The Associated Press reported that “Poland’s president seeks release of Polish traveler sentenced to life in Congo”, which drew attention to a spy scandal from February. 52-year-old traveler Mariusz Majewski was detained on charges that he “approached the front line with Mobondo militiamen, moved along the front line without authorization, and took photos of sensitive and strategic places and secretly observed military activities.” That preceded mid-May’s failed coup attempt that involved three Americans.
For background, Polish President Andrzej Duda was in neighboring Rwanda in mid-February, where he scandalously declared that “If Rwanda is ever in danger, we will also support it”, thus prompting furious protests from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) that’s unofficially at war with Rwanda. This phase of the DRC’s three-decade-long conflict was explained here and here in November 2022, with the first presenting a general overview and the second delving into the roles of France and Rwanda.
To oversimplify this very complex conflict, the mineral-rich east has long been a focal point of global attention due to its resources being indispensable for the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” (4IR), namely electric vehicles, computers, and modern-day gadgets. French-backed Uganda conventionally intervened in the DRC with Kinshasa’s approval to fight against Rwandan-backed M23 rebels prior to withdrawing in December once the M23-DRC dimension of this country’s long-running conflict further intensified.
France demanded in late April that Rwanda dump the M23 and pull its troops out of the country, which was shortly thereafter followed by the US calling on Rwanda to punish those of its servicemen that it claims joined the rebels in an attack around that time in the east. For what it’s worth, Rwanda has always denied both accusations, but almost all non-Rwandan observers agree that they’re true. Interestingly, the EU inked a green energy deal with Rwanda in February, so ties between those two aren’t that bad.
Al Jazeera criticized their agreement though by drawing attention to how Rwanda exports more than it mines, which is proof that it’s extracting 4IR-relevant mineral resources from the DRC via its M23 proxies, who in early May took control of “the coltan capital of the world” in the eastern town of Rubaya. Just two weeks later, the DRC foiled the earlier mentioned coup attempt that involved three Americans. While the exact goals of that putsch were unclear, they certainly had something to do with the 4IR.
The DRC under incumbent President Felix Tshisekedi, who won re-election last December in a landslide, has been actively working to renegotiate mineral agreements with its key partners like China due to claims of the previous government reaching completely lopsided arrangements for corrupt reasons. Chinese companies, for example, recently pledged to invest $7 billion into a slew of infrastructure projects in order to resolve their dispute from last year.
There’s also the possibility that Tshisekedi might take a page out of neighboring Tanzania’s book by emulating the latter’s 2017 “Natural Wealth And Resources (Permanent Sovereignty) Act” that forbade the export of raw materials for processing outside of the country. That scenario would be a godsend for the Congolese people since this chronically impoverished country could finally reap the windfall for its natural resource wealth that’s been stolen from it by multinational corporations and rebels for decades.
It was perhaps with this possibility in mind that the US might have played a hand in mid-May’s coup attempt out of fear that prices could skyrocket and the West would then struggle to compete with China unless they source everything illegally from Rwanda, which isn’t realistic. Readers should also be aware that the US plans to optimize regional mineral imports from the DRC via the “Lobito Corridor” rail project with it, coastal Angola, and copper-rich landlocked Zambia that was agreed to at last year’s G20 Summit.
With this in mind, the US might have wanted to stay on Tshisekedi’s good side by supporting the DRC against Rwanda in the hopes of influencing him from making any moves in the direction of emulating Tanzania’s resources act, but then got spooked by his growing ties with Russia into trying to coup him. About that, Moscow approved a draft military cooperation agreement with Kinshasa in early March, which Washington might have interpreted as a means for the DRC to hedge against Western meddling.
These two analyses here and here detail the ways in which Russia’s “Democratic Security” services to its African partners have helped them counteract externally exacerbated Hybrid War threats to their sovereignty. This strategy has proven itself integral to rolling back French influence in the Sahel and could potentially fortify the DRC from Western meddling if it moves through with the scenario of forcing all mining companies to at least partially process their raw materials in-country before exporting them.
This lengthy background information is required for understanding the importance of Congo’s Polish spy scandal because it compellingly appears as though the detained traveler might have indeed been functioning as an undercover agent for obtaining intelligence about military activity around the capital. The Mobondo militiamen, who he might have been cavorting with, operate outside Kinshasa and have begun to pose a serious security threat over the past two years since they’ve become active.
Majewski was also caught around the time that Duda declared in Kigali that “If Rwanda is ever in danger, we will also support it”, which the DRC rightly interpreted as a threat since Rwanda tacitly justifies its officially denied support of the M23 on the pretext of preventing another genocide. Poland’s top American partner might have also earlier caught wind of the then-secret security talks between Russia and the DRC and tasked Warsaw with dispatching a spy to probe its vulnerabilities outside Kinshasa.
The purpose could have been to identify weaknesses for putschists to exploit in the event that the decision was made to coup Tshisekedi, which was arguably greenlighted sometime later to set into motion mid-May’s failed regime change attempt. Majewski’s activities were suspicious enough to get him a life sentence for whatever it was that he was really doing, but the DRC also didn’t want to risk more Western pressure after Poland once again raised the issue, hence why they just released him.
Circling back to the title of this analysis, the news about Duda’s call with Tshisekedi about Majewski drew global attention to the Congo’s Polish spy scandal, which could prompt observers to learn more about this conflict and Warsaw’s role within it. While all eyes are on Ukraine and Gaza, the situation in the DRC continues deteriorating, and it’s quickly becoming a New Cold War battleground after the latest security deal with Russia in early March preceded mid-May’s failed coup attempt that involved three Americans.
