Posts Tagged ‘Raise Hope for Congo Campaign’
Survey: Top 3 solutions the grassroots should push to solve the crisis in Congo?
Some of my recent posts on conflict minerals have sparked some lively, substantive debate on the best solutions for Congo. Brilliant! Let’s continute the discussion on key solutions for Congo.
Several months ago, I had the great pleasure of meeting with the brilliant Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold’s Ghost and Bury the Chains, and expert on building social movements. He explained that every successful social movement has no more than 3 or 4 key “asks”/ levers to address the issue. Think “Ban Apartheid” or “Abolish Slavery”.
I have some solid ideas, but no easy answers. So I ask you- I’d love your thoughts: What are the top 3 actionable “asks” or levers the grassroots should push for to solve the crisis in Congo?
Anyone? Anyone?
I’ll post my thoughts after others have a chance to share!
Show me the money. How your cell phone is funding atrocities in Congo & what you can do about it.
When I speak to groups about Congo on the human cost of the war in Congo, some keen individual always raises their hand in the back of the room and asks, “So who’s making money off of all this?”
Ding, ding, ding, ding! It’s the hundred million dollar question.
The DR Congo is among the most mineral rich countries on the planet, with stores of more than 1,100 minerals, including diamonds, gold, copper, tin, cobalt, tungsten, and 15-20% of the world’s tantalum, otherwise known as coltan, an essential semi-conductor in electronics like cell phones, laptops, video games, and digital cameras. You likely have a chunk of Congo in your pocket.
The United Nations has accused all nations involved in the conflict as using the war as a cover for looting. How does it work? Militias control territories that contain mines. The militias mine and export themselves, or “tax” locals who do the work for them. Everyone seems to be in on the action: Corrupt government officials who line their pockets through shady contracts; foreign militias; foreign governments who back militias; the Congolese government army; the Mai Mai and other home-grown militias; and of course, the Interahamwe, who control the majority of mines in South Kivu. In a few cases, even UN soldiers. The New York Times ran a report by Lydia Polgreen in December 2008, outlining such an operation, run by a renegade Congolese army brigade, who control a remote, mineral rich area, “master of every hilltop as far as the eye can see.” Unchallenged, they employ locals at ultra-low wages to mine, block all paths, and lug loads of ore via remote forest trails- as far as 30 miles- to the nearest road, where the goods are trucked to a stretch of road that serves as a landing strip for Soviet-era cargo planes, who fly them to Goma or out of Congo. How much does a guy make carving out his own slice of this pie? One official estimates $300,000 to $600,000 in “taxes” alone. This operation is estimated to be worth as much as $80 million a year.
The goods are illegally exported to countries like Rwanda or Uganda, who in turn ship them to processing plants, primarily in Asia. Eventually, large corporations buy them and distribute these conflict riches around the world in the form of our favorite consumer goods: diamond engagement rings, Sony Playstations waiting under the Christmas tree, that sleek, new MacBook Air, or our ever-precious Crack-berries.
According to The Enough Project, in 2008 alone, armed groups will have made $185 million from illegal trade of Congo’s minerals. Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi, as well as Congolese government officials, have made hundreds of millions of dollars off of the Congo plunder. For instance, in the first half of 2008, Rwanda’s primary tin mine will produce about five tons per month. Yet, in the same period Rwanda will report 2,679 tons in tin exports. According to UN reports, when Rwanda seized control of eastern Congo in the late 1990’s, they smuggled hundreds of millions of dollars worth of coltan, cassiterite, and diamonds to Rwanda. The New York Times quotes one Rwandan government official, “I used to see generals at the airport coming back from Congo with suitcases full of cash.”
But rebel groups can only control the minerals if they control the territory. And they can only control the territory if they control the people. And there is one age-old way to control the people: terror. As one Harvard researcher puts it, there seems to be a “competition among armed groups to be the most brutal.”
We can stop the atrocities in Congo if we stop the gravy train fueling the conflict. Log onto the Enough Project website and send a message to 21 of the top electronics companies letting them know you support Conflict free electronics. It takes about a minute. Then reach out to your friends and ask them to do the same.
http://www2.americanprogress.org/t/1659/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=6265
Ruined
A couple of weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to see a staged reading of the Pulitzer Prize winning play Ruined, hosted by the Enough Project at The Kennedy Center. The theater was packed with many of my Congo friends- policy wonks, activists, researchers, and even Congolese friends I knew in Bukavu. Though the performance was stripped to bare bones- actors in head to toe black, reading from scripts perched on a row of music stands, it took me straight back to Congo.
After countless hours in South Kivu interviewing hundreds of women on “the trouble they got from war”, I have to say, the play was dead accurate. Consistent. This is remarkable, considering the playwright conducted her research in refugee camps in Uganda, many hundreds of miles north of South Kivu where I spent my time. But the stories were the same, the horror painfully common, despite the vast geographical expanse. Nothing in the play was new or shocking. For women to be “ruined” in identical fashion over such a wide ranging area, at the hands of different militias (which the playwright kept vague, I presume intentionally) means despite Congo’s chaos, the terror is clearly systematic.
The acting was near perfect, the story compelling, but my reaction was a surprise even to me. I’ve been absorbing these stories for years, and for the most part I’ve been fine. But the show was unexpectedly painful. I sensed it as the play ended on a poignant, hopeful note, and everyone gathered their things and exited the theater. The actors stood outside greeting guests. For a second, I thought of saying hello and congratulating them. Then I realized I couldn’t, no more than I could indulge my friends in a post-performance rehash of the show. It was too real. So real it stirred something in me that has been brewing over the last few weeks. I made a beeline for the elevator. I knew if I opened my mouth, it would not be able to hold back tears. And crying in public is just not done in DC. So I just shut up, or changed the subject, avoided eye contact, and got out of there.
