What is Coltan?
Coltan is mined by hand in the Congo by groups of people digging sinks
in streams by scrapping off the surface mud. The area that coltan is mined in
is where the mountain gorillas live. To make mining easier for the workers,
they cleared the land which caused the gorillas population to reduce by half. Another reason for mining for coltan is to
fund everyone that is involved with a civil war that occurred. A team can
"mine" one kilo of Coltan per day.
Some facts:
The tech boom caused the price of Coltan to rocket to as
high as US$600 per kilogram at one point, compared to a previous value of US$65
per kilogram, although it has settled down to around US$100 per kilogram at the
moment. A Coltan miner can earn as much as US$200 per month, compared to a
typical salary of US$10 per month for the average Congolese worker.
80% of the world's known coltan supply is in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, which the UN says is subject to "highly organized
and systematic exploitation."
Since the use
electronics has increased in developed places like here the price for coltan
has increased by $500/lb. the free market attempted to correct supply and demand
but because of this, severe environmental and human costs occurred.
One place where
coltan is found is Kahuzi Biega National Park. In 2001 over 10 000 people moved
to mining camps to earn money. Child labor is used for coltan mining, these
kids leave school.
What happens to
the minerals?
Almost none of
Coltan is exported by Congo, most of them are actually sneaked across the
border of Uganda and Rwanda. Here they are exported to the far east and are
very difficult to trace the origin of the metals.
Who earns money
from this?
The war lords
and army commanders make money so that they can buy more weapons and ammunition
to sustain control of the people.
How does this affect the people of Congo?
Workers in Congo
don’t benefit from this and it is one of the poorest countries in the world.
However, it is the richest in resources.
What are the
conditions of the Congolese workers?
D.R.C Invasion:
Rwanda and Uganda invaded
the D.R.C in August 98’. The main motivation for this invasion
was to gain control of the great quantity of natural resources the country was found
out to collect. Uganda and Rwanda played a major role in
the creation of the Rally for Congolese Democracy, these rebel groups were motivated more by economic
reasons. Recognizing that the official defense budgets of both Rwanda and
Uganda doesn’t cover the cost of the conflict, Paul Kagame, the President of
Rwanda, describes the war as “self financing,” This financing he is referring
to permitted the mining of coltan. The amount of fighting that actually happened between Rwanda and Uganda themselves
had increased in the “coltan belt.” This means an extending of land rich
in the mineral, in the eastern D.R.C.
Because of the
fighting it has caused, entire community devastation, an area with a major loss
in biodiversity.
If you were to
compare the immense profit made by electronic companies such as Sony miners
were very poorly paid and rewarded for their effort to complete their work. Also,
rising consumer demand for fancy electronics in developed nations got worse on environmental
inequalities for the people of the D.R.C.
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