By Gideon Rukundo Rugari
If it’s not the new Congo territory that he has already occupied in full force, what was he telling the world in this interview?
My family traded in minerals since the late 1950s, including Coltan, who global market price shot up in the mid 1980s. Previously, Congolese businessmen would bring samples of this ore (Tantalite) and my father would dismiss it until he got a contract to supply a company based in Finland. This was in 1987. All of this mineral came from DRC. I know Rwanda has scanty deposits of gold, where subsistence miners would mine for 5 years before ever getting an ounce of gold. Because of the Rwandan war from 1990, all deliveries and pickups of both, Gold, Tin Wolfram (Tungsten ore) and Tantalite happened in Butogota or Kihihi, both towns in Kanungu.
From 1998, all DRC minerals began exiting exclusively from Rwanda. Following misunderstandings with Uganda, all Ugandan mineral dealers closed shop and went into other businesses.
This is one of the reasons Kabale as an urban centre collapsed. Businessmen in Mining built that town & I remember each one of them, both the still living and those who passed away; may they RIP.
Today, Paul Kagame feels so entitled, he is claiming to control the global Coltan market?
As a person, apart from being a surgeon, whose other expertise is diary farming and mining, I know Paul Kagame is playing old games here – that we know very well. He gazzettes territories in Rwanda as Coltan mines, even hires people to do excavations, while he knows his Coltan is from Congo. This is a 1960s trick if he didn’t know.
(Tantalite – Columbite) aka Coltan is only present in DRC.
