Conflict Minerals 101: Coltan, the Congo Act, and How You Can Help

We've heard a lot about blood diamonds and, more recently, about coltan. But what does it mean, exactly, for something to be a conflict mineral? Conflict Minerals Defined Conflict minerals are extracted from the earth in a country or region...

Conflict Minerals Defined

Conflict minerals are extracted from the earth in a country or region entangled in armed conflict. They come from mines controlled by armed groups, who then sell the resources to purchase weapons and other supplies—or luxuries. It's a cycle that essentially keeps the war going (no funds = no weapons = less violence), and is often also affiliated with spikes in sexual violence.

Conflict Minerals History: Diamonds and the Kimberley Process

"Blood diamonds" were the first conflict mineral to gain notoriety. In Angola, a country rich with diamonds and that suffered a 25-year-long civil war, the main rebel group UNITA is said to have gained $3.7 billion from diamonds in a span of six years alone. That was in the 1990s; the war has since ended, and the Kimberley Process is now in effect, which is meant to implement a system of monitoring and certification to ensure that diamond production does not fund rebel groups.

Check out this video, courtesy of the ENOUGH Project, for a quick intro.

The Kimberley Process is criticized widely because it is based on a system of voluntary self-regulation by the diamond industry, which is not seen as a reliable way of enforcing higher standards, and because inherent weaknesses in the system allow for smuggling of blood diamonds into the "conflict-free" trade. Global Witness reports, for example, that, "A United Nations Group of Experts on Cote d'Ivoire has recently found that poor controls are allowing significant volumes of blood diamonds to enter the legitimate trade through Ghana, where they are being certified as conflict free."

Aside from the criticisms is the fact that the Kimberley Process only addresses the direct connection between diamond production and funding for rebel groups—it says nothing about governments that may be oppressive or use violence, and it does not address even basic human rights issues.

Right now, the worst atrocities associated with diamond production are in Zimbabwe—these aren't quite conflict diamonds, because there is no war to speak of—but there are incredible human rights abuses, and Zimbabwean police and armed militia are literally using a "murderous approach," in the words of one Human Rights Watch researcher, to control the mines. (More on what to do about this below.)

Conflict Minerals: Coltan and the Congo

Coltan is the next well-known conflict mineral and in DRC, where "Africa's World War" has been ravaging the eastern part of the country for years, armed groups earn an estimated $8 million a year from sales of that mineral alone. The connection between mineral wealth and vulnerability to both conflict and poverty is seen in various regions around the world, from Africa to Asia to South America, but the Democratic Republic of Congo, with its unbelievable wealth of resources yet tremendous rates of poverty and violence, is the most extreme example of this "resource curse." Rapeoftentimes gang rape—has not only been used as a weapon of war, but sexual violence has seen an explosion among civilians, as well.

How Conflict Minerals Affect the World

Conflict minerals affect every aspect of the society they are mined in: quality and availability of education become compromised—or wiped out entirely—gender-based issues like basic inequality become horrific problems like mass rape, child labor becomes common, healthcare disappears, poverty increases, and the environmental impact, often detrimental, is rarely even measured.

Many conflict minerals come not from large, industrially-operated mines, but from "artisanal" and small-scale mining (a grouping often abbreviated ASM). In terms of bringing transparency to the supply chain, ASM often makes it difficult: a miner will often extract a small amount of coltan in the morning, report it to the owner, get his cash for it, buy some lunch, and then return to work. Or will save it until the end of the day—all mines are run differently, but one thing is relatively universal, and that is the haphazard nature of collecting and exporting minerals like coltan, which are extracted in small quantities, ultimately bought by the end user—say, an electronics company—in large quantities, and tend to change hands multiple times along the way.

The Most Common Conflict Minerals

Diamonds and coltan are the most talked about, but they are not the only conflict minerals. Gold, tin, and tungsten are next in line, followed by cobalt. There is no concrete list of conflict minerals, since so much mining around the world is done illegally and because few systems are in place to monitor the conditions under which mining is done—but, as the HRW researcher pointed out, resources in the world that are easily produced and quickly sold, by their nature, lend themselves to becoming conflict minerals.

