A U.S. mining company backed by billionaires Jeff Bezos and \u200bBill Gates is in a tangle with Belgium’s AfricaMuseum over who should digitise antique maps of what is now \u200cthe Democratic Republic of Congo in the museum’s archive.<\/p>\n
Mining startup KoBold Metals said it had offered to support the DRC in digitising the colonial-era archive, stored on museum shelves stretching some 500 metres and containing millions of documents that record how Congo’s mineral wealth was mapped and exploited.<\/p>\n
“We scan, we digitise the documents, and \u200bmake them accessible to the public immediately,” Benjamin Katabuka, Director General for KoBold Metals in DRC, told Reuters.<\/p>\n
“This country needs \u200bmore investment in exploration, and we need the data to be available to the public to make that \u2060happen.”<\/p>\n
The Belgian museum, backed by Belgian authorities, has refused, saying it already has a separate project with the DRC to digitise the \u200bdata, backed by the European Union.<\/p>\n
“We cannot delegate the management of collections to private companies; it would go against all scientific and institutional ethics,” \u200bmuseum director Bart Ouvry told Reuters.<\/p>\n
KoBold received\u00a0permits\u00a0last year to search for lithium and other minerals in DRC and struck agreements with Kinshasa to digitise data, including records held in Belgium, it said.<\/p>\n
Katabuka said the request for access to the archive was made by the DRC government. “KoBold is coming to support the project, \u200btechnically and financially,” he said.<\/p>\n
KoBold pointed to a 2022 Belgian law that created a framework for returning colonial-era collections to African states. However, \u200barchives are excluded.<\/p>\n
Ouvry said the museum is working with Congo’s National Geological Service to digitise and share the geological archives in a project expected to \u200ctake up \u2060to five years. Data would be available in both countries “in accordance with Belgian and European law,” he said.<\/p>\n
Congo’s ministry of mines did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
ARCHIVE INCLUDES HANDWRITTEN, FRAGILE DOCUMENTS<\/strong><\/p>\n Located just outside Brussels in Tervuren, the museum’s extensive archive includes material that is handwritten, fragile and still not fully inventoried, the head of the museum’s earth sciences department told Reuters.<\/p>\n Belgium’s King Leopold II seized Congo in \u200b1885 for his personal enrichment – the \u200bterritory was plundered and the \u2060population subjected to extreme brutality. The King ran it as his fiefdom until 1908, when it became a Belgian colony.<\/p>\n Ouvry said the archives are accessible, copies can be provided on request, and private companies \u200bmust supply a letter of support from the DRC government to view geological maps.<\/p>\n A Belgian government spokesperson \u200bfor foreign affairs \u2060said the geological archives are a public asset. “Belgium cannot, under any circumstances, grant exclusive access to a foreign company or private entity with which it does not have a contractual relationship,” spokesperson Florinda Baleci said.<\/p>\n Global competition for critical minerals is increasing and DRC is rich in deposits of lithium, \u2060copper, cobalt \u200band coltan. The country’s ministry of mines estimates that 90% of potential remains untapped.<\/p>\n KoBold \u200bis one of several U.S. companies expanding in Congo as Washington deepens a\u00a0strategic partnership\u00a0with Kinshasa to secure supplies and reduce reliance on China for materials needed for \u200bbatteries, electronics and defence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A U.S. mining company backed by billionaires Jeff Bezos and \u200bBill Gates is in a tangle with Belgium’s AfricaMuseum over who should digitise antique maps of what is now \u200cthe Democratic Republic of Congo in the museum’s archive. Mining startup KoBold Metals said it had offered to support the DRC in digitising the colonial-era archive, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":20076,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":10,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,29,3028,34],"tags":[4932,4931,3016,4930],"class_list":["post-20075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-central-africa","category-east-africa","category-mining","category-society","tag-africamuseum","tag-bill-gates","tag-democratic-republic-of-congo-drc","tag-jeff-bezos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20075"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20077,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20075\/revisions\/20077"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20076"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}