International certification could ensure Congo minerals are not from mines run by commanders of armed groups, Enough Project says.
DAKAR (AlertNet) - How can companies sourcing minerals from Congo invest in its economy, sustain employment and make a profit without fuelling a brutal conflict that has killed 5.4 million people in the central African nation?
The answer is a credible international certification system tracing minerals that are not coming from mines run by commanders of armed groups, according to a report released on Thursday by the U.S.-based Enough Project, an organization fighting genocide and crimes against humanity.
For over a decade, armed groups have committed atrocities in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo in their battle for control of lucrative minerals used to produce electronics and jewellery worldwide.
Armed groups and military units earn hundreds of millions of dollars a year by trading in tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold, financing violent campaigns against civilians, with some of the worst abuses occurring in mining areas, the report said.
"The minerals that go into our automobiles, electrical products, electronic products, and jewellery need a certification system that has penalties and independent monitoring to weed out the products that fuel violence," said John Prendergast, the co-founder of the Enough Project.
The report, Certification: The Path to Conflict-Free Minerals from Congo, suggests certification should not be left in the hands of governments, some of which have been involved in Congo's longstanding insecurity.
It draws from the shortcomings of the Kimberley Process, a certification system meant to prevent the marketing of so-called "blood diamonds" from mines run by armed groups involved in the Liberia and Sierra Leone wars of the 1990s.
MORE TO CONFLICT THAN MINERALS
The report called for a U.S.-led approach to the certification question that would involve regional governments, governments in consumer countries, businesses and local and international civil society.
It said that would add robustness to existing certification efforts by Congo and its neighbours, through regional organisation, the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR).
Enough Project urged strong leadership from Washington in this project. The United States is home to the largest end-user companies of conflict minerals and is a powerful diplomatic player in Africa's Great Lakes region.
"This is an unparalleled moment to create real change in Congo, act as a positive incentive after the legislation, and shine a light on this deadly trade," Enough Project said.
However, analysts said dealing with conflict minerals was only part of the problem in Congo, and addressing this would not necessarily end the violence.
"There is no doubt that minerals constitute a large part of the conflict economy in the eastern Congo and dealing with the conflict minerals issue is important," said Jason Stearns, author of Dancing in the Glory of Monsters, a book on Congo's wars.
"But minerals were not the origin of the conflict in Congo and solving the conflict minerals issue is not going to bring an end to the conflicts," he told AlertNet.
LIMITING AMBITIONS
Analysts argue that improving life in Congo involves strengthening governance, delivering real security, stronger institutions and jobs, and a state that acts for the common good rather than the self-interest of its rulers, which various groups use as a reason to take up arms.
"It is not clear that the traceability will actually end violence," says Laura Seay, a Congo expert and professor of political science at Morehouse College in the United States.
"There are some groups that are fighting not over money, not over minerals; they are fighting for land rights on ethnicity and they are not after mines at all," she told AlertNet on the phone from Atlanta.
Lawlessness in eastern Congo also means traceability at source could be very difficult to achieve and this could cause companies to quit Congo and go elsewhere for their minerals, thereby placing a de facto embargo on minerals from the country.
This could have tough consequences for millions of people whose livelihoods depend on mining, experts said. Nearly 300,000 miners and their families - as many as 1.5 million people - have been affected across Congo's eastern and southern regions as the industry races to put in place traceability programmes, U.S-based development agency PACT said.
New U.S. legislation, the Dodd-Frank financial reform act, will also target the sourcing of 'conflict minerals' such as tantalum, tin and gold later this year.
"We need to limit our ambitions a bit and ensure that companies are not held to an impossible standard," Stearns said.
"Conflict minerals are not the main origin of the conflict in Congo but dealing with conflict minerals is nonetheless very important and a good and intelligent way of dealing with one aspect of the conflict," he added.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
