Fighting Rape in the Congo

The Daily Beast currently has several features on rape in Congo.  A blog post by Dana Goldstein checks in on a $17 million US government program.

The State Department has provided The Daily Beast with documents detailing how the $17 million to fight sexual violence have been allocated, mostly toward treatment programs for rape survivors. But human rights advocates hope for more. They believe the US should stop sending hundreds of millions of dollars in aid--including military training--to Rwanda and Uganda, whose armed militias perpetrate violence and rape across the border in Congo. They also criticize the administration and Congress for failing to crack down on multinational corporations that operate mines in the country, some of which have paid off armed groups in exchange for access to mineral deposits.

And advocates contend the U.S. should take a leadership role in reforming the United Nations mission in Congo, MONUC, which is regarded as ineffectual at best, corrupt and complicit at worst. The U.S. contributes about a quarter of the funding for the mission—about $337.5 million annually—but no troops. MONUC’s mixed record has led Congolese President Joseph Kabila to pressure the UN to pull its peacekeepers out of Congo by the end of 2011.

She points to the mining trade as a root of the violence and notes that bipartisan legislation that requires electronics companies to disclose whether manufacturing materials are sourced from the Congo does not go far enough.

But critics say the international community, led by the United States, needs to police the mining industry more heavily, and ensure that a significant percentage of Congo's mining profits benefit the nation's citizens. "Electronics companies are seven steps down the supply chain,” said Carney of Friends of the Congo. “Focus on the mining companies. Impunity exists not only in Congo but all the way up the chain to the international level.”

Other highlights of the feature include a profile of Chouchou Namegabe, an anti-rape activist, and a photo essay of survivors of sexual violence.

Bad Branding

I've written before about "conflict minerals," i.e. minerals that are tied to armed conflict in the Congo and that are used in computers. AMD has inexplicably named their new chip "The Congo."
On the ENOUGH blog, David Sullivan writes:

Did someone actually think it was a good idea to name a microchip after the Congo? It is, after all, the place where trade in minerals vital to technology like ultra-thin laptops is fueling the deadliest conflict in the world.

Okay, AMD isn’t one of the 21 companies that Enough has contacted about Congo’s conflict minerals, so I can understand that they didn’t get the memo. But apparently Hewlett Packard is one of the laptop manufacturers planning to use the new ‘Congo’ chip technology, and they have been one of the most outspoken companies attempting to address mineral supply chain issues. So maybe the folks over AMD are tracing the supply chains for their minerals as we speak, and we can look forward to a microprocessor that’s billed as ‘conflict-free.’ That or courtesy of a truly egregious public relations error we can look forward to some exciting new entries in the Come Clean 4 Congo YouTube contest… Either way, it should be interesting!

Conflict Minerals

Most people are familiar with "conflict diamonds" or "blood diamonds." An article on The Root calls attention to "conflict minerals" that are found in our computers and cell phones. Tin, tungsten, tantalum and gold ores are tied to the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo that has left over five million people dead.

The mining of the minerals is dangerous enough, but the real casualties are the countless civilians caught in the middle of half a dozen armed groups that vie for control over the lucrative trade in black market minerals, including, at various times, the Rwandan, Ugandan and Congolese armies. These groups are responsible for murder, torture, mutilation, the rape of hundreds of thousands of women and countless other human rights atrocities.

What should electronics companies be doing to stem the violence? Cell phone manufacturers like Samsung, Motorola, Apple and Nokia have long had official policies against the use of conflict minerals in their products. However, supply chains are notoriously difficult to trace; conflict minerals and the electronic components that use them may pass through dozens of middlemen before reaching American consumers, and most manufacturers simply take their suppliers' word for it. (This is particularly problematic given that much of the ore is used for parts made in China, a country hardly known for its transparency.)

This is why NGOs such as the Enough Project, launched by the Center for American Progress, and Global Witness are calling for the new bill to provide for independent audits. However, audits take money, will and capacity that quite simply does not exist in most poor countries. Imperfect monitoring mechanisms have meant that nine years after the Kimberly Certification Process, blood diamonds still seep across Africa's porous borders.

There are no quick or certain solutions. With complex origins in the Rwandan genocide and the long absence of a functioning government in the region, ending the conflict, which has involved, at various times, two dozen different rebel groups, armies and their various factions, is much more than a matter of cleaning up the supply chain. Moreover, complete sanctions and boycotts would likely do more harm than good, a recent UN report concluded. Two million informal workers and their families rely on their earnings from the mines, however meager, and armed groups, although motivated by greed, are also often motivated by necessity. The poverty, disease and starvation that would result from walling off the trade completely would be as devastating as the carnage of bullets and machetes.

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The Congo Conflict Minerals Act, a bill introduced last month by Sens. Sam Brownback, Dick Durbin and Russ Feingold, aims to suppress this trade by making the supply chain more transparent. The bill, if passed, would map rebel-controlled mines and require U.S.-registered companies whose products use minerals from Congo and neighboring countries to report the mines of origin to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Genocide Intervention Network's latest newsletter also mentions Congo Conflict Minerals Act and suggests reading ENOUGH's strategy paper, "A Comprehensive Approach to Congo's Conflict Minerals."