Many people in the Western world today have never heard of a mineral called coltan. Most of us don’t know that this mineral is a crucial one in the production of electronics we commonly have in our houses, such as telephones and televisions. Moreover, many of us don’t know about the grave human rights and environmental abuses that occur in order for us to have these electronics, particularly those that occur in the Democratic Republic of Congo. When demand for this mineral grew with the technological boom of the late 1990s, the Democratic Republic of Congo –which, though approximations vary, contains anywhere from ten percent (Furniss, 2004) to more than eighty percent (Sharife, 2008) of the world’s coltan supply- became a major exporter of the mineral. While in theory this should have been extremely beneficial for the country’s economy, the preexisting political instability in the country has led to a far more bleak reality. On the human right side, militia gangs and rebel groups often take over coltan mines and kill, rape, and intimidate local communities in order to cash in on the massive profits to be made from coltan mining, and environmentally, natural landscapes and habitats for many animals are being eroded. To put it succintly, “[d]espite the country’s wealth of natural resources…the DRC now ranks 176th on the UNDP Human Development Index of 182 countries.” (Grespin, 2010) Since the early 2000’s, a wide variety of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have been recognizing and working on the problems plaguing the DRC which are brought on by the coltan issue; they have been doing so through on-the-ground work, reports and information gathering, and consumer awareness movements. Though political and social challenges, as well as problems with worldwide certification of ‘conflict-free’ coltan, make this a very complex and difficult problem to address, some initiatives such as the Durban Process, taxation of coltan transactions, and NGO-led multi-actor programs have been suggested to counteract this problem.
Coltan, which is the local name for tantalum, is so important in today’s technologically-charged world because it has an ability to hold high levels of electrical charge; this is a vital part of the capacitors of electrical appliances. (Furniss, 2004) Due to the huge demand for electrical appliances in today’s world, coltan mining is thus an important and lucrative industry. The commodity chain of coltan is not direct or easily traceable, and “extends from the eastern Congo, through Rwanda and other East African countries, and eventually out of the continent, through diverse intermediaries and processing facilities…until the product (tantalum sheet) reaches cell phones, laptops, and other digital services.” (Smith, 2011) Nokia is one major cell phone company whose production the 2008 documentary “Blood Coltan” traces back to conflict coltan mines in the DRC. Nokia states that they are “appalled by the reports from the conflict areas and strictly condemn all activities that fuel conflict or benefit militant groups, [and that they] require high ethical standards in [their] own operations and [their] supply chain and take continuous action to ensure that metals from the conflict areas do not enter [their] supply chain.” (Nokia website) However, they also say that there are typically “4-8 layers of suppliers between consumer electronics companies and any mining activity” (Nokia website) and that “[d]ue to the number of companies involved, the complexity in the way metals are produced and sold, and that ores from many different sources can be combined, …no company can give the exact origin of e.g. all the tin used in a particular product or its component[.]” (Nokia website)
“Blood Coltan” (2008) also traces coltan from conflict mines to the Belgium company Traxys. This is a supplier company which, along with a half-dozen other traders, exports coltan worldwide. The Traxys representative in the documentary, when asked about conflict coltan, said that it is too hard to trace what is conflict-free and what is not, so absolute promises of conflict-free cannot be made. Among the countries Traxys ships to is China, one of the major recipients of coltan, where 500 million of the billion phones made every year are manufactured. (“Blood Coltan”, 2008) This means that in addition to Nokia, other brands we recognize and trust are a part of this untraceable trade. Therefore, believing companies’ promises about buying only conflict-free begs the question of credibility, and hints at the severity and multiple problems this industry currently brings with it.
