Critical minerals: The future lies underground and the fight for control is relentless

In the Royal Palace of Brussels — in the heart of Europe — there’s a statue of a man riding a horse. Giving off an arrogant air, he has a bushy beard and wears a military uniform. This is Leopold II: the Belgian king who ruled the present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). He treated the land as his personal fiefdom in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Under his rule — which spanned more than two decades — between 10 and 15 million people perished, while the colonial masters grew rich, first from ivory and then from rubber, which was used to make the tires for the first automobiles that would hit the streets of the Old Continent.

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