Coltan and the Western Pillaging of the Congo......

A lengthy, and perhaps futile, attempt at explaining how our propensity for vapid consumerism is directly related to the deaths of millions of Congolese, this discourse may be shortened to make you ask yourselves if the pursuit of the latest Samsung Galaxy, or iPhone is worth the price of a human life......for that is exactly its price. I shouldn't shame anyone; in truth, the fact that this precious mineral is the bedrock of the U.S. military and its D.A.A.R.P.A. technological advancements, the precise bomb-guidance systems in their fighter jets, the drone industry, the space program, its NSA global surveillance networks, and many other scientific projects of death, will forever ensure that no matter how many millions are killed in the Congo, they will never say, "enough is enough". The lives of Africans, more importantly, their deaths, is not important to these foreign vultures sufficiently, to halt the exploitation.

The short version is simple: This appalling practice ensures that pre-adolescent boys and girls, ten eleven and twelve years of age, are forced to work 12-14 hour days, at $3 a day, to provide the indispensable component which makes it possible for us to play innumerable games on our smart phones, surf the internet, and navigate aircraft, but more depressingly, makes it infinitely possible and probable for the American military to more easily facilitate the precision bombing of their own African countries. Think about that. They toil like slaves to make it easier for America to bomb them. Wow

The five decade-long war in Congo understates the role of American policy in fueling the conflict. The United States poured $1.6 billion in arms and training into Africa during the cold war. One of the biggest recipients of this assistance was Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, now Congo, whose 32-year reign set the stage for the current armed chaos.

During the 1990's, the United States provided more than $125 million in armaments to governments involved in the Congo war. And the six countries that have intervened directly in the war, Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe, all received American arms and training before the conflict.

In 2002, while the international community was congratulating itself for establishing the Kimberley Process, aimed at clamping down on the illegal trade of conflict diamonds, the plundering of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s other natural resources was still a daily reality. With one of the “richest deposits of copper, cobalt, gold, industrial diamonds and other minerals” a staggering wildlife and one of the “world’s mightiest river systems,” the DRC was blessed with unbelievable natural resources. Unfortunately this would also be part of its death sentence. 

The Congolese people have witnessed in despair how, year after year, their natural resources were outrageously used for the benefit of rebel groups and neighboring nations competing for the lucrative multi-million dollar contracts from international corporations. Even though the story of the “rape of Congo” finds its roots in abuses committed under King Leopold II, which saw the massacre of 15 million Congolese, and carried forward under the Belgian rule, the second great genocide was initiated by the West, notably America, and finally completed, under the kleptocratic dictatorship of President Mobutu Sese Seko. 

The mass-scale looting and illegal trade of stolen minerals have fueled several armed conflicts and have originated multiple human rights violations for several decades, but the main actors of the controversy still remain shrouded in mystery to the general public.

U.S. businesses, which not only made the most out of the political chaos in which the country has long been immersed, but were also silent accomplices in serious human rights violations committed in the exploitation of precious minerals, have historically been behind the atrocious practices which have seen a wave of 10 and 11-year olds into the ranks of armed guerrillas and mine workers.

Two basic questions need to be addressed: what exactly is “Coltan”, and what makes it such a sought-after mineral? Coltan, which is found in 3 billion-year-old soils, like those in the Rift Valley region of middle Africa, western Australia and central Asia, is a term used almost exclusively in Central Africa to refer to “columbo-tantalite.” It is a combination of two rare ores, columbium (also known as niobium) and tantalum. Both minerals are generally found together, even though tantalum is considered to be less abundant than niobium but offers more attractive features to the production of high-tech industry electronic devices. Coltan extraction in Africa is a $10 billion a year industry.

The metal, which is also found in other minerals and can be extracted as a byproduct of tin refining, is used in the airline, chemical, pharmaceutical and automotive industries as well. The market for the material is huge. Last year, about 6.6 million pounds of tantalum was used around the world, 60 percent finding its way into the electronics industry, where it can be found in products like mobile phones, computers, game consoles and camcorders. The U.S. is the largest consumer of tantalum in the world, accounting for 40 percent of global demand, so one can easily see why they have had a hand in the genocide in the Congo for several decades, providing hundreds of millions of dollars in arms and ammunition. In essence, they gave them the tools to keep killing themselves fro decades.....sound familiar?

