New Legislation Targets The Export of Conflict Minerals

Democratic Republic of Congo’s government said it will block exports of tin ore, gold, coltan and wolframite unless traders can prove the minerals come from mines that are certified by the state as conflict-free.

The move, the latest in a series of initiatives to try and cut the link between minerals and conflict, will be rolled out over the next three months, Mines Minister Martin Kabwelulu said on Tuesday.

A slew of legislative and regularity initiatives, including the U.S. Dodd-Frank financial oversight law, have started to have an impact on Congo’s mines, many of which have long been unregulated and fought over by pro- and anti-government armed groups.

Kabwelulu said Congo’s mines will be mapped and certified on a regular basis and that exporters of the four minerals, which are widely used in the electronics industry, will then have secure documents showing their shipments are clean.

“All minerals that are exported without these documents will be seized, and the exporters will be (viewed as) smugglers,” Kabwelulu told journalists in Kinshasa.

Uncertainty over existing schemes targeting conflict minerals has slashed exports from the eastern Kivu provinces, and Kabwelulu warned that traders may face further disruptions while the scheme is put in place. 

-Originally printed by Rueters

Congo Army Reclaims Two Conflict Mines

The Congolese army captured two of the largest minerals mines in eastern Congo last week—the enormous Bisie tin mine and the Omate gold mine. If the objective is to enable conflict-free minerals from Congo to be sold in international markets, the Congolese government should ensure that the army hands these mines over to the mining police as soon as possible. The army and the United Nations peacekeeping force, MONUSCO, should then deploy at a perimeter around the mines to protect from armed incursions. Without these steps, the demilitarization of mines that occurred in 2011 would take a step backwards.

The rebel groups Mayi-Mayi Sheka and the FDLR had been controlling the trade from these two mines in recent months, after the army had vacated them in early 2011. Following Congolese government decrees and international pressure not to purchase conflict minerals, Bisie mine, which accounts for around 70 percent of North Kivu’s tin production, is currently only operating at between 10 to 25 percent of normal production. The rebel groups had been controlling the minimal production that was occurring at the mine and likely selling to Chinese buyers at about one-third of the normal price. So they had been making significantly less money.

The government, with MONUSCO backing, started to demilitarize several mines in eastern Congo last year as part of a multi-step reform to clean up the minerals trade.  The model was to train Congolese mining police and deploy them directly at mines, in place of the army. Then the army and U.N. forces would deploy at a perimeter around the mines. So far, 200 new mining police have been hired and trained by the U.N. and the International Organization for Migration, making a total of 300 mining police for North Kivu province. Over the past week, Congolese civil society groups and mining cooperatives in Goma and Walikale have publicly called for the mining police to be deployed at the mines, in order to ensure civilian control over the minerals trade, not military control.

Mining police officials informed Enough that they were still waiting to hear from the military on when they could re-deploy to Bisie and Omate after the army’s recent takeover.

“The mining police should be deployed at the mines,” said Sadok Kitsa, the head of the regional association of minerals dealers ANEMNKI, explaining that now that the mine is out of the hands of Mayi-Mayi Sheka, and that the mining police should deploy to the mine and the army should form a perimeter several kilometers away.

“This should enable traceability,” Kitsa said. “Dodd-Frank came to help us to implement a traceability system, and this system will get the armed groups out of the mines.”

-Originally posted by “Enough Project”

Petition Calls For Conflict Mineral Free Campus

The student organization Yale Accountability and Corporate Transparency for Congo called for the University to become a “conflict-mineral free campus” in a recent petition sent to faculty members.

For the past two years, undergraduate and graduate student activists have lobbied the Yale administration to end any dealings with companies whose products contain “conflict minerals” from the Congo — minerals the students claim drive deadly conflicts in the region. Though the proposal has been under the review of Yale’s Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility for over a year, students have renewed their efforts on the issue by asking faculty and U.S. Senator John Kerry ’66 to pressure the administration to adopt the resolution. But ACIR committee chair Jonathan Macey LAW ’82 said Sunday that it is difficult for companies to know whether their products contain conflict minerals and that there is no concrete evidence that the students’ proposal would positively impact conflicts in the Congo.

“We couldn’t conclude with any certainty that if we started boycotting them it wouldn’t do more harm than good,” Macey said.

The newest effort to present a faculty petition to administrators has come from Jason Stearns GRD ’15, Julia Spiegel LAW ’13 and Nell Okie, a New Haven resident and member of the undergraduate-run New Haven Alliance for Congo.

Okie said she has reached out to members of the Yale community as well as Kerry, who she said sent a letter to University President Richard Levin in support of the proposal. The organizers had collected 14 faculty signatures as of Sunday night, according to Okie. She added that New Haven’s Peace Commission has also asked the Board of Aldermen to make the city “conflict mineral-free.”.

Spiegel said she and other activists are working to get input from experts that can be brought to the ACIR.

“We’ve gathered a series of Congo expert letters of support that we are going to deliver to Professor Macey and President Levin,” Spiegel said. “We’ve also written detailed follow-ups to ACIR about issues that may be holding up action, and we put together a faculty letter.”

Macey said the ACIR is continuing to deliberate on the issue, adding that data conflicts on whether the mineral trade in the Congo actually harms the region. While the petition claims that Stanford, Dartmouth, Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania have implemented policies opposing conflict minerals, Macey said the policies at those universities are “so full of contingencies” that they essentially have no effect.

Zahra Baitie ’14, the president of the Yale Undergraduate Association for African Peace and Development, said Yale can play a pivotal role in the conflict minerals issue because of the University’s status and purchasing power. Like Spiegel, Baitie noted the importance of collecting additional data on the topic.

“Information rather than signatures is what is needed,” Baitie said. “Advocates at Yale are working to help the Yale administration make an informed decision.”

In addition to the recent faculty petition, the African peace and development association drafted a letter on the issue to Levin, Chief Investment Officer David Swensen and Macey in November.

 

 

(Reprinted from Yale Daily News: Clifton Wang)