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The Human Cost of Cheap Cell Phones
15 McKinney hearing, April 16, 2001.
16 Dena Montague, “Stolen Goods: Coltan and Conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” SAIS Review 22, no. 1 (Winter-Spring 2002).
17 Amy Goodman and David Goodman, The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers and the Media That Love Them (New York: Hyperion Press, 2004).
18 Montague and Berrigan, “The Business of War;” Ismi, “Congo: The Western Heart of Darkness;” “Report of the Panel of Experts,” 2001; Five Years On: A Review of the OECD Guidelines and National Contact Points, September 22, 2005, www.oecdwatch.org/docs/OECD_Watch_5_Years_On.pdf; All Party Parliamentary Group, “Illegal Minerals and Conflict.”
19 “Report of the Panel of Experts,” 2001.
20 “IMF Concludes 2002 Article IV Consultation with Rwanda,” September 20, 2002, www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pn/2002/pn02104.htm; “Rwanda Laying Foundations for ‘Robust Growth,’” afrol News, www.afrol.com/html/News2002/rwa023_econ_growth.htm; “IMF Executive Board Completes Final Review of Uganda’s PRGF Arrangement and Approves 16-Month Policy Support Instrument,” Press Release No. 06/14, January 24, 2006.
21 One of these corporations was Kinross Forrest. Not surprisingly, it was headed by Belgian war profiteer George Forrest, whose past mineral piracy in the Congo had earned him censure by the UN: “Congo Asset Strip,” Mines and Communities website, February 27, 2006, www.minesandcommunities.org/Action/press949.htm
22 Rights and Accountability in Development (RAID) press releases, “Group Calls on World Bank to Investigate Mining Contracts; Bank’s Failed Reform Project in DR Congo,” February 27, 2006; Letter to Paul Wolfowitz, President, World Bank Group, February 27, 2006, www.raid-uk.org/news.htm; “Congo Asset Strip,” February 27, 2006. The World Bank also proved true to John Perkins’ assessment of its mortality in its dispersal of insurance money to corporations in Congo. The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), the insurance arm of the World Bank, approved “political risk” insurance for Australian-owned Anvil Mining’s copper and silver mine in Dikulushi in September 2004. One month later, Anvil provided logistical support to the Congolese army during its violent suppression of a small-scale rebel uprising in the nearby town of Kilwa. The offensive killed as many as 1200 civilians. The World Bank investigated the matter, under the orders of Paul Wolfowitz, but delayed releasing the report until nongovernmental organizations protested. The Australian police are currently investigating Anvil, which has claimed that eh army commandeered its vehicles and food. “World Bank Buries Internal Report on Controversial Congo Mining Project,” January 31, 2006. http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes/3933.html.
23 Rights and Accountability in Development (RAID), Unanswered Questions: Companies, Conflict and the Democratic Republic of Congo: Executive Summary, report, April 2004, p.2, www.raid-uk.org/docs/UN_Panel_DRC/Unanswered_Questions_Full.pdf
24 Human Rights Watch, “The Curse of Gold: IX. International Initiatives to Address Resource Exploitation in the DRC,” http://hrw.org/reports/2005/drc0505/12.htm#_Toc102992181; RAID, Unanswered Questions; All Party Parliamentary Group on the Great Lakes Region, “The OECD Guidelines and the DRC,” February 7, 2005, www.appggreatlakes.org/cgi-bin/site/index.cgi?back=&pid=75&keywords=2005&topic=.
25 E-mail to the author, April 7, 2006.
26 See, for example, http://www.cbc.ca/story/news/national/2002/10/24/mining_congo021024.html0
27 “OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises: 2005 Annual Meeting of the National Contract Points,” https://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/20/13/35387363.pdf
28 See www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2003/sc7642.doc.htm. The Panel of Experts member cited wrote in his email to the author, “It was clear that its purpose was not to do further research but rather to find some way to exonerate a large number of those companies who had been named.”
29 Some corporations that had acquired cheap coltan from Rwanda during the coltan boom of 1999-2000 claimed that the fact that they had stopped buying it from Rwanda after 2001 meant that they were responsive to ethical considerations. For example, the US-based Kemet Corporation announced in 2003 that it would require its suppliers to “provide a Letter of Certification that they do not or will not, (a) illegally mine any tantalum material from the Congolese mines, (b) purchase any illegal material containing tantalum, including coltan, from the Congolese mines and (c) sell any illegal material to KEMET from such mines”: www.kemet.com/kemet/web/homepage/kechome.nsf/weben/KEMET%20Supports%20Avoiding%20Tantalum%20Mined%20in%20Restricted%20Areas%20of%20Congo. However, piracy might again serve as a useful analogy: pirates who had spent several years raping and pillaging their way up and down a seacoast would not be absolved by the argument that “We haven’t done that for at least two years.”
30 See www.foe.org/camps/intl/unreportmemo.pdf. Copies of the UN reports and letters that FoE and the UK group RAID (Rights and Accountability in Development) have sent government officials regarding corporations’ lack of compliance are available at www.foe.org/new/releases/84drccomplaint.html.
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