Before the coltan boom, conditions and situations in the DRC were not ideal; in fact, they were far from it, and have paved the way for the current desolate situation in the country which, in turn, spurred NGO involvement and global awareness. Before the early 2000s when coltan began to be mined in high volumes, these problems were termed as mostly “regional conflicts” (Moyroud and Katunga, 2002), and as such they weren’t given the critical attention they needed. Most of the peace initiatives at this time were “African-led efforts launched by groups of neighboring states, influential heads of state, or operational subregional organizations.” (Moyroud and Katunga, 2002) What many people in other parts of the world may not have realized was that on the contrary to being a regional –and as such, physically specific and contained– problem, this had larger and far more lasting implications. Much of the conflict was due to “ethno-political tensions from the neighboring Rwandan civil war and genocide spill[ing] across the eastern border [of the Congo].” (Grespin, 2010) This influx of people included members of the Rwandan army as well as refugees fleeing for safety, which had the effect of bringing both strain on resources and political insecurity to the Congo (Grespin, 2010). Due to these factors, coltan is not the root cause of conflict in the DRC; it is, however, a major facilitator of continued conflict now, because of the groundwork laid by the preexisting instability. This important primary distinction needs to be made because reducing the problems in the DRC to either socio-political problems or to coltan would both be incomplete and incorrect. It is vital, then, to instead note the interplay between the two: “[a]lthough most conflicts in the DRC are categorized as civil conflicts, they could be more accurately described as [both] externally-influenced [and] resource driven conflicts.” (Grespin, 2010)
As a response to this complicated interplay of conflicts, government and civilian action began to mobilize to improve conditions. In 1999, a major document called the Lusaka Accords was signed by the Congolese government, various rebel groups, and other states including Angola, Rwanda, and Uganda which had been supporting various military actions (Moyroud and Katunga, 2002). This agreement focused on a broad range of peace measures, such as the establishment of a cease-fire, establishment of a joint military force for African nations, and initiation of the Inter Congolese National Dialogue (Moyroud and Katunga, 2002). However, conflict still occurred after the signing of this document. The UN was also involved in the DRC at this time: the deployment of a UN peacekeeping force was part of the Lusaka Accords, and this went into effect in 2003 (“Blood Coltan”, 2008). As well, in 2001 a resolution was made to disarm militia groups through MONUC (UN Military Observer Mission for the DRC) (Moyroud and Katunga, 2002). The UN also has a training program for the Congolese army and boycott recommendations for businesses buying coltan from the DRC. A major political move happened in 2002 when an agreement was struck between Congolese president Joseph Kabila and Rwandan leader Paul Kagame; this gave some hope for a more peaceful future (Moyroud and Katunga, 2002). However, the rise of the coltan trade prevented such peace from occurring.
There are many socio-political factors which influence how the current industry of coltan mining has been set up. Coltan is not a hard mineral to mine; workers simply scrape dirt away from the surfaces of streambeds to reach the buried coltan, then sift this mineral-rich dirt through water to allow the heavier coltan to settle at the bottom. (Grespin, 2010) Because of this, local people left without prospects from the conflict find this profession extremely attractive. The unpredictability of livelihoods for citizens of the Congo scares them into mining, which gives them a regular and consistent income, as opposed to the delayed income of an agricultural harvest which a military unit could at any time decide to expropriate anyway (Smith, 2011). Many miners don’t even know why this mineral is so important or what it is ultimately used for; all they know is that they better mine it if they want to have an income. They have no personal autonomy or control over their livelihoods, and just want to make a living. This is summed up in the words of a miner, cited in Smith (2011): ‘“I know there are so many things in the forest, but I don’t know what they are or what is needed. It could be that tomorrow we will learn of something that [foreigners] want that I never even heard of before, and then there will be a race for it and the army will come in. So the faster I learn the better.”’
Of course, there are many problems surrounding this working relationship. It has been reported that because of the conflict in the country, “over 4.7 million Congolese had died, directly and indirectly,…between 1996 and 2003” (Shariffe, 2004); this number will no doubt have grown much larger in the last eight years. These deaths can be attributed to many and varied scenarios, and coltan mining plays a part in all of these. A major primary problem is that since many of the rebel leaders controlling DRC mines are leaders from the Rwandan massacres, and the majority of the coltan in the DRC is located in the eastern part of the country near the Rwandan border, is becomes extremely easy to illegally transport coltan across the border. In fact, “[o]ne report indicates that the neighboring Rwandan army made $250 million from coltan sales in less than 18 months, despite the fact that there is no coltan to be mined within Rwanda’s borders.” (Grespin, 2010) Furthermore, in the early 2000s, due to the huge demand of Sony Playstations, it has been documented that “Sony and Citibank negotiated for coltan directly with the Rwandan-backed Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD), which was then illegally occupying the Eastern Congo.” (Montague, 2002, cited in Smith, 2011) Moreover, the documentary “Blood Coltan” (2008) shows how even in mines where workers are paid ‘fairly’ (legally), exploitation exists; in some cases, government regimes impose taxes on the workers, taking money from their wages. At times, army checkpoints may be imposed where workers must pay a portion of their wages to the army members before they are allowed to pass (“Blood Coltan”, 2008). These random checkpoints are not legislated and not documented, and thus often fall under the radar when government or international bodies discuss the problems with coltan mining.
