Blood on your phone

They allow your Blackberry to vibrate and your iPod to play your favourite song.  They are also fueling the bloodiest conflict since World War Two, spurring mass murder and rape as a weapon of war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The conflict minerals industry, worth millions, extracts tin, tantalum and tungsten (known as the 3 Ts)  and gold. Rebel groups and militias within the Congolese army make money by taxing the mines and smuggling routes. They rape men and women as a tool of coercion.

Once the minerals are illegally smuggled out of the country, they head to smelters in Asia where they are mixed together with other minerals from around the world. This makes them difficult but not impossible to trace. They are eventually processed into components in the products Canadians know and love: laptops, digital cameras, game consoles and cell phones.

The source of minerals that will eventually become critical components of electronic devices in the West. 

Mandating change

If reelected on May 2, Ottawa Centre NDP MP Paul Dewar plans to reintroduce Bill C-571 - the Trade in Conflict Minerals Act. The bill, supported by Etobicoke Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj, is a response to a UN’s proposal to end the trade of conflict minerals.

“No one wants to be an accomplice to this horrific gender violence,” Dewar said in an interview late last year. “It’s reasonable to ensure when I buy an iPhone that it is indeed rape-free and not supporting the conflict.” 

According to a study by the International Rescue Committee, there have been more than five million war-related deaths in the Congo. Approximately 45,000 people continue to die each month.

Although the legislation passed its first reading last September, Bill C-571 died when the Governor General dissolved parliament in late March for the election. Dewar’s legislative assistant, Kiavash Najafi, says Dewar plans to reintroduce the bill at the first opportunity.

The bill would force electronics companies to monitor their suppliers for conflict minerals. In addition, a “corporate social responsibility counselor” would report to the minister and parliament as to which companies are not practicing due diligence in their purchasing.

Najafi says the bill would make it harder for rebels to sell the resources.

“This bill curbs the financial lifeline of this conflict,” Najafi says.

Missing the mark

However, some people familiar with the situation are skeptical about the impact Western legislation could actually have. It won’t play a strong role in combating problems in the Congo because it won't address the root of the conflict, says Laura Seay, an assistant professor of political science at Atlanta’s Morehouse College and who has worked in the Congo.

“I'm among those who are very cynical about the prospects for this approach doing much to help end the conflict in the Congo,” she says. 

Seay says the country’s problems are based on state failure, which cannot be fixed by foreign government action. Instead, she says Canada should support the rebuilding of state institutions like the army, court and police systems

.Almost none of the profits from Congo's lucrative mining industry return to benefit everyday Congolese. 

In addition, Seay points out that if legislation makes companies wary of buying the minerals, they may boycott Congolese dealers altogether. This could be devastating for the community as estimates suggest about one million Congolese are dependent on the mineral trade, militarized or not, for their livelihood. 

“That's one million people who would be out of work and who lack other opportunities to earn money,” Seay says.

Creating transparency

Just as food companies list ingredients on packaging, legislation would create more transparency in the supply chain, says Darren Fenwick, senior manager of government affairs for the Enough Project. The Washington-based human rights initiative has seen dramatic changes in the last two years, including legislation in the United States and recommendations from the UN.

The Enough Project recently ranked 21 electronics companies based on how thoroughly they investigated their supply chains and identified minerals in their smelters. The smelters represent the crucial point in the supply chain right before minerals are processed into metals.

“The idea is to create transparency in the supply chain and to make this information public,” Fenwick says. “And yes, it is naming and shaming.”

According to the Enough Project’s 2010 Executive Summary, HP, Motorola and Intel are most active in identifying the source of their minerals while Panasonic, Canon and Nintendo rank last.

The road to change?

Canada isn’t the only country heeding the UN’s call for action. In July 2010, the United States Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Act. The act requires electronics companies to report annually on whether conflict minerals are in their supply chains and if they are, what steps they are taking to reduce them.

According to Maurice Carney, executive director of Friends of the Congo, the U.S. legislation and the current Canadian efforts will only make a difference if they’re coupled with Western aid and political reform.

“The Congolese state needs to clean up its act across the board,” he says. “The degree to which rebel groups and Congolese soldiers control Congo's mines is related to the lack of political authority and democratic space allowed by the Kinshasa government.”

The Congolese conflict is very complex and there is no easy solution, says Fenwick, who plans to visit the Congo at the end of April. However, he says awareness is building and more Canadian consumers are realizing Congolese conflict is closer to home than they think.

- with files from Ruby Pratka

From the Congo to your pocket

Did you ever wonder what really goes in your MP3 player, and where the hundreds of different components that set your music pumping come from? Most minerals that go in high-tech equipment are mined in low-tech parts of the world like rural areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where a long-running resource war has placed the mines -- and the local populations -- under a reign of terror imposed by various armed militias. The militias sell the minerals to resellers, who sell them to exporters in African cities, who sell them to processing plants in Europe or Asia. The processed metal is sold to components factories where it is made into things like semiconductor chips and circuit boards. The components are then sold to factories in Asia and North America, which make the electronic devices we know and love. Finally, the manufactured products are shipped to electronics stores all around the Western world.

Capital News takes you on a journey through this convoluted supply chain. 

Photos 1-2 courtesy of Sasha Lezhnev, The Enough Project. Photo 3 by Kittikun Atsawintarangkul / FreeDigitalPhotos.net. Photos 4-6 copyright Ruby Pratka