Op-Ed / / 05.29.25
St. Louis Business Journal Op-ed: St. Louis shouldn’t invest in Rwanda until it pulls out of Congo
Note: This op-ed was originally published in the St. Louis Business Journal and was authored by John Prendergast, Co-Founder of The Sentry, and Sasha Lezhnev, Senior Policy Advisor at The Sentry.
St. Louis is a vibrant community with myriad connections to Africa – Washington University’s 100-plus faculty members working in 36 African countries, Webster University’s Ghana campus, etc. That’s why we found the article “The emerging economic partnership with Rwanda” and the possible St. Louis-Kigali sister city relationship troubling. The two of us are originally from the Midwest and have dedicated our careers to supporting peace and human rights in Africa, including in central Africa where Rwanda is located.
Despite its own devastating history of genocide, Rwanda invaded neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo three years ago, for the fourth time in 20 years. It significantly escalated that invasion in January, sending up to 12,000 of its troops and supplying high-tech weapons and supervision to a rebel group known as the M23. Rwanda and the M23 quickly conquered eastern Congo’s two largest cities. M23 has targeted children and women, engaged in extensive sexual violence, and used child soldiers, according to the U.S. government. This has fueled one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with 6.5 million people displaced from their homes.
President Donald Trump called the conflict “a very serious problem,” and the U.S. government sanctioned a Rwandan government minister and an M23 officer, and called on Rwanda to withdraw its troops. Europe followed with sanctions on Rwandan officials and M23. Secretary of State Marco Rubio then brokered a declaration of principles agreement between Rwanda and the DRC in April.
Rwanda says that the Congolese Tutsi population is under threat and that the remaining fighters of the militia that committed the 1994 genocide represent an existential threat. But the fact is that Rwanda and its proxies have smuggled and exported hundreds of millions of dollars of conflict gold and critical minerals from the DRC. These exports have increased since its latest invasion.
Gold is a chief source of revenue for the militias. M23 has taken over gold mines, and Rwanda exported a record $885 million worth of gold in 2023 after setting up a gold refinery despite having essentially no domestic gold mines. The European Union sanctioned the gold refinery in March for exploiting the conflict. Rwanda is also profiting from critical minerals that power our electronics products, with M23 conquering one of the world’s largest tantalum mines and smuggling it to Rwanda.
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