so the stories say. 

A Congolese told me that all they wanted was peace, beer (warm, not cold, please), and music to dance by. And this sitting on enough gold that would depress the world price below $200 per ounce, and untold other minerals? In your dreams. 

Several countries fight over these riches. I had diamonds poured on my desk, an offer for canned beef for competing armies. It is said that the Rwanda-sponsored M23 rebels exported, through their private customs post, more gold, mined by enslaved communities, than Rwanda and Uganda mined in a decade. A regional Framework Agreement and overwhelming firepower under UN control brought the rebels under control, but only for a while.

Politics in distant Kinshasa fail to respond to the needs and ethnic rivalries of the eastern DRC, and soldiers, often from hostile ethnicities, are not well received. Isil-aligned rebels hide in the mountain fastnesses and terrorize villages. UN and regional forces, limited by their mandates, watch, helpless, as rebels exploit villagers. Foreign companies employ foreign security forces. Rumors about white mercenaries are afoot. 

Peace will require goodwill, consultation, and political integrity. Any bets?