Further human rights problems plague this industry as well. A major one is in relation to worker’s wages. Miners are paid very little for their hard work, perhaps $1 US per day (Smith, 2011). Additionally, miners are often cheated by middlemen and corporations. The lack of miners’ knowledge about the commodity chain cited above points to how easily manipulated the miners are; without knowledge about the product they are handling, they cannot be expected to argue for a fair price on it. As well, “the various levels of middlemen try –usually successfully- to keep the comptoir’s price a secret from the diggers, and they also do everything they can to block diggers from having access to buyers” (Smith, 2011), thus successfully inhibiting the miners from securing a more fair price. Since mining is usually the only or most profitable trade available to civilians, they are often forced into the trade and can’t argue their wages; making some money is better than being unemployed when there are mouths to feed.
Other human rights violations happen in a more secondary manner, making them somewhat invisible but still extremely significant. These are mainly due to the political instability in the country. It has been documented that “81 percent of the population have had to leave their homes, more than half have experienced the violent death of family members or friends, more than half have been abducted for at least a week, and 16 percent have been subjected to sexual violence, usually repeatedly.” (Smith, 2011) Indeed, “women and children bear a disproportionate burden of suffering in emergency situations. Among the displaced are a large number of children, many of whom are separated from their families.” (Oxfam GB, Save the Children, and Christian Aid, 2001) The DRC has experienced unprecedented rates of child mortality, with ten deaths per 1000 births per month, which would result in sixty percent of children dying before the age of five (Oxfam et. al., 2001). As well, long-treatable and preventable diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis have been on the increase in the Congo, due to the unstable situation leading to a lack of access to basic health care and safety measures (Oxfam et. al., 2001). Rape has been a major tool of militia groups, being used as not only “systematic attacks on women but also as assaults on people’s ability to produce society and a sustainable future through childbirth.” (Smith, 2011) Additionally, people have been forced against their will to work in mines; sometimes, these have been children. It has been documented that “children were drugged to make them fearless and then dropped into the mines to dig in difficult places because they were small.” (Romkena, cited in Furniss, 2004)
The current coltan mining industry poses huge environmental problems as well. Due to the high demand and lack of control over this industry, mining often happens haphazardly with no concern for the environmental consequences. These consequences include both ecological and animal species destruction. In fact, 51% of the country’s biodiversity has been destroyed (Shariffe, 2008). Regarding the natural flora, forests are being razed and conservation areas cleared to make room for mining (Shariffe, 2008); additionally, mining has resulted in “massive erosion that continues to pollute bodies of water, negatively impacting the wildlife food chain.” (Grespin, 2010) Of particular concern is the Kahuzi-Biega National Park, which is home to many species of plants and animals –and is rich in coltan. The park has been systematically cleared and destroyed; it “previously housed over 350 elephant families, but the elephants have since been hunted down and stripped of their tusks.” (Shariffe, 2008) Gorillas are another key species that has been targeted: “[t]he UN Environment Program estimates that the population of eastern lowland gorillas has declined by 90 percent in the years since the conflict began” due to clearing sections of forest for mining. (Grespin, 2010) These two species are of heightened concern, because they “are keystone species in their habitats: they disperse seeds, prune trees, keep open pathways and create light gaps in the canopy….Once they are gone, all those species ecologically dependent upon them will decline, and in the coming decades we will see a cascade of extinctions.” (Redmond, cited in Furniss, 2004) It has been documented that since the beginning of the coltan rush in the Kahuzi-Biega Park, the gorilla population has fallen from 258 to fewer than 120 gorillas and the elephant population has fared far worse with a drop from around 800 to a meager four elephants (Furniss, 2004). Clearly, the long-lasting and irreversible ecological consequences of this industry at present are imminent.
A major problem cited repeatedly, which provides the basis for all of the aforementioned issues in the Congo, is the lack of standardization and certification for coltan. Unlike other such materials, coltan “is not registered and does not require a certification process to flag the country of origin in an attempt to discern whether such extracted materials are fuelling or financing conflict.” (Sharife, 2008) As well, since coltan is often located so close to the surface and as such requires no intensive industrial extraction measures, the extraction in the Eastern DRC is not recorded; it is “the invisible trade” (Sharife, 2008). This means that coltan is also easily movable (Ewing, 2008). Since currently there is no record of where coltan comes from and goes to, situations such as the Rwandan military making a considerable profit from coltan and Nokia being unable to guarantee that it uses conflict-free minerals are explained.
