The dark side of mobile technology
Gold, coltan and tugnsten: these three materials used to make mobile phones, consoles and other devices finance bloody conflicts in African countries.
Can you imagine a world without cell phones? Maybe now you're thinking about all the everyday actions you solve with your phone. But there's more. In some countries, they are a window - the only window - to freedom; thus, they were the essential support of the so-called revolutions of the Arab world. In others, such as ours, events such as the 15-M or the demonstrations following the attacks of 11 March 2004 in Madrid have become possible.
This device that we watch about 150 times a day, of which seventeen units per second are sold all over the world, has revolutionised the way we communicate and relate, how we live, how we demand from our politicians, how we denounce. And it is paradoxical that this instrument of freedom, in the broadest sense, can also, in some cases, be an instrument of oppression, of violation of human rights, of death, of slavery.
Many of the electronic devices we buy and use have been linked to the financing of armed conflicts around the world, such as those in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Central African Republic or Rwanda. These countries are very rich in some minerals and metals such as gold, tungsten, tantalum and tin, essential for our smartphone, tablet or any electronic device to turn on, recharge the battery, vibrate.
"They are known as conflict minerals and are those that, in one form or another, are related to crimes against humanity and armed groups in countries where they are obtained, which are often poor and developing," says Michael Gibb of Global Witness, an international NGO that has been investigating and denouncing the links between the exploitation of natural resources and armed conflict, poverty, corruption and human rights abuses since 1993.
Blood minerals
Although they are not the reason why these armed groups fight, they allow them to obtain money to buy weapons, pay their soldiers, attract more members and thus lengthen the war. To get these so-called blood minerals, they rape, kill, threaten, threaten, steal, kidnap and force people to work in inhuman conditions, as documented by both Global Witness and the UN.
"People are more familiar with this same situation around diamonds, which is the cause of civil wars in Angola, Sierra Leone or Liberia. And yet less is known about coltan, which is present in the products we use every day and is also stained with blood," says Gibb. And it regrets that the existence of natural resources in these poor countries, instead of helping the population, generating employment and development opportunities, is becoming a kind of curse'.
Although it is difficult to estimate a figure, in 2013 alone, according to a report by the Enough Project, an international non-profit organization, Congolese rebel groups generated nearly $1 billion (about 897 million euros) from illegally mined minerals.
African children with minerals.
Danish director Frank Poulsen was perhaps the first to show us what was happening with these conflict minerals. In 2010, he premiered the documentary Blood in the Mobile, which placed the issue on the social, political and business agenda.
Poulsen and his team shot in the DRC, one of the poorest countries in the world, despite the fact that, paradoxically, the UN estimates that it has untapped mineral reserves worth 24 trillion dollars (about 21.5 trillion euros).
Most of the mines from which these precious substances are extracted are located mainly in the provinces of North and South Kivu, bordering Rwanda, in the middle of very dense forests that can only be crossed on foot. One of the biggest reefs is Bisie in the Walikale region, where 20,000 people extract cassiterite, bauxite and coltan, basic minerals in electronics, from the labyrinthine bowels every day.
"Every day porters leave the mine and cross the jungle for two days with more than thirty tons of minerals on their backs. Many are children under the age of fourteen," Poulsen says. Around the sites are shantytowns made of rusted plastic. "Many people come here to try to make a living, but they have to pay money to go down to the mines or give some of the ore they manage to extract to the armed groups that guard them, or to corrupt soldiers in the army. Sometimes they have to pay so much that they get caught.
The tunnels are usually even 100 meters deep. It costs so much to get in and out that sometimes the galleries collapse and many die of suffocation or crushing. According to Poulsen, the Bisie mine alone is estimated to generate around 70 million dollars a year (62.8 million euros) in 2010.
The armed conflict in the DRC has been ongoing since 1996 and has caused more than 2.6 million displaced persons and the death of more than five million people. This is, in fact, the contest that has caused the most casualties since World War II.
