40 Middle East & Africa The EconomistOctober 17th 2020
21force of Estonian and French commandos
has just deployed. France hopes to per-
suade other countries to send troops, but
the coup has surely made that harder. The
eu has suspended its training mission
(though may be edging towards resuming
it) and America has stopped military aid
until elections are held. In recent years the
jihadists have been gaining ground, attack-
ing neighbouring countries and inflicting
heavy losses on Mali’s army. Instead of
more help, though, Mali may get less.
Backers of the coup say it was needed to
restore security and stability and that the
uniformed men who now run things will
bring grit to the fight. Yet the new govern-
ment seems to have moved in the opposite
direction by freeing prisoners. The re-
leased fighters will swell the ranks of
Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (jnim),
a group linked to al-Qaeda, by about 10%
and stiffen them with seasoned fighters.
Reportedly among those released were
the men behind terrorist attacks on hotels
in Mali, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso that
killed scores. One is thought to be Mimi
Ould Baba, who faces terrorism charges in
America for killing an American in Burkina
Faso in 2016. A ransom worth €10m-30m
($12m-35m) was apparently handed over, a
sum that will not only buy bullets but also
boost jnim’s prestige, says Héni Nsaibia of
Menastream, a research consultancy.
Some Malians hope the prisoner swap
will open the door to peace talks. But jnim
is strong, so the government is not in a
good position to negotiate. And because
there are rival extremist groups, such as Is-
lamic State in the Greater Sahara, jnimmay
worry that its fighters will defect if it is seen
as going soft.
Beyond security, the new government
has promised to curb corruption and enact
a raft of reforms. But just before the coup
took place a unreport detailed ample graft
in the armed forces themselves.
All the same, many Malians remain cau-
tiously optimistic. Mr Cissé’s return and
promised reforms to the constitution and
electoral system should lend more legiti-
macy to any future election. But if the gov-
ernment makes slow progress on its re-
form agenda or in pushing back the
jihadists, it may use this as an excuse to
push back the date of the next election,
says Boubacar Haidara of Sciences Po Bor-
deaux, who is based in Ségou in central
Mali. “They will try it,” he adds.
After a visit to Mali on October 11th Nana
Akufo-Addo, the Ghanaian president who
currently heads ecowas, said there was
“good hope” that the new government
would keep its promise to hold elections.
He urged it to set a firm date for the poll.
The coup was an unwelcome “bunch of
lemons”, says an American diplomat. Yet
he hopes that Mali and its backers can “at
least make lemonade” out of it. 7W
hen cobaltprices soared from 2016,
young men from all over Congo
flocked to the south of the country to dig
the stuff up. Demand for the metal, used in
smartphones and electric cars, was driven
by carmakers needing around 10kg of it per
vehicle. (Phone batteries, by contrast, re-
quire just a few grams each.) Some of these
young men set up camp in the village of Ka-
wama, cobbling together their huts with
planks and sheets of tarpaulin.
The village feels less hopeful nowadays.
Barefoot children in rags chase each other
around piles of smouldering wood, which
residents burn to make charcoal. Cobalt
prices plummeted in 2018 after the market
was flooded and companies dawdled over
electric-car designs. About 60% of the
world’s cobalt is found in Congo, scattered
across the copperbelt that stretches east
into Zambia. The people of Kawama grum-
ble that too much land has been sold to
mining firms. “We used to dig freely,” says
Gerard Kaumba, a miner. “But now the gov-
ernment has sold all the hills.” There are
still some sites where miners can turn up
and dig, but they have to sell to whoever
owns the concession. A sweltering day’s
work might earn you $7. Many people have
found they can make more at night, pilfer-
ing cobalt from industrial mines.
Glencore, a commodities giant with two
mines in Congo, reckons that some 2,000
people sneak into its pits every day. Other
companies have even more robbers to con-tend with. Last year Congolese soldiers
chased thieves out of a mine owned by Chi-
na Molybdenum where, it was reckoned,
10,000-odd people were then illegally dig-
ging. Sneaking into Glencore’s mines is
hardest, says a Kawaman, as its guards do
not collude with thieves—and often chase
them away with dogs.
Elsewhere it is usually the guards who
egg the diggers on, and then demand half
their profits. On a recent foray, a team of
five diggers managed to bag up enough
copper and cobalt to make $150 each, even
after paying the guards. “I spent Sunday to
Thursday in a hole,” says one of the group,
describing how they dug a tunnel and
passed the minerals out. They also hid in
the hole at moments during the day. The
team sold its loot to Chinese buyers, some
of whom work out of a tin hangar hidden
down a dirt road in nearby bush. When
your correspondent turned up, the men at
the entrance demanded to know how she
had found the place. Then they threatened
to call armed guards if she did not leave.
Last year Glencore closed its biggest
mine, cutting output in response to low
prices. Today neither the thieves nor the
mining giants are making as much as they
used to. As the pandemic took off, copper
prices tumbled to their lowest in three
years, while cobalt costs barely a third as
much as it did at its peak. Tesla, a big maker
of electric cars, is trying to stop using co-
balt, partly to avoid the reputational risks
of dealing with Congolese minerals.
Children toil on many artisanal sites in
Congo, where tunnels sometimes collapse
and kill them. Even if carmakers decide to
get cobalt only from industrial mines,
where machines do the digging, the metal
is often mixed up in smelters in China, so it
is hard to be sure where it came from.
Congo’s industrial miners are not all an-
gels, either. Gécamines, the state-owned
company, has enriched crooked politicians
for half a century. Global Witness, a watch-
dog based in London, says Congo’s treasury
lost $750m of mining revenues to graft be-
tween 2013 and 2015. Eurasian Resources
Group, with three mines in Congo, has
faced allegations of corruption and an in-
vestigation by Britain’s Serious Fraud Of-
fice (it denies wrongdoing). So has Glen-
core, which has worked with Dan Gertler,
an Israeli billionaire. Mr Gertler, a close
friend of a former Congolese president, Jo-
seph Kabila, is under American sanctions.KAWAMA
The little guys are jailed for stealing minerals. Powerful pilferers stay freeCongo’s cobaltThe ugly rush
What a way to make a living