Week 2, November 4, 2009: Raise Hope for Congo

We learned about this issue a couple weeks ago when we attended a lecture by John Prendergast at Boston University. We really recommend you visit the website as it contains specific action steps on the right-hand side of the page that detail what you can do to get involved if you feel moved to do so.

Crisis in Congo:

The Casualties of Conflict Minerals— Key Facts

For over a century, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been plagued by regional conflict and a deadly scramble for its vast natural resources. The greed for Congo’s wealth has been a principal driver of atrocities and conflict throughout Congo’s tortured history. In eastern Congo today, resources are financing multiple armed groups, many of whom use mass rape as a deliberate strategy to intimidate and drive the local population away from mines and other areas that they wish to control.

Specifically, the conflict in eastern Congo—the deadliest since World War II—is fueled in significant part by a multi-million dollar trade in minerals. Armed groups generate an estimated $144 million each year by trading four main minerals: the ores that produce the metals tin, tantalum, tungsten, and gold. This money enables the armed groups to purchase large numbers of weapons and continue their campaign of brutal violence against civilians, with some of the worst abuses occurring in mining areas. These materials eventually wind up in electronic devices, such as cell phones, portable music players, and computers, including those sold here in the United States. Given the lack of a transparent minerals supply chain, American consumers continue to indirectly finance armed groups that regularly commit atrocities and mass rape.

How do armed groups profit from the minerals?

The majority of the violence in eastern Congo has been carried out in mineral-rich areas. The three main armed groups who perpetrate the violence also allegedly control much of the mineral trade: the National Congress for the Defense of the People, or CNDP, the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda, or FDLR, and renegade units of the Congolese army, or FARDC.

These armed groups profit from the trade in two primary ways:

• Controlling the mines, forcing miners to work in deadly conditions and paying them a pittance, an average of $1 to $5 per day.

• Exacting bribes from transporters, local and international buyers, and border controls.

The armed groups trade in the 3T minerals–tin, tantalum, and tungsten, as well as gold:

• Tin is used inside your cell phone and all electronic products as a solder on circuit boards. Fifty-three percent of tin worldwide is used as a solder, the vast majority of which goes into electronics. Armed groups earn approximately $85 million per year from trading in tin.

• Tantalum (often called “coltan”) is used to store electricity in capacitors in iPods, digital cameras, and cell phones. A majority of the world’s tantalum—65 to 80 percent—is used in electronic products. Armed groups earn an estimated $8 million per year from trading in tantalum.

• Tungsten is used to make your cell phone or Blackberry vibrate. Tungsten is a growing source of income for armed groups in Congo, with armed groups currently earning approximately $2 million annually.

• Gold is used mainly in jewelry but is also a component in electronics. Extremely valuable and easy to smuggle, armed groups are earning between $44 million and $88 million per year from gold.

How do these minerals then end up in my phone, music player, or other electronic devices?

From eastern Congo the minerals are:

• Transported through neighboring countries including Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi.

• Mainly shipped to East Asia, particularly to multinational smelting companies in Malaysia, Thailand, China, and India.

• Once processed, bought by electronics manufacturing companies, turned into usable
components such as capacitors, and added into the electronic devices.

The highest-selling devices with the 3T minerals are:

• Cell phones and Blackberries
• MP3 players
• Digital cameras (also, TVs, computers, monitors)

The Numbers:

1,050,000: Number of Congolese forced to flee their homes in eastern Congo due to violence.

46: The average life expectancy for a woman living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

15,000: The number of pregnant women displaced in eastern Congo due to the escalation in violence over the last 6 months.

1,100: Number of rape cases reported every month.

2: Number of hospitals in eastern Congo that are able to perform surgeries to repair fistula.

1300: Number of Congolese that continue to die each day as a consequence of war.

22: Number of armed groups at the table when ceasefire agreement was brokered in 2008.

1: Number of times women are mentioned in the ceasefire agreement.

0: Number of times the epidemic of sexual violence and rape is mentioned in the ceasefire agreement.

144,000,000: The estimated profits made each year by armed groups from the trade in eastern Congo’s minerals.

What Can I Do?

Visit www.raisehopeforcongo.org to learn more about what you can do to help end the trade in conflict minerals that is fueling the war in Congo, and to protect and empower Congo’s women.