A very nicely done video book on the camps of the displaced and the illegal minerals trade.
Please visit
Raise Hope for Congo part of the Enough Project has initiated a new campaign targeting the link betwen conflict minerals and the conflict in the DRC and violence against women.
Can You Hear Congo Now?: Cell Phones, Conflict Minerals, and the Worst Sexual
Violence in the World (pdf file)
Activist Pledge:
By endorsing the Conflict Minerals Pledge, organizations and individuals commit to using their voices and consumer power to influence companies to sign the pledge. Specifically, they will:1. contact the largest makers of cell phones, portable music players, digital cameras, PC’s, and video games, and urge them to sign the pledge;
2. commit to only purchasing electronics from firms that have taken and are abiding by the conflict minerals pledge; and3. educate fellow consumers and activists about the crisis in Congo, the role of conflict minerals, and how they can be a part of the solution.
Take Action: Urge Electronics Companies to Sign the Conflict Minerals Pledge
The new blood diamonds? Article from Fortune Magazine
Other Raise Hope for Congo action:
Congo Advocacy Coalition Letter To United Nations: Civilian Protection Now
The New York Times has a very interesting interactive article: The Paradox of Plenty.
It “recount(s) how some, mostly outsiders, built great fortunes off of Africa’s material riches — and for centuries its people as well — while it remained the poorest continent in the world.”
It features a narrated slideshow covering the topics of slavery, ivory, rubber, minerals and oil.
There is an article in the Huffington Post : Exclusive Interview: Congo Rebel Leader Accused Of War Crimes Tells His Story
Congo rebel leader General Laurent Nkunda has been accused by human rights organizations of ordering his troops to rape and murder civilians and pillage communities. Huffington Post contributors Georgianne Nienaber and Helen Thomas traveled to Nkunda’s compound in Kivu province, Congo, to interview Nkunda face-to-face.
I found the following passage very interesting.
Q. Some people call this a war for minerals.
N. How can you fight for your own minerals? [Laughter] If this were about minerals, I would not be here.
You see minerals are being exploited by China, by Belgium, by South Africa. Petrol is under French control, uranium under American control, copper under Belgium, diamonds under Jewish, and gold under South African control.
Q. So does China’s influence concern you now?N. Yes of course because we are going now into economic slavery. If we accept this Chinese contract it is the end for Congolese.
This seems to give even more credence to the idea of a proxy war involving China and the US with Rwanda representing the US interests. Of course there are Rwanda’s own interest in the minerals as well. Nobody seems to be taking an interest in the people of the Congo themselves except for the humanitarian workers there.
More on Laurent Nkunda:
A Brief History of Congolese Rebel Leader Laurent Nkunda
War, famine and disease have killed more than 5 million Congolese citizens in the past decade and it’s hard not to lay a good part of the blame at the feet of rebel leader Laurent Nkunda.
The Man Who Would Be (Congo’s) King
Africa has seen the likes of Congo rebel leader Laurent Nkunda before. The story of the revolutionary who storms out of the hinterland in a lightning advance and seizes power is a familiar one…
The Congo Forum has an interesting article: Top 10 Misconceptions about Chinese Investment in Africa
China’s involvement is a key part underlying the conflict in the DR Congo, but so are US and other interest. All sides want access to DR Congo minerals and other resources.
Congo Forum has initiated a “Blood Cells” letter writing campaign.
Go here for more details and to participate.
The exploitation of minerals is one of the underlying causes of this conflict in two ways to fund the various armed actors and ultimately the control of the resources is the goal of those behind the proxy war in the DRC.
The following links are to articles about minerals exploitation in the DR Congo and also the possibility of the present war being a “proxy war”.
China’s US$9bn Hostage in the Congo War
The legitimate question is whether it is mere coincidence that Africa appears just at this time to become a new geopolitical “hot spot” or whether it has a direct link to the formal creation of AFRICOM. What is striking is the timing. No sooner had AFRICOM become operational than major new crises broke out in both the Indian Ocean-Gulf of Aden regarding spectacular incidents of alleged Somali piracy, as well as eruption of bloody new wars in Kivu Province in the Republic of Congo. The common thread connecting both is their importance, as with Darfur in southern Sudan, for China’s future strategic raw materials flow.