An estimated 80% of the world’s known reserves of Coltan are found in Africa, though tantalum deposits are known to have been found in Australia. The Coltan reserves in Congo are yet to be fully determined, but are believed to be worth trillions of dollars. Most of the reserves are located in the eastern part of the RDC. Tantalum’s unique properties which include high reliability, low failure rates and capacity to withstand great changes of temperatures, makes it a crucial element in the production of tantalum capacitors which provide electrical storage. The industrial application of this ore ranges from pacemakers, GPS or missiles guidance systems, to cellular phones, laptops or video cameras, thus affecting a broad variety of fields. The importance of this mineral is such that tantalite was classified as “strategic mineral” by the Pentagon.

In 2000, a U.N. panel of experts under the mandate of the former Secretary General Koffi Annan thoroughly analyzed the illegal exploitation of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s mineral resources and its links with the two major armed conflicts which have caused over four million deaths and two million displaced to date. The economical and political unrest which have being affecting the eastern part of the RDC finds its origins in the 1994-1995 Rwandan refugee crisis (let's not forget that the U.S. had its handprint all over this genocide as well).

Following the 1994 Rwandan genocide and fearing reprisals from Tutsi rebel forces, a substantial number of Hutus (including members of the Interahamwe) crossed the border and sought refuge in the RDC. This situation seriously disrupted the already fragile political and social balance of the region and was repeatedly used by Rwandan forces to justify the presence of its military forces on Congolese territory. In 1996, the situation worsened and a group of rebels led by Laurent-Désiré Kabila, the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (AFDL), launched an offensive to overthrow the decadent dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko who was being heavily backed by the American government for obvious reasons.

This movement received the support of Angolan, Rwandan and Ugandan forces. A number of foreign companies started negotiating new mining deals with the rebels only a few weeks into the conflict. This corporate participation, in the 1996 armed conflict, allowed Rwandan and Ugandan forces to gain a better understanding of the location and economical potential of the mineral resources found in eastern DRC, as the 2001 U.N. Panel of Experts’ report emphasized.

Despite the success of their joint offensive, aimed at conquering the country, the relationship between Kabila and its allies rapidly deteriorated and prompted the eruption of a second armed conflict in August 1998. This time, the conflict pitched Rwandan and Ugandan forces on one side against the Congolese forces, backed by Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe, on the other.

Due to a sudden increase in demand, and a correlative supply shortage, the price of coltan spiked in late 1999 and early 2000 (up to $400 a pound) that caused a “coltan rush” that, in turn, led to the violent expulsion of many farmers and their families, from their land, at the hands of rebel groups and ruthless businessmen. These forced displacements particularly affected those properties where coltan could be found in abundance and in certain cases, slave labor was used in the exploitation of these coltan-rich areas. The slaughter and misery in the Congo did not abate with the assassination of the country's President, Laurent Kabila, in January, 2011. Kabila's son, Joseph, was quickly appointed the new Head of State.

One of the more disputed and controversial concepts among the parties were arguably the criteria used by the U.N. Panel of Experts in order to determine the illegality of the exploitation of the aforesaid mineral resources. Uganda’s and Rwanda’s main argument was based on their contention that, during the hostilities, the legitimate Congolese government did not have any sovereignty over the zones under their influence. Thus, their understanding was that the contracts signed between the rebel forces and international corporations are perfectly valid and enforceable. Moreover, they invoked the 1999 Lusaka ceasefire agreement as fundamental legal support for their position. This point of view was echoed by the report on the situation affecting the Great Lakes region, published by an “ad hoc” Belgian parliamentary commission of inquiry, which investigated the contribution of Belgian companies in fuelling the armed conflict that ravaged the DCR between 1998 and 2003.

