Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 13, 2010; 6:21 PM
Read it at The Washington Post.
As you arm yourself with electronic gifts over the next few weeks, you probably won't think about the minerals your new cellphone, laptop or digital camera runs on. But no matter which company made the gadget, it's likely to be powered using tin, tantalum, tungsten or gold, all of which are mined in Eastern Congo, where profits contribute to financing the country's bloody war.
Rebel groups and the national army control many of Eastern Congo's mines. Over the past decade, more than 5 million people have died, and hundreds of thousands of women have been raped in the struggle for power, according to the Raise Hope for Congo campaign. While the Congolese government has expressed interest in tackling the multimillion-dollar trade in minerals, the involvement of its own troops has led critics to question their efforts.
The West has long been aware of this problem, though hard facts are difficult to establish: A 2008 U.S. Geological Survey report found that less than 10 percent of tantalum (the mineral used to make capacitors in most cellphones and iPods) imported to the United States is from Congo. But one human rights group, the Enough Project, estimates that Congolese armed groups make $8 million per year trading in that mineral alone.
Electronics companies argue that the supply chain is nearly impossible to track: There are thousands of companies, they say, that leave little or no paperwork. Manufacturers use Congolese minerals, which cost only one-half or one-third the price of those mined in other countries - due to large quantitites of minerals close to the surface, lack of regulation and cheap labor - leaving the American consumer with no way of knowing whether their purchases are subsidizing warfare half a world away.
The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, passed in July, seeks to change that, by requiring manufacturers to identify so-called conflict minerals and eliminate them from their supply chains.