Rwanda and the War on Terrorism
A common flaw in U.S. foreign policy is the politicization of foreign assistance. Whether Republican or Democratic, U.S. administrations allow narrowly defined “national interests” – instead of needs, priorities, and realities in a given country – to dictate foreign assistance. As a result, foreign aid often backfires, undermining long-term U.S. interests and fueling instability, conflict, and violations of core human rights standards. Nowhere is this truer than in Central Africa’s Great Lakes Region. Today, President George W. Bush supports corrupt, illegitimate regimes that will either cooperate in the Global War on Terror, provide U.S. companies access to vital natural resources, or both. If history is any indication, this infusion of wealth and military training is likely to be disastrous for the people of Africa.
Billions of Chinese Dollars in DRC pdf. file from South Africa Resource Watch
DR Congo: End Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources
The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo must act promptly on the recommendations of a Congolese parliamentary investigation that uncovered illegal natural resource exploitation and profiteering from armed conflict, said a leading group of international human rights, environmental and aid organizations today
UN asks to stop illegal mineral trade in Eastern Congo
The UN Group of Experts on the DRC calls upon the UN Member States to hold their national companies who are directly or indirectly trading the minerals with the armed groups to account and buyers. In its latest report published on December 12th 2008, the UN Group of Experts has again exposed the link between mineral trade and the financing of war activities in Eastern DRC. UN Expert Group Report pdf. file
Instead of being the engine for prosperity, the mining and trade in natural resources such as coltan, gold and tin are fuelling the conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
China in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
Is an international boycott the solution?
Economic Exploitation, the Arms Trade and Human Rights Abuses Amnesty International
DRC civil society petition to congolese government and mining companies
What’s Needed to Prevent the Deaths of Millions More Friends of the Congo
The central issue of the Congo has long been its enormous wealth and the nexus that exists among local sycophants seeking to enrich themselves at the expense of the people, greedy neighbors with visions of regional grandeur and the veracious appetite by Western governments and corporations to profit from the natural resources of the Congo with no regard for Congolese lives. Until this issue is squarely and honestly addressed the Congo will continue to “bleed.”
UN Panel on Congo Exploitation Calls for Embargo Against Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda
From the depredations of Belgian colonial rule through the cold-war kleptocracy of Mobutu Sese Seko, the vast Central African nation now called Congo has been ransacked by foreigners and their African collaborators. Africans and non-Africans alike have extracted diamonds, gold, copper, timber, elephant tusks and other resources in a lawless commercial culture. As both Secretary of State Colin Powell and members of the United Nations Security Council have crisscrossed Africa in recent days to encourage the withdrawal of foreign troops from Congo, a disturbing U.N. report offers fresh evidence of the degree to which Congo’s nearly three-year-old civil war serves the economic interests of some of the West’s staunchest African allies and an array of foreign businesses.
Congo Week has a Pdf file for download here which lists a sampling of companies nvolved in the DR Congo some or all of which may be involved in the exploitation of the minerals and resources there.
This is a very interesting article that explores what may well be the real reason behind the conflict in the DR Congo.
Imperial Clash on the Congo Resource Front
The recently intensified conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo is a proxy war intended to stifle Sino-Congolese economic cooperation and promised “mining reform.” Western media remain complicit in the operation by perpetuating the narrative charade of “ethnic tension.”
Here are some more resources on the role of natural resources in the conflict in the DRC.
Congo Resources: Not Exactly This article somewhat contradicts the above Imperial Clash article
Butcher’s belief that the militias in the region are fighting over Chinese lucre is off-base. These militias are fighting for control over local, artisanal mines, mostly coltan, gold, and tin, none of which are of interest to the Chinese. (The Chinese are interested in the big, industrial copper and cobalt mines of Katanga.) The UN’s Expert report, just published, makes it very clear who’s profiting from the Kivu’s mines. But Simon’s claim that the rank and file CNDP are fighting for an end to tribalism is just astonishing. Hard to imagine how the CNDP square that goal with their well-documented tendency to massacre folks.
