Not many people buy diamonds more than once every few years; it isn’t hard to avoid conflict gems, which fund continuing violence around Africa. How hard is it for the conscientious consumer to avoid conflict electronics? Impossible, perhaps, because anything with a capacitor is suspect. Consider:
“Tantalum from coltan(Columbite-tantalite) is used in consumer electronics products such as cell phones, DVD players, video game systems, and computers. Export of coltan from the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo to European and American markets has been cited by experts as helping to finance the present-day conflict in the Congo, with agencies asserting that “much of the finance sustaining the civil wars in Africa, especially in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is directly connected to coltan profits.” An estimated 6.9 million people have died since 1998 in the war in the Congo.”
Is it sensible to blame every casualty in the Second Congo War on coltan?
“Coltan smuggling has also been implicated as a major source of income for the military occupation of Congo. Activist website Toward Freedom states that the search for coltan has fueled a brutal conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo; they state that demand for coltan has caused Rwandan military groups and western mining companies to seek hundreds of millions of dollars worth of the rare metal, often by forcing prisoners-of-war and even children to work in the country’s coltan mines.”
It didn’t take long for Rwandan, Burundian and Ugandan military forces to set up mining operations in secured territory. Whatever the stated reason for invasion, exploitation of DRC resources began within the year. It is simple fact that the Congo is to this day, over ten years after the start of the war, an occupied country. Consider:
“Rwanda’s coltan export went from less than 50 tons in 1995 to almost 250 tons in 1998. No cassiterite was transported from the Congo to Uganda in 1998, however by 2000 151 drums were transported.”
Perhaps consumer electronics are indeed funding ongoing strife in central Africa, but conflict is no stranger to the region. Is there proof that buying products that use coltan will increase violence in the longterm?
“Estimates of the Congo’s fraction of the world’s coltan reserves range from 64% to 80%.”
Even conservative reports estimate that well over half the primary material used in capacitors is buried under the Congo. Bloodshed over these resources will not stop unless the demand for those minerals is stemmed.
An abbreviated list of MNCs at the front of the trough:
Cabot Corporation, Boston, MA
OM Group, Cleveland, Ohio
AVX, Myrtle Beach, SC
Eagle Wings Resources International, Ohio
Trinitech International, Ohio
Kemet Electronics Corporation, Greenville, SC
Vishay Sprague. Malvern, PA
HC Starc and EPCOS, Germany
Nigncxia, China
George Forrest International, Belgium
These are the companies that are exploiting resources in the DRC. They sell the minerals to companies like Nokia, Motorola, Compaq, Alcatel, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Lucent, Ericsson and Sony.
That said, I still bought a camera, a laptop and two new cellphones over the last twelve months. What to do?
