Coltan

A valuable resource that many of us take for granted instigated multiple bloody and terrible wars in Africa. Columbite-tantalite, known as coltan for short, is a heavily sought after material, due to the fact that when it is refined, it becomes Tantalum, which sells for $100 or more per pound, and is used in many items we use on a daily basis, including phones, computers, and more.

So what about such a seemingly harmless mineral could be so dangerous? Most of it is mined in Canada, Australia and Brazil, and they keep tight legal restrictions on mining operations. However, for nearly fifteen years, coltan funded the civil wars of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The cost of the mining in the DRC was 5.4 million human lives, a total unseen since World War II, and even after a peace treaty was signed in 2006 by the new president of the country, a heavily mined area of the Congo, Shabunda, has reported over 2.3 thousand rapes between 2006 and 2009. Many are done at gunpoint, by the soldiers of the Congo’s army.

In order to deal with the obvious problems of funding a civil war, the UN instituted a trade ban and asset freezes on the DR Congo, hoping to end the war by way of attrition. However, even trade sanctions were incapable of preventing companies from trying to get a cheap deal on it, as legal actions were put against a number of United Kingdom companies for continuing to trade for Congo-mined coltan.

The coltan industry is enormous, accruing a net worth of approximately $6 billion per year, and seemingly will only continue to grow as we develop our technology further. The need to be careful of where these companies acquire their resources will also have to grow accordingly. The largest reason the civil wars in DR Congo lasted nearly two decades was due to funding from developed nations for their coltan, and companies continue to purchase it despite UN sanctions preventing such actions. If anything is to be done about the situation, it is best to start now than any time else. Once the next technological breakthrough comes out, it might be too late to stop another civil war from breaking out.

Sources:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8234583.stm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10767692

http://www.globalissues.org/article/442/guns-money-and-cell-phones