“Everybody thought, boy, this is the grand reopening, a new awakening of Congo,” Mr. Mollison said.
Western mining executives and their Wall Street bankers, smelling opportunity in the changing leadership, arrived in the rebel region by charter planes to find armed teenagers using rubber stamps with Walt Disney characters to process their passports.
The investors gathered on the terrace of what had been a posh hotel, its pool covered in green slime, as Mr. Kabila’s representatives secured financial commitments for mining access. A memo written by one banker summed up Mr. Kabila’s perspective: “Rules of the game: you give and I give.”
Lundin Group, a Canadian mining company, was so determined to seal a deal that it agreed to give the rebels $50 million. An adviser to Mr. Kabila told reporters at the time that the cash would almost certainly be used to buy weapons for the rebel takeover.
Mr. Mollison’s job, when he arrived several months later, was to evaluate if his company, now called Freeport-McMoRan, should partner with Lundin to finish what Mr. Tempelsman had started at Tenke Fungurume. Freeport-McMoRan would later publicize that undertaking as the biggest private investment ever in Congo.
“What’s this place going to need?” Mr. Mollison recalled wondering. “Electric power. Lots of it. Roads. Plenty of water. Just how difficult is it going to be to operate in a place like this?”
Freeport-McMoRan eventually landed a controlling 57.75 percent stake in the mine, while Lundin got 24.75 percent. Congo’s state mining enterprise, Gécamines, kept 17.5 percent.
By the end of 2007, after yet another civil war in Congo, the project got fully underway. But the roads were in such bad shape that it took an entire day to drive the 100 miles to the mine from the closest major city. Mining executives soon used airplanes to make the commute.