To be fair, there is, at the root of this debate, a real confusion. We don’t yet know how to disaggregate the motivations that are at the root of these ethnic/resource wars: Do they really hate each other, or are they just fighting over the money? If, as Paul Collier insists, most conflicts in fourth world countries arise out of greed rather than grievance, they still take place along ethnic fault lines. So it’s the Hema versus the Lendu, the autochtones (mostly Nande) versus the BanyaRwanda, the Luba-Katanga versus the Lunda. False consciousness or siren song, ethnicity is still the organizing principle around which most of these conflicts are fought.
Ex-US Official: Congo Can Trade Its Way out of War
British ally behind world’s bloodiest conflict
Mineral Wealth of the Congo This article emphasizes China’s emerging role in the DRC
Southern Africa Resource Watch
Global Witness press release Afrimex complaint
The Search for Responses to Resource Curse
For more than a decade large mining deposits and reserves have benefited multinational
companies and mining entities. In the report of the mining contracts review Committee, it is revealed that the Congolese mining deposits are the largest in the world. However, the
population itself does not benefit in any way from the profits earned from the sale of these
minerals for they still live in precarious conditions: absolute poverty, decline of education, lack of potable water and electricity, difficult access to primary healthcare. What is even more serious is the economic and social exploitation of workers in mines and the exploitation of children, sexual violence against women and children in the mining areas ( which increases STIs, including HIV/AIDS), environmental destruction and pollution.With this awareness, we, the Congolese civil society women and youth, are seizing this
opportunity in the renegotiation process to highlight our interest in seeing positive results
develop from the process. We congratulate and encourage the government for this
praiseworthy initiative, the first of its type in the DRC. If this renegotiation is wisely carried out, it will certainly contribute to the improvement in national budget, the population’s living conditions in general, and for Congolese women and children in particular.
RAID (Rights and Accountability in Development)
RAID: The Kilwa Massacre
Four Corners: The Kilwa Incident
RAID: Promoting Fair Investment in the DR Congo
These are just a few of the articles many more will be linked to later.
This bill was not passed by the last session of Congress and was therefore cancelled. It will need to be reintroduced in this session. We will keep you updated on any news. Please write your Senator and urge them to reintroduce this bill.
An important piece of legislation is currently in the Finance Committee of the US Senate. This legislation has a direct bearing on the current conflict in the DRC. Much of the funding for the rebels, renegade army troops, and militias comes from the illegal mining of Coltan (columbite-tantalite) and Cassiterite (Tin). These ores are widely used in the electronics industry and used in cell-phones, computers etc.
Anyone who cares to see the fighting ended and peace restored to the DR Congo should write there senators and ask for them to co-sign this bill and help to bring it to the floor for a vote.
I imagine there will be strong opposition to this bill from the industries that benefit from using Coltan and Cassiterite.
I have include the full text of the bill as a page on my blog.
For more info on the bill:
Go here to track the bill.
PDF of the bill to download.
Library of Congress THOMAS page on the bill.
From Senator Brownback’s ( the bills sponsor) website,
Friday, May 23, 2008
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) introduced the Conflict Coltan and Cassiterite Act, legislation which would require certification of minerals imported from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“We are witnessing a grave humanitarian crisis in Congo, and we must act now to put an end to the death and suffering,” said Brownback. “Everyday, Americans use products that have been manufactured using inhumanely mined minerals. The legislation introduced by Senator Durbin and I will bring accountability and transparency to the supply chain of minerals used in the manufacturing of many electronic devices.”
Every day in Congo, 1,500 people die as a direct or indirect result of the conflict over the mining of minerals like cassiterite and coltan; to date, the conflict has displaced more than 1.3 million Congolese and has resulted in over 5.4 million deaths. Read more…
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