Spector, J. (2017). Conflict-Free in the Congo. Solutions 8(1): 39-41. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/conflict-free-congo/
Perspectives Conflict-Free in the Congo by Jennie Spector
Sasha Lezhnev / Enough Project
U.S. Special Envoy Tom Perriello Visits a gold mine in Eastern Congo in January 2016.
W
hile humanity’s use of electronics is tainted with unpleasant aspects—ranging from the need for “suicide nets” under the windows of Chinese iPhone factories to the numerous op-eds lamenting the loss of face-to-face connections—perhaps no consequence has been as dire as the brutal violence seen in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). This devastation, manifesting in warfare over mineral mines, has been long underamplified. A new wave of hope, however, may be rising as the positive impacts of a provision in the United States’ 2010’s Dodd–Frank Act, requiring businesses to publicly disclose any
use of conflict minerals originating in the DRC or an adjoining country, come to light. If you own an electronic device, you own minerals that were mined in the DRC. The country is said to have a “resource curse,”2 and the contents of its land have been usurped by Belgian colonization in the 1870s, “Africa’s World War” from 1998 to 2003, and the death of 5.4 million people in the last 10 years, with an estimated 1,500 perishing daily.3 What could be valuable enough to claim the lives of so many? The minerals tantalum, coltan, tungsten, tin, and gold are in massive supply in the DRC; 50 percent of the world’s tantalum
is found in the region. These minerals hold enormous worth in the current age, as laptops, video game consoles, cell phones, and numerous other devices could not function without them.4 Tantalum and coltan store electricity, tungsten enables devices to vibrate, gold is used to coat wires, and tin is used as a suture on circuit boards.5 The mines containing these minerals are fought over and controlled by an “innumerable” number of armed militias.6 These militias are composed of Rwandan, Ugandan, Zimbabwean, Angolan, and Namibian men, remnants of their home countries’ invasion (Rwanda and Uganda) and attempted protection (Zimbabwe, Angola, and Namibia) of the DRC in 1998. Once mined, the minerals are smuggled into Rwanda or Uganda. The plunder of the militant groups are most often purchased by Asian-based corporations that assemble much of the world’s electronics. Congolese minerals are incorporated into the global raw material supply and can be found in the final products of Apple, IBM, Nintendo, Dell, Canon, Samsung, Motorola, HP, Acer, Nokia, and other major electronics brands.7 The manner in which the minerals are obtained has created the foundation for cruel conflict. In order to maintain control of and work the mines, militants require citizen labor and cooperation. Children are often kidnapped and used as soldiers or miners, men and women are underpaid and overworked on the mining grounds, and rape has become the most common control tactic used by the militants to assert their authority over the Congolese.5 A 2011 study in the American Journal of Public Health estimated that two million women had been raped in the DRC, and at a rate of one woman raped every minute, that number has only continued to swell.8,9 Rape is a common, if scarcely
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