Sixty-nine bodies lay in the dirt of the Democratic Republic of Congo on Saturday. Local security sources confirmed the massacre to AFP following a coordinated militia strike. The names of the dead remain unrecorded by the global press. They are the latest casualties of Mineral Imperialism.

This violence is not random. It occurs in the heart of the world's most vital extraction corridors. As the West and China race to secure cobalt and copper, the Congolese state has hollowed out. In its place, 20,000-strong paramilitary 'mining guards' now patrol the pits. They protect the ore for export while the community is left to the mercy of armed factions.

This paper identifies a pattern of dispossession. The higher the price of the minerals on the London Metal Exchange, the lower the value of a life in the DRC. We are watching the automation of the frontier. Corporate capital secures the mineral pipeline. The people are treated as obstacles to be liquidated. The silence of the international community is the sound of the supply chain moving forward.