Children in the mine
Bandi Mbubi is one of many Congolese who were able to flee their country to save their lives. He obtained political asylum in the United Kingdom, where he lives, and founded Congo Calling, a non-profit organization from which he seeks to denounce, raise awareness and put the situation in his country on the political agenda.
This activist reports that armed groups, as well as corrupt army factions, control all phases of mineral extraction. "There are children as young as eight years old down there. They force them in because the holes are small and narrow. They spend days underground scratching minerals. They don't go to school and the conditions for their health are dire," she says.
Minerals often leave the country through illegal trade, usually through the Rwandan border, where tantalum is passed off as Rwandan. It is estimated that 75 % of the funds supporting the Congolese armed conflict come precisely from the proceeds of these sales.
The materials extracted from these mines are essential for the manufacture of communication technologies. The main one is perhaps coltan, which is not a mineral in itself, but rather the name given to tantalum and columbite, both with many industrial applications, especially the former, which is used to manufacture capacitors, which store energy in mobile phones, consoles or portable devices.
Tungsten is another of these precious materials. It is very dense and makes it possible to manufacture very small and heavy parts, which makes it particularly useful in obtaining, for example, mobile vibrators. Gold is a very noble metal that does not rust, so it is applied in high quality microchips that require high performance.
In 2013, according to data from Global Witness, the European Union imported minerals from the DRC and its neighbouring countries worth around 19 million euros. However, these minerals also enter indirectly as part of a wide variety of products, such as computers, consoles, tablets or mobile phones. Two years ago, we bought 240 million phones and about 100 million laptops on the Old Continent.
Manufacturers and importers are aware of the link between raw materials and conflicts. "At first, when the issue of these minerals came to light in the late 1990s and their relationship to violence and war in the DRC, they were quick to say that they were not responsible because they could not control the production chain, nor were they the ones negotiating with the mines," Mbubi explains. Fortunately, something has rained since then.
In this decade, both the UN and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) have published reports warning of this relationship, as well as a very comprehensive guide for companies that use them, with recommendations to ensure that the minerals they buy are obtained ethically. And, recently, 12 African countries, including the DRC and Rwanda, have legislation requiring companies to check the supply chain.
"It is not a question of large companies not buying minerals in these countries, but of encouraging them to do so by first ensuring the conditions under which these resources have been obtained. They should take extra precautions, because they are extremely fragile countries. They should be very transparent and always report on their supply chain. The idea is to try to make a positive contribution to the development of these countries," says Gibb.
First legal initiatives
However, all these regulations and recommendations are of little use if the main buyers do not take action. In this regard, the United States Government took a major first step in 2010. It passed a law, known as Dodd-Frank, that requires companies in the DRC to determine whether their products contain one or more of the four major conflict minerals - tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold - and whether they have been mined in the DRC or in one of its nine neighbouring countries. For the first time, Western legislation sought to break the links between the Congo minerals business and the financing of armed groups.
And on 22 May 2015, the European Parliament voted a law with a similar will. The approved proposal aims to oblige companies, both manufacturers and suppliers of electronic materials, to control the processes of extraction and purchase of minerals. These regulations will require the auditing of 880,000 companies in the European Union that supply electronic equipment. The main problem is the supply chain that carries this ore from the time it is mined to the time it reaches the consumer, which is highly complex and branched. Not that it is very different from other sectors, such as textiles, food and finance, but it is extremely opaque.
"Food scandals in Europe - do you remember that horse meat affair? - caused social pressure on companies to cause them to give information about where the food came from, under what conditions it was made, where, under what conditions the workers were. We want to extend that approach to the minerals sector," says Gibb.
Some companies have already taken steps in this direction. And it can certainly already be noted that "the commitment of these companies to human rights increases the value of their brands. Right now there are like two markets in parallel: one that takes steps to become more and more transparent and the other very opaque," says Mbubi.