Genocost: The Democratic Republic of the Congo's Resource-Linked Conflict Deaths

Overview

Genocost is a term describing genocide perpetrated for economic gain, specifically referring to the human, social, and economic toll of armed conflicts tied to the exploitation of natural resources in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Proposed legal definitions frame it as "a regime of destruction of a population through the systemic economic exploitation of its vital resources, the disintegration of its socioeconomic structures, and durable harms to its environment, when such effects are willed, known, or accepted as a necessary cost of profit or geoeconomic domination."

Historical Context

The roots of the term trace to the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, when 1 to 1.4 million refugees — including perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide — fled into eastern Zaire (now DRC), destabilizing the region. The First Congo War (1996–1997) saw Laurent-Désiré Kabila's AFDL, backed by Rwanda and Uganda, overthrow Mobutu Sese Seko, displacing millions and destroying civilian infrastructure. The Second Congo War (1998), involving nine African nations and numerous rebel groups, followed after Kabila expelled Rwandan and Ugandan troops. An International Rescue Committee report attributed approximately 5.4 million deaths to the conflict, mainly from disease and famine, alongside mass rape and massacres documented by Human Rights Watch and the United Nations. A 1999 Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement sought to end the war and withdraw foreign forces, but violence and instability persisted in eastern DRC.

Origin and Advocacy for the Term

The term "Genocost" — a combination of "genocide" and "cost" — was coined in London in 2013 by an activist from the Congolese youth action platform (CAYP), following the publication of the UN's Mapping Report documenting crimes committed in eastern Congo since 1996 and implicating Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi. Congolese civil society subsequently adopted the term. Advocates place these conflicts, said to have claimed more than 6 million lives, in the context of earlier mass death under King Leopold II's colonial rule (1885–1908), when historians such as Adam Hochschild and Isidore Ndaywel è Nziem estimate 10 to 13 million Congolese died due to brutal rubber extraction and resource exploitation.

Recognition and Reparations Efforts

A square in Kinshasa was renamed "Place du Génocost," where annual commemorations occur on August 2, marking the start of the Second Congo War. A memorial with 93 stelae and an eternal flame has been inaugurated in Kinshasa. In 2022, DRC's Law No. 22/065 established the National Reparations Fund (FONAREV) to assist victims of conflict-related sexual violence and other serious crimes; FONAREV has reported identifying more than 400,000 victims. In 2023, a memorandum signed by more than 60 civil society organizations called for legal recognition of a Congolese genocide, justice, reparations, and legal reform. At a 2025 ceremony, President Félix Tshisekedi urged Parliament to adopt a resolution formally recognizing genocides committed on Congolese soil. Commemorations have also spread to diaspora communities in Paris, Brussels, and London.