With the prevalence of these varied and vast problems, it is no surprise that a plethora of NGO and civil society action has been seen in the Congo over the past decade. This is arguably because though the states involved (the DRC and Rwanda, namely) were perhaps gaining strength in the late 1990s, the instability and speed of the coltan boom knocked them back off their feet and in their absence NGOs stepped up to the plate. These NGO movements, which have been by both local and international actors, can be grouped into three key forms: on-the-ground work, reports and information gathering, and consumer awareness movements. Each of these three areas has been undertaken by different NGOs, and each has arguably covered different and important aspects of the problems.
The first of these forms, on-the-ground-work, has mainly taken the form of international NGOs coming in to serve the community’s self-addressed needs. An early international presence in the DRC was the Life and Peace Institute (LPI), a civil society organization “that supports and promotes nonviolent approaches to conflict transformation through a combination of research and action.” (Life and Peace Institute, A) LPI provides an example of on-the-ground work primarily through their Conflict Transformation Programmes, based on the “need to include civil society’s peace processes and a community-based peace building approach.” (Life and Peace Institute, B) In the DRC, this organization has been active since 2002 when it entered the country to respond to the volatile political and military context; it was mainly reactive at this time, aiming to alleviate inter-community tensions (Life and Peace Institute, C). In 2004, LPI then began to engage in “developing more sustainable partnerships and conflict transformation tools with a wider array of actors and change agents, [both] local and international.” (Life and Peace Institute, C) In 2007, another change was made to focus on the “reinforcement of [LPI’s] local partners’ capacities so that they can play a positive role in transforming conflicts” (Life and Peace Institute, C) to move from dependency on foreign intervention to more autonomous control for local communities. In doing this, LPI focuses on training local people in both conflict dynamics and mediation techniques, training in organisational and financial managing, and help with financial managing and fundraising (Life and Peace Institute, C). Recently, this organization has been involved with other actors in round-table discussions which began in 2008 to identify recommendations for the country in terms of security for the population; these other actors include provincial and local authorities, the national army, the United Nations Observation Mission in the DRC (MONUC), and other NGOs (Life and Peace Institute, C).
Another international on-the-ground movement has been The Gorilla Organization, which works through funding small grass-roots projects in various places to tackle the threat of gorilla extinction (The Gorilla Organization, A). As mentioned, the threat to the local gorilla population through coltan mining has been significant. In the Congo, this organization is working with local partners Comite de Suivi de Processus de Durban (Monitoring Committee for the Durban Process) and the Congolese wildlife authority ICCN (Institut Congolaise pour la Conservation de la Nature) (The Gorilla Organization, B). The goal of this project is the monitoring of mining to protect habitat destruction and the vulnerable gorilla population in the Kahuzi-Biega National Park. This protection is done through spreading awareness about the mining code to local people, developing alternative livelihoods to mining, reinforcing the capacity of the ICCN to patrol and protect the park, and developing and implementing a training program on ethical mining (The Gorilla Organization, B). Through this initiative, The Gorilla Organization and its local partners hope to reverse the fact that many miners are unaware that mining in the national park is illegal (The Gorilla Organization, B) and provide knowledge and alternatives for these people who still need to make a living. A similar group is the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund Europe (DFGF); this group wants to encourage miners to leave the National Park by presenting them with “the opportunity to work in safe conditions and earn a reasonable wage.” (Furniss, 2004) Additionally, DFGF has introduced a US$50,000 micro-credit opportunity for helping local people start up small agricultural businesses (Furniss, 2004) in the hopes of providing alternatives to mining.
Other NGO action on the ground in the Congo has come in the form of humanitarian aid. Three NGOs involved in this are Oxfam Great Britain, Save the Children, and Christian Aid. All three of these organizations have been in the DRC since at least 1994. Oxfam GB has focused on emergency-based aid as a response to the growing need for basic necessities, and assists more than 500,000 people to meet their health needs such as water, sanitation, and hygiene (Oxfam et. al., 2001). Save the Children takes a similar approach through its focus on emergency health and rehabilitation, and it also “seeks to influence policy and practice with the aim of achieving lasting benefits for children within their communities.” (Oxfam et. al., 2001) Finally, Christian Aid emphasizes helping to build up local partners and aid local populations in development and emergency work; some highlights of their involvement are food security, civic education, and the fight against AIDS (Oxfam et. al., 2001). These three organizations say that the humanitarian consequences of the war in the DRC are their primary concern (Oxfam et. al., 2001).
