François Kaserake Kamate on global complicity and the fight for the DRC

‘People must understand that the resources they use every day come from places where others are paying the price’

Originally published on Global Voices

“If we remain silent, Congo will soon disappear from the map,” said François Kaserake Kamate in an interview with Global Voices. For Kamate, a climate and human rights activist from the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), silence means the erasure of communities, livelihoods, and human dignity in a conflict the world has largely chosen to ignore. For 13 years, Kamate has been involved in non-violent movements for justice and accountability, often at great personal risk. 

The Congo is one of the most resource-rich countries on Earth, yet its people remain among the poorest. For Kamate, this paradox lies at the heart of the conflict: “Our natural resources have turned into a curse.” Minerals essential to global supply chains, used in phones, electric cars, and batteries, drive armed violence rather than development. This “resource curse” is sustained by a devastating loop of corruption, colonial-era ethnic divisions, and normalizing violence and resource exploitation, including illegal mining, massacres, and state repression.

Non-violence in a militarized reality

In this environment of violence, activism is not a common path to follow in the DRC. Kamate explained:

People consider activists like us as useless and misguided. We walk several kilometers on foot with simple messages, and people do not understand why we are trying to solve problems we are not responsible for.

With the immediate threat of violence, child labor, and corruption, many young people of Kamate’s generation joined the militias to protect their resources, land, and families. He, however, chose a different path. He said:

I was of violence, war, and the cycle of social injustices. I wanted to follow a non-violent path because I believed in peaceful strategies to change the paradigm.

Kamate added:

But in the DRC, activism is treated as a threat. As soon as we tell them the truth, demand our rights, they see us as enemies. It really surprised me that the national security forces decided to kill our comrades during our peaceful protests.

This repression creates a widespread fear among civilians. Kamate explained: “Many times, when we organize our actions, people fear joining because they might lose their homes, their jobs, get arrested, tortured, or even lose their lives.”

Over the years, Kamate has been arrested countless times, had to relocate to Kinshasa, and even lost his job as an educator. 

Three pillars of violence

Such intimidation tactics are part of a broader strategy used by those in power to maintain control. Kamate describes ignorance, poverty, and corruption as the three pillars that sustain politicians and ongoing violence. He explained:

They want people to be ignorant of their rights, too poor to think big, and therefore easier to corrupt.

Under these conditions, survival becomes entangled with political obedience. Many civilians accept payments to support political agendas, protests, or even speak out against activism, out of economic desperation, strengthening a system that thrives on dependence.  These internal pillars are reinforced by external actors whose interests benefit from instability rather than change.

The international community and global responsibility

Despite decades of high-level NGO presence, awareness alone has not translated into meaningful change. While it’s been widely documented that militias and state forces abuse civilian rights, that armed groups operate in the interests of multinational companies, and that neighboring countries sponsor and support them to gain access to mineral wealth, NGOs or the international community often struggle to address root causes and structural violence. Kamate explained:

When projects are implemented by international organizations, they do not consider the values, local voices, or communities. That’s why it is very hard and difficult to get positive results, and most of these projects do not succeed. 

This disconnection reflects a broader pattern in development and aid practices, known as “white saviorism,” where external solutions and interests overshadow local needs, knowledge, and agency.

Kamate describes this as performative condemnation: “They condemn them only on social media, radio, and television, but they do not stop this. They do not listen to us.”

This gap between knowledge and action allows exploitation and violence to persist within the global economic system and value chains. The minerals extracted are essential to phones, electric vehicles, and other everyday technologies, linking international consumers and demand directly to the realities on the ground in eastern Congo.

Hope as resistance

Responsibilities for the ongoing crisis are shared across political institutions, corporations, and global markets. Kamate challenges the idea of individual powerlessness: “Everybody has a role. If everyone participates, hand in hand, we can finally get what we are fighting for.”

Yet, decades of violence and repression have left many people unwilling or unable to speak out. Kamate’s activism focuses on rebuilding solidarity among those who have suffered. He works with women who have lost their children and families, encouraging them to believe that change remains possible through non-violent and peaceful methods.

In his interview with Global Voices, he repeatedly returned to the importance of hope. He said:

This is not the end of life. Even though the situation is getting worse, we must have hope that tomorrow will be better than today.  

For Kamate, the urgency of the situation leaves no room for silence: “If I keep quiet, Congo in twenty years will disappear completely from the map. If I do not act now, then when? If not me, then who?”

His voice is one of many that need to be heard. There is a lack of space at both the international and national levels for young activists to express their demands, needs, and agendas. Kamate emphasizes that: “If we have those spaces, I think that our voices will be heard because young people are not only the future of society, as most people say. We are the present and the future at the same time.”

Kamate concluded:

People in eastern Congo urgently need peace and justice. We are tired of suffering from situations we did not create. For too long, our country has been exploited by powerful external interests, while the world remains silent. We need international solidarity. People must understand that the resources they use every day come from places where others are paying the price. Standing with Congo means refusing silence.