The railway being built at Matadi is described, not as a proud symbol of European industrialisation and technological know-how, but in a bleak register of degeneration by Van Booven (1933: 47)--"ethereal iron skeleton", "dark, carbon-like, dusty" (Ijle metalen geraamte, donker, roetachtig, vuil bedwalmd)--as well as by Conrad (1963: 22)--"as dead as the carcass of some animal", "decaying machinery", "a stack of rusty rails.

pdf And lets not forget about the recently signed $9 billion joint Congo-China venture in which China gets rights to the vast copper and cobalt resources of the North Kivu in exchange for providing $6 billion worth of road construction, two hydroelectric dams, hospitals, schools and railway links to southern Africa, to Katanga and to the Congo Atlantic port at Matadi.

Medard Nsibma, who runs Matadi port, said during the strike that a "minimum service" was operational.