The next stage of NGO intervention, information gathering and reports, has also been prominent by international organizations. This area has been utilized by NGOs because they want to “expos[e] what exactly is happening in the eastern Congo as a prelude to making policy recommendations for the international community…[and] making transparent the connections among consumers, companies, and conflict minerals with a view to encouraging international regulation.” (Smith, 2011) Though numerous NGOs have produced reports of this kind, only a few will be focused on here. Oxfam, Save the Children, and Christian Aid jointly published a report in 2001 about the humanitarian crises in the DRC (Oxfam et. al., 2001); though the year of publication suggests that this report came before the coltan boom made matters much worse, it still provides valuable insight into just how dangerous and insecure the country already was. The Life and Peace Institute, also mentioned above, published a report in 2009 that discusses the security issues in South Kivu, DRC (along the Eastern border of the country) which relates to military involvement in the area, Rwandan intervention, Congolese armed groups, and lack of self-reliance for local peoples (Life and Peace Institute, D, 2009). The Belgian research institute International Peace Information Service (IPIS) published a report in 2002 which deals with the role that companies play in promoting the war by purchasing coltan from conflict areas, an important and crucial part of the equation. A few other NGOs involved in reports and information gathering are Human Rights Watch, the Enough Project, and Global Witness; these groups have “conducted thorough and empirical research on the microlevel dynamics of ongoing conflict and its relationship to mining.” (Smith, 2011)
The final trend in NGO action, consumer awareness-raising, deals more with developed countries and thus is not as centralized and locally-based as the other two methods. Arguably, though, this method reaches more actors in more parts of the world, and mobilizes action from people in developed countries who may have more power and resources to help than impoverished local peoples in the DRC. The reports and documentation made by NGOs connects to this method of action, because through concerned citizens the world over being able to access and read these reports, the facts and terrible statistics will get out. As well, the joint report by Oxfam, Save the Children, and Christian Aid includes periodic personal stories from civilians: tales of travelling far distances for safety and health supplies, family members who have been killed in the conflict, and the prevalence of rape and AIDS, to name a few (Oxfam et. al., 2001). Stories like these pull at the heartstrings of the reader, and further motivate the reader to help. These NGOs also usually accept donations, so concerned people who read these reports can make a contribution to the on-the-ground initiatives taking place by these NGOs. Another major campaign in this area is the “No Blood on My Cell Phone” campaign, which was created to influence consumers to abstain from purchasing phones made with coltan. Some NGOs involved in this campaign are Friends of the Earth-USA, Global Witness, Human Rights Watch, The Rainforest Foundation, CENADEP, and Fatal Transactions. This global campaign is based on the idea that buying phones made with coltan, since it is so hard to trace and much of it comes from the DRC, is fuelling the conflict and human rights abuses that are occurring. It assumes that cell phones companies are huge buyers of coltan, and it also assumes that consumer awareness about the Congo’s situation will change the international structure of coltan dealings. In the early 2000s, Belgian air company Sabena, which is one of the major means of transporting coltan from Kigali, Rwanda to Brussels, Belgium, suspended this service due to strong international pressure from this campaign (War Profiteers’ International, 2006). This company is also affiliated with American Airlines (War Profiteers’ International, 2006), so this suspension of services marks a huge success for this campaign and will have significantly reduced the amount of conflict coltan leaving the DRC.