In contrast to these arguments, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) seems to have adopted a different view in its final judgment of the Democratic Republic of Congo v. Uganda case. The ICJ rationale is based on International Humanitarian Law (IHL) provisions regulating the rights and obligations of parties involved in a situation of occupation. Pursuant to article 47 of the 1907 Hague Regulations and article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, pillage carried out by occupying forces is expressly prohibited. Moreover, the Hague regulations clearly set forth that an occupying State is merely an “administrator and usufructuary of public buildings, real estate, forests, and agricultural estates belonging to the hostile State and situated in the occupied country.” 

Further emphasis is placed on the fact that the occupying Power has the duty to “safeguard the capital of these properties, and administer them in accordance with the rules of usufruct.” As Brice M. Clagett pointed out in his comments related to the exploitation of oil resources by Israel in the Gulf of Suez, the rules of belligerent occupation apply to any occupation and an occupant cannot ignore the "ius in bello" regulation by simply questioning the sovereignty of the other party over that of the occupied territory. Clagett’s comments shed even more light on the duties of the occupying powers, noting that “[a]n occupant is not an owner, but a tenant; there is no reason why it should have the right to deplete the natural wealth of territory that does not belong to it.”

Put simply, foreign countries, notably the United States, Israel and France were in competition, dictating how the Coltan was to be secured, and arming various sides of the ongoing conflict.

In the case at hand, there is abundant evidence of abusive exploitation of the Congolese natural resources which did not benefit the population living in the occupied territories. In addition, the looting and plundering of Congolese assets denounced by several non-governmental organization (NGO) reports reinforce the fact that neither Uganda nor Rwanda complied with the duties owed by an occupying State. There is little doubt that their actions contravened the IHL provisions on occupation and were thus illegal.

From the mines where precious raw tantalite is found, all the way to our cell phones or laptops, this mineral goes through a variety of hands and processes. This is certainly one of the more complex aspects in the determination of the role each actor plays, whether directly or indirectly, in human rights violations occurring in the coltan industry. While the culpability of the American government is obvious, the question many ask is how a corporation can be made accountable for extractions taking place thousands of miles away and not directly committed by any of its employees? Is “aiding and abetting” sufficient to hold such corporations responsible? If so, what are the mechanisms at the victims’ disposal to bring claims against such powerful multi-nationals?

Militias sponsored by the West to terrorize their own people for the extraction of Coltan

In his article “Congo, Coltan, Conflict,” Benjamin Todd identified three main groups involved in the extraction phase: a) “individual soldiers [working] for their own benefit”; b) local communities’ members under the command of Rwandan and Ugandan forces; c) “foreign national for the army or commanders’ benefit.” It has been reported that among the individuals working in the coltan mines are children, used as forced labor, and prisoners under the surveillance of Rwandan forces.

The U.N. highlighted in its 2001 report that the U.S. based Eagle Wings Resources International (EWRI) is among the foreign companies operating in the Great Lakes region as a local comptoir. It is a subsidiary of Trinitech International Inc., also based in the U.S. The two main companies involved in the extraction of tantalum from the raw ore are the German company H.C Stark (subsidiary of the pharmaceutical giant Bayer) and the U.S. based Cabot Corporation, reportedly the second-largest mineral processing company. These processing companies not only obtain the raw coltan from international trading companies, but also directly from large mines or local traders. Once processed, the refined tantalum powder is sold to capacitor manufacturers. Among them is Kemet, a U.S. company based in Greenville, South Carolina, which is one of Nokia’s main suppliers. At the final end of the chain are internationally renowned cell phone or laptop companies, such as Motorola, Nokia, Compaq, Dell or Hewlett-Packard (owned by Israel).

And please spare me the mumbo-jumbo bullshit concerning how you have "sanitized" the process and now only purchase "conflict-free" Coltan....yeah, just like you only now purchase "conflict-free" diamonds. What a load of hogwash. The mere fact that your presence is there is already indicative of some mayhem and conflict. It is insult upon injury to think of all the millions of innocent people that have lost their lives so the U.S. and their allies can enjoy these mineral, but more deplorably, that you would actually expect us to suddenly believe there is a magical process that ensures the way you acquire them does not include bloodshed. No, the terms and conditions of these misleading agreements are for the naive. I know better.....

                                                                               黒人浪人

Acknowledgements:

Large portions of this article was reproduced from an article by Maheta M. Molango, reprinted from the Journal of International Law