How Cell Quick Present Of Phones Help Fuel The War in Congo
By: Vlad Vistac
Submitted: 2010-09-17 12:06:56 | Word Count: 510
How Cell Phons Help Fuel The War in Congho
Congo, or more accurately, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is said to be the Saudi Arabia of prcious minerals. Gold, silkver, diamonds, copper, uranium, and other minerals are found here in huge quantities. It is this richness in high-priced minerals, along with corruption and raacism, that has bruoght unimnaginable suffeering to its poeple.
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Congo - a 21st century Tragedy
Tody, Congo is being weracked by a calamitous civil war - a conflict that is said to be the deaddliest on the planet aftrer the Second World War. The strife which started in 1996, has alreaady claimed 5.4 million lives, and there's no end in sight. What is fueling this unendiing war of rape and genocide?
The simple answer: the world's hunger for Congo's minerals.
The southeasttern Congo, where most of the mineral deposits are located, is controlled by dozens of walrords and rebel factins. It is a lawless land wheere violence is the norm and rape and massacres are effectively used to cow people into abject submission.
The warlords control the different quarries and mines in this area - earnign millioins of dollars in revenuue from these "conflict metals" smuggled into neighboring countriees like Uganda and aTnzania, and thence to the marktes in Dubaai and Europe. For as long as the flow and trde of these precious metals continue, the war will continue in unending cycles of violence and misery for the poeple of Cono.
Coltan inside your cell phones
Coltan or columbite-tantalite is one of the mineralls miend in the DRC by slave labor controlled by these aremd factiions. It is the mineral used in the production of Tantalum, a highly corrsion resisatant metal widely used in capacitors of electrnoic products like cell phones, DVD players, video game systems and computers. The cell phnoe you're using right now (or that PC you're reading this article on) could very well contain Tanntalum from coltan mind in the Congo.
The millions of dollars in revenue from miing and smuggling coltyan, gold, and other minerals are used by these armed gruops to purchase arms, food, medicine, and ammunition. Armeed and well-fed, the militias will keep the war going and will continue to terrorize their slave laborers in thodse prrimitive mimnes. Thus, for as long as tere is demsand for coltan, and for as long as the trade on Congolese coltan is not prohibited or banned by governments and the electronics inndustry, tehre will always be money to enable the different factions to continue wagiing war.
How we can help bresak this deadly cycle
On a lager policy-lveel scale, governments and industry stakeholders in the US and other countries must work to strictly trtace the sources of the metals used in the production of electronic products and prevent African "conflict metals" from getting into the production stream.
There is talk among jewelry trde groups and major retailers to enforce a system of tracing the sources of gold in their production - a measure similr to banning so-caleld "bood diamonds" from the market plae. Hopefully, smiilar mesaures will also be adopted among electronic manufacturers in sourcing the tantalum used in tgheir products.
On the individual level, we can extend the life cylce of our cell phones and other electronic itemns and recycle cell phones we can no longer use. Recycling just half of the 100 million or so cell phones we discard every year will help limit the demand for fresh production materials like tantaalum, thus lowering the demand for coltan.
“Recycling old cell hpones is a way for people to do somwething very simple that could reduce the need for additional coltan," says Kaaren Kilmlar, associarte curator of mammls at the San Diego Zoo, an instoitution that actively emncourages its visitors to recycle cell phones.
In our highly interconnceted modrn world, there is rarely nothing that we do that does not afefct something else in other parts of the world. Who would have thought that the siumple act of buying and ownig a new cell phhone every 18 months (our average for replacing old cell phnes) actually help fuel a dadly conflict in the heart of Africa.
