Illegal mining funds DRC rebels

The United Nations says illegal mining operations are providing funding for the rebel groups behind the renewed conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The contested eastern region is home to thousands of open diamond, gold, copper and cassiterite mines. Cassiterite is the primary ore of tin and a crucial element in electronic circuitry. The region accounts for 5% of the global supply and is worth $70 million a year. While these minerals’ combined worth is billions of dollars, only a tiny fraction of that reaches the pockets of ordinary citizens. BBC News reports that rebel groups, as well as the Congolese army, trade in the minerals and that provides the money to enable them to keep fighting. “To reach the world market the ore is flown to the regional capital of Goma and then, via Rwanda and Uganda, it reaches east African ports of Mombasa in Kenya and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania,” says Harrison Mitchell of the Resource Consulting Services. The ore is then shipped to smelters, predominantly in India, China, Malaysia and Thailand, who buy tin on the open market and profess to be unaware of the illegal origins of the minerals. Proposals to limit the illegal trade range from calls for a total ban which will unfortunately also hurt the local population, to the idea of chemically identifying the varieties of tin coming out of each area, which would allow exporters to filter out the worst sources.