GOLDRUSH

Until recently, this mining area was off limits, first controlled by the state-owned minerals company, then occupied by Ugandan soldiers, then passed between outlaw militias who used the mining proceeds to buy guns.

Now the foreign army is gone. The militias are lying low. And the central government has little authority in this part of the country. Finally, villagers say, it8217;s their turn.

One of Earth8217;s richest sources of valuable minerals, Congo is believed to hold one-third of the world8217;s cobalt reserves and two-thirds of its coltan, a black granite used in cellphones and Sony PlayStations. The nation straddles one of the world8217;s most lucrative copper belts and was once the No. 1 producer of diamonds.

But the Congolese have watched helplessly as billions of dollars in minerals were systematically pillaged by foreigners and despots, beginning with 19th century colonialists.

Belgium8217;s King Leopold II used Congo as his colonial piggybank in the late 1800s. Beginning a few years after the country8217;s 1960 independence, the mines funded strongman Mobutu Sese Seko8217;s 32-year dictatorship. In 1998, Congo8217;s envious neighbors launched a bloody four-year war, seizing key mining towns and carting away piles of the nation8217;s natural resources.

Since 2003, a transitional government aided by United Nations peacekeeping troops has improved stability in some of the key northeastern mining towns.

Though rebel militias remain a threat, the lull has cleared the way for an estimated half a million to rush back to the mines, hoping to scrape together enough minerals to survive another day.

8220;It8217;s probably the freest it has ever been,8221; says Baudio Matata, 49, who has been a miner since he was a boy, starting out working for a state-owned company and then prospecting for himself in the 1980s, when Mobutu liberalised mining laws. It was easier to find gold in the 1980s, he says, but government agents usually seized large finds. Violence and war in the 1990s made mining too dangerous, and those who worked were forced to hand over profits to soldiers or rebels.

8220;Nowadays it8217;s harder to find the gold, but I get to keep what I find,8221; Matata says, waving a small plastic bag containing his day8217;s take, worth about 6.

Nearly all the small-scale mining is still done by hand, with broken shovels, plastic buckets and homemade hammers. With little else, hundreds of villagers in a remote valley about an hour from Mongbwalu have literally moved a mountain, shovelful by shovelful, over the last two years, excavating a massive red-dirt pit 100 yards deep and 200 yards across.

About 250 miles to the south, in the highlands near Goma, boys as young as nine help pan for minerals in the Mumba River, earning money to help families pay school fees. A middleman makes the arduous three-hour drive from nearby Goma twice a week to buy bags of the sand and rocks.

Faustin Habyambere, 27, says he earns about 5 a day and knows that the middleman, in turn, sells the minerals for about twice that to buyers across the border in Rwanda.

In Goma, on the border with Rwanda, there8217;s little evidence that residents benefit from mining. Roads remain covered with hardened lava from a 2002 volcanic eruption, and the lack of running water forces residents to make daily treks to Lake Kivu.

But gold miner John Alio, 27, says he8217;s just grateful that the minerals provide him with a daily living. 8220;Even if I could trade the minerals for peace, I wouldn8217;t,8221; Alio says. 8220;I would never want to give them up.8221;