During negotiations in the 1960s about a new relationship, DR Congo claimed the archives with information about its rich natural resources. Belgium was not prepared to do so. The documents, housed at the AfricaMuseum are now being sought by DR Congo and KoBold Metals, a Bill Gates-backed mining and artificial intelligence company that struck a deal last year with Kinshasa to digitise them.
American firm KoBold Metals' desire to scan the Congolese geological archives is causing embarrassment in Belgium, which holds a large collection inherited from the colonial era. A project for the digitisation of said archives for research purposes backed by EU funding is already underway.
[ in French ] President Tshisekedi of DR Congo, currently chair of the African Union, has made restitution priority. It is interesting to read what the Director General of the Kinshasa Academy of Fine Arts, Henri Kalama Akulez, has to say about it.