It is clear that numerous and continued NGO actions have been happening in the past decade through on-the-ground work, reports and information gathering, and consumer awareness movements. However, there are criticisms of each stage of NGO intervention, most of which focus on the need for simply more to be done. Oxfam, Save the Children, and Christian Aid themselves, in reference to their humanitarian on-the-ground work, call for a “much stronger and better co-ordinated response among agencies, donors, and international leaders” (Oxfam et. al., 2001) to attain more sustainable security and development in the country. In this way, the strategy of on-the-ground movements used by NGOs is shown to be helpful in emergency situations and thus necessary, but not sufficient in terms of long-lasting success for the local population. The area of reports and information gathering by NGOs has also left something to be desired by many critics. It is argued that these simple reports and documents do nothing directly tangible for the communities in need, and could be said to be wasting precious time and resources that could have been directed towards humanitarian aid or community development. Additionally, these papers “tend, after a great deal of penetrating analysis, to end with rather prosaic, and at times even irrelevant conclusions: for example, that armies and other state actors (to say nothing of militias) are acting illegally, and should therefore not be assisted by the international community, or that perpetrators of violence against civilians should be tried in the International Criminal Court.” (Smith, 2011) Conclusions of this sort feel meagre and meaningless, since they give no concrete steps for change and hold no authority or power in the international system. This again points to the insufficiency of NGO action at times and the need for other actors, such as governments and the international community, to become more involved and proactive in their response to this issue.
The idea of raising consumer awareness, however important in mobilizing consumer power, also has its critics. Firstly, the idea of banning altogether all coltan from this area is highly criticized by those concerned about the livelihoods of the people living in the DRC. Since for many people coltan mining is the only profitable and stable job, “denying many Congolese their only way of living…would make matters worse.” (Furniss, 2004) One group critical of the ban is the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund Europe (DFGF). This organization believes that the ban on Congolese coltan is “the easy way out, an abdication, rather than an acceptance, of responsibility.” (Furniss, 2004) Secondly, a ban on coltan requires the cooperation of companies, and most companies –such as Nokia, discussed above- have no way of tracing the origin of their coltan supplies. Due to the aforementioned problems with certification and standardization of the coltan industry, “it is nearly impossible for companies to say with absolute certainty that no tantalum of dubious origin makes it into the supply chain.” (Ewing, 2008)
Recently, some developed countries have been taking the initiative in creating legislation to pressure companies to buy only conflict-free minerals. The Dodd-Frank Law, a United States law passed in 2010 and expected to be in effect soon, is aimed at requiring companies to label products made with minerals from Congo and the surrounding countries (Marlow and El Akkad, 2010; Kloer 2010). The goal of this legislation is to use government and consumer pressure to get companies to use conflict-free minerals, and it will also mean that companies who abide by this law can label their products as ethical –a potentially effective marketing strategy (Marlow and El Akkad, 2010). In Canada, the Trade in Conflict Minerals Act was introduced in 2010 with support from two national political parties (the New Democratic Party and the Liberal party), though it has yet to be passed (Marlow and El Akkad, 2010). While legislation like this is important in raising consumer awareness about this issue and shows government recognition of this important matter, it is criticized as being unlikely to effect real change for a few key reasons. Firstly, it would depend upon the number of companies willing to buy into this framework; since major companies such as Wal-Mart and Target have argued that adhering to such laws is simply too difficult, the likeliness of this catching on is very low (Marlow and El Akkad 2010). Secondly, it depends upon consumers finding this issue an important one and being willing to pay extra money for a conflict-free product (Marlow and El Akkad 2010). Thirdly, laws such as these only specify that companies must source their materials; they have no role in controlling where companies actually do purchase from, creating prosecution for companies who buy from conflict sources, or implementing penalties for companies who don’t meet the reporting requirement of their sources (Kloer, 2010). Clearly, though these initiatives are a progressive step forward by these governments, much more needs to be done before these laws will be significantly effective in reducing DRC conflict.