Like in Zimbabwe, there are also many minerals for which mining involves abusive and dangerous conditions, but which are not necessarily funding rebel groups involved in conflict. In Burma, for example, rubies and jade support the repressive military regime. Sale of these Burmese minerals is now banned in the U.S. (for just that reason), but that doesn't mean the mining doesn't continue, and they are examples of resources that are deserving of a watchful eye even if they are not the current focus of international campaigns and NGOs.

Mines aren't usually very green, and human rights and environmental abuses often go hand in hand. "Not only has the mining industry brought conflict to the Amazon," writes a researcher at American University, "but it has brought contamination. Prospectors or garimpeiros use mercury to extract gold or tin from mining areas. Mercurial poisoning puts not only miners at risk, but any living creature exposed to the heavy metal in water or vapors. The use of mercury in water means that entire tributaries of the Amazon are poisoned."

How Conflict Minerals are Most Commonly Used

Conflict minerals end up in our everyday lives all over the place. Here's a sampler of how.

Coltan

Short for columbite-tantalite, coltan is refined into tantalum, which is extremely heat-resistant and a good conductor of electricity—making it literally irreplaceable in just about all of today's electronics. Tantalum capacitors are used in every laptop, cell phone, camera, and iPod you can find—as well as in aircraft engines and military equipment.

Tungsten

Ever wonder what makes cell phones vibrate? That's a mineral called tungsten at work. It's also mined in DRC, and brings armed groups there about $2 million a year.

Tin

Mined as cassiterite, tin is used as a solder on circuit boards. It also comes out of DRC, and earns armed groups there about $85 million a year.

Gold

It's no surprise that it's used in jewelry, but gold is also used in electronics—in quantities that total about 440 tons a year.

How You Can Help End Conflict Mineral Use

Currently, there is no mandatory law or framework for companies purchasing minerals from central Africa. Two bills currently in Congress—one in the House and one in the Senate—would create a system to audit and regulate international trade and help companies to stop buying conflict minerals. As David Sullivan of the ENOUGH Project pointed out to me, the first UN report on the connections between conflict and natural resource exploitation came out ten years ago, so we've known about this for a decade and there's been no serious action. It's time!

So, here are some things you can do to help stop conflict minerals:

Support legislation

Write your representatives in Washington to let them know you support the Conflict Minerals Trade Act.

Call for governmental reform of the Kimberley Process

There are no efforts currently underway to do so, but as was apparent in the Kimberley explanation above, there are a few points in the process that could use serious improvement.

Call for more accountability

for western aid that goes to DRC—and for aid to altogether stop supporting Rwanda and Uganda in their role in the ongoing conflict.

Learn more about companies you buy from:

With things like coltan, it can be truly hard for companies to know where their supplies are coming from, but the greater demand there is for transparency, the greater the results will be. With diamonds, it can make a difference immediately. HRW suggests asking retailers where their diamonds come from—and if they don't know, will not find out, or refuse to ensure it's not from the mines controlled by the military in Zimbabwe, don't buy. Tiffany has been outspoken about this—others should follow. (Of course, the safest, greenest option is to not buy diamonds, buy artificial, or buy used.)

Companies like HP are working to clean up their supply chain, and a more formal infrastructure (see step one!) would help speed up those efforts and make them more successful.

Buy Less

The more rapidly we consume things, the higher the demand is for the products that are driving this trade.

Recycle More

Recycle more, especially your electronics. It's important for so many reasons aside from the coltan trade, but electronics recycling can help to mitigate the demand for new coltan, as well.

For other ideas and to stay on top of the issue, check out the ENOUGH Project's conflict minerals and Take Action page, Human Rights Watch's Zimbabwe diamonds page, Causecast's action page, and Raise Hope for Congo's ideas for action.