Last Wednesday, The U.N.Security Council received a report citing “substantial evidence of Rwandan military backing for a Tutsi militia fighting in eastern Congo, including the recruitment of child soldiers, while the Congolese military has been supporting a rival Hutu faction. The battle has driven 250,000 civilians from their homes in the past three months.” While the report focuses on the ethnic and inter-nation rivalries, a critical factor in this protracted war is the economic motivations.
In our previous post in this series, we talked about the current conflict in the Democratic republic of the Congo and pointed out that the conflict was as much about exploiting the country’s natural resources, as it was an ethnic battle. One of that nation’s primary resources, coltan, is a mineral found in vast quantities in the war-torn, eastern part of the country. Coltan is refined into tantalum, a critical metal used in a wide range of technology products around the world. Therein lies the problem.
In this second installment, I will explore the business need for coltan and how that demand is driving the ongoing horror.
The “Secret Ingredient” in Consumer Electronics
Before 1998 coltan or columbite-tantalite, was an obscure natural resource. But in ten years its 
necessity and value has increased due to rapid advancements in technology. Without coltan the technology sector would not exist as it does today.
Used in “super alloys” coltan strengthens other metals, reduces corrosion and increases heat resistance. It is used in surgical implants, gas turbines, jet engines, ballistic missiles and nuclear reactors. When tantalum is refined it is crushed into a heat-resistant powder and used to make tantalum capacitors, devices that store electrical charges. It is this unique potential that makes coltan such a valuable resource.
Today, tantalum capacitors are used in laptop computers, pagers, mobile phones and game consoles like Sony Playstation. The substance can be found in I-Pods, laptops, hard drives, LCD monitors, set top boxes, hearing aids, pacemakers, airbag protection systems, GPS, automobile ABS systems, bar code readers, photocopiers and fax machines, pagers, smoke detectors, control systems and the list goes on. Chances are there is some amount of refined coltan within inches of you as you read this article.
The Profits of Presidents
In response to the crisis in the region, the United Nations appointed an investigation panel to look at this problem. The panel concluded Uganda president Yoweri Museveni and Paul Kagame of Rwanda were becoming the “godfathers of the illegal exploitation of natural resources”. The UN reported that most of DRC coltan was mined illegally and exported across the eastern borders into Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi along with other resources like gold, diamonds, cassiterite, cobalt and timber. Other routes saw DRC resources exported through Zimbabwe.
It was also noted that some 85 Western companies were accused of “directly or indirectly, deliberately or through negligence” prolonging the 1998 war to enrich individuals and fund warring factions. Five billion dollars of assets were transferred from the DRC state mining sector to Western business networks linked to political figures and the military.
The international companies listed as major coltan manufacturers said they were unaware as to how or who mined the coltan for their products. Among the companies listed were Alcatel, Compaq, Dell, IBM Ericson, Nokia and Siemens.
The Dire Need of the Congolese
Coltan miners earn $10 to $50 a week, where other Congolese workers can expect $10 a month. Miners extract the ore in a similar process as the Californian gold miners of the 1800s, digging the ore from craters in riverbeds and swilling the dirt in washtubs, the heavier coltan settling on the bottom.
Child labour has increased alongside the escalating demand for coltan. In some areas of DRC 30 per cent of schoolchildren are reported working in mines. IN a region torn by war, mining coltan from shallow pits is the only means of survival for many Congolese.
Western Demand
Many companies who use coltan-related components deny using the mineral imported from the Congo. Yet coltan remains an important revenue stream for all sides in this ongoing conflict.
For instance, Sony Corp. has stated their coltan supply does not come from DRC. Nokia claims the same position. But the dramatic increase in coltan reliance from the developed world has extended the conflict and has directly attributed to the deaths of millions.
A UN Panel of Experts has exonerated most if not all US companies as users of coltan containing products. However, demand for coltan and tantalum stresses the supply chain. Unfortunately, users of coltan have the benefit of plausible deniability because the ore passes through so many hands. It is almost impossible to know where the coltan comes from and most companies prefer not to know. Though the price of coltan has dropped, demand remains and all parties to the conflict continue to supply the world’s needs.
The humanitarian crisis in the DRC begs for a solution that includes a way to prevent coltan and other natural resources from providing a never-ending supply of funding for war. At the same time, providing incomes for innocent people seeking to subsist cannot be overlooked. Slap a conflict on the scale of the Second World War in which 6.5 million people have been killed so far and a world seemingly disinterested in forcing a solution on the region and you begin to see the true complexity and perhaps intractability of the problem.
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