As an answer to many of the aforementioned criticisms and recommendations, much international attention has recently been focused on forming a certification process and standardization of the coltan trade. The aim is to make the coltan traceable, and thus promote conflict-free coltan. Since conflict coltan shares a historical development pattern similar to the ‘blood diamond’ issue, many have argued that one such undertaking would be to follow the methodology and structure of the Kimberley Process, an international regulation system for diamonds. In this system, “[t]o prevent diamonds from areas of conflict from entering into the legitimate diamond supply chain, diamonds are monitored at every point of the diamond pipeline, from mining through to retail.” (Diamond Facts website) This system regulates and carefully monitors both the import and export of diamonds, and currently over 99% of all diamonds worldwide are certified through the Kimberley Process to be from conflict-free sources (Diamond Facts website). NGOs such as The Gorilla Organization have been supporters of such a process for coltan. In 2008, a German-funded and G-8 supported initiative was brought forward which would “certify coltan so that all products that use the mineral would bear the certification stamp detailing the origin of the ore, and [inform] the consumers of its source.” (Sharife, 2008) This method was introduced by scientist Frank Melcher, and would work by means of coltan ‘fingerprints’, since “[e]very coltan mine has its own geological history and composition. Melcher’s team has already catalogued 600 unique coltan ‘fingerprints’, and tell precisely where ore comes from, even when batches from different locations are mixed together.” (Ewing, 2008) By being able to trace coltan ores, a system such as the Kimberley Process thus becomes feasible. The Kimberley Process, however, does face some criticisms, such as that “there are still significant weaknesses in the scheme that undermine its effectiveness and allow the trade in blood diamonds to continue.” (Global Witness website) In particular, the Kimberley Process focuses solely on the economic and trade aspect of this issue, which is said to leave human rights violations out of the equation; it has no independent, professional, technical body to administrate and monitor the process, leading to cracks in the system; and its decision-making is consensus-based, meaning that one actor disagreeing can stop vital amendments from occurring, undermining the process’ effectiveness and credibility (Global Witness website). Changes to this system are thus necessary, but this process remains an effective and relevant blueprint for a similar system for coltan.
An attempt to introduce such a system has occurred through the Durban Process. This stemmed from a meeting of the NGO the Diane Fossey Gorilla Fund (DFGF) in Durban, South Africa, in 2003, where stakeholders met to discuss and implement specific measures to make mining more ethical and conflict-free (Furniss, 2004). This process would involve all levels of the coltan trade: it would provide miners with training on environmentally sustainable mining practices and alternative livelihoods, it would provide a cooperative for miners so they can have some control over their wages and benefits, it would employ certification of coltan to ensure conflict coltan is not entering the international system, and it would provide companies buying coltan (and consumers for these companies) assurance that the coltan they purchase is conflict-free (Furniss, 2004). This would work well with Melcher’s method of coltan fingerprinting, since he is proposing a system in which “legitimate mines would register their coltan fingerprints…[and] an independent organization would spot-check ore and reject any that isn’t in the approved database.” (Ewing, 2008) This certification plan would also be a call to corporations. Though international pressure is right in calling their attention to the human rights and environmental abuses in the DRC and thus calling for a ban on purchasing DRC coltan, people’s livelihoods do depend on this mineral. By buying certified coltan under the Durban Process, companies could keep supporting the local livelihoods while keeping the international civil society happy. Many companies are aware of their role in this relationship, and are willing to purchase coltan from the DRC under a certified system (Furniss, 2004). Recently, in 2007 and 2008, the Durban Process has been working to identify the illegal mining sites still active in the area and eradicate them, replacing them with conflict-free spaces and alternate livelihoods for miners (The Gorilla Organization, B).
This convention still needs international recognition and support, but it is clear that this is a tangible method by which NGOs, political actors, miners, companies, and consumers can work together to affect positive change in the country. Perhaps the strongest way to achieve this greater international support would be to continue the consumer awareness that has been so successful in getting companies to ban the purchase of coltan, and transfer this consumer power –along with the proven power of NGOs and civil society movements- to pressuring the UN and developed country governments to put the Durban Process into legal effect. As well, the idea of moderate taxation for coltan has been introduced to help the country invest in public goods (Grespin, 2010). Though this would be difficult due to the presence of militias and rebel groups and the record of human rights abuses in this country, such a system would at least allow some people to provide more basic necessities for themselves, and it would also provide an opportunity for the government to invest in infrastructure and social provisions (Grespin, 2010). Ultimately, though, improving conditions for miners and imposing a slow and steady international process won’t be enough; real change for this country’s future will instead depend upon “the Congolese [government] deciding to rule their country in a different way.” (Furniss, 2004) The Democratic Republic of the Congo is now a country where “70 percent of the population lives in absolute poverty, thirty percent of children are chronically malnourished, and unemployment hovers around 85%.” (Grespin, 2010) Such conditions make it vital for government action, above all, to work with NGOs and local actors to implement real, revolutionary policy change for the betterment of its country.
Works Cited
“Blood Coltan”. (2008) Directed by Patrick Forestier. Documentary.
Ewing, Jack. (November 2008). Blood on Your Phone? Unlikely It’s ‘Conflict Coltan’. Business Week Online.
Furniss, Charlie. (July 2004). Conundrum in the Congo. Geographical. Vol. 76 no. 7
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