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Author: Admin | 2025-04-28
Instead it is among the world’s poorest nations. This is because, in Central Africa, coltan is a conflict mineral — not unlike blood diamonds in Sierra Leone and Liberia — and are controlled by armed rebels and gangsters in connection with the unrest in the DRC. Although the last Congo War ended in 2003, the conflict and bloodshed continue, with a legacy of child soldiers and sex slaves, over 200,000 women and children raped, and over 5 million dead — 40 percent children — and as many displaced. Even 77 percent of the Grauer’s gorilla population has been wiped out in the last two decades due to the illegal mining — along with hunting, loss of habitat and civil unrest — with only 4,000 remaining of the world’s largest primates.Various military groups have controlled the mineral deposits and exploited the local population. After the illicit coltan is relabeled and sent to legitimate smelters, it is processed and made into capacitors, and sold to electronics companies such as Apple, Samsung, IBM, Dell, Sony, Cisco, HP and a host of others.The United Nations has a peacekeeping force of thousands in the DRC, in a region that has more than 30 armed groups, including anti-government forces, and a president who has remained beyond his term. Aside from the rebels, militias and organized crime organizations are profiting from control of coltan, foreign corporations exploit the country for its minerals without paying billions of dollars in taxes. The Friends of the Congo identified the following corporations as some of the key players in the foreign exploitation of the Congo: Cabot Corporation, OM Group, AVX, Eagle Wings Resources International, Trinitech International, Kemet Electronics Corporation, and Vishay Sprague in the U.S.; HC Starc and EPCOS (Germany); Nigncxia (China), and George Forrest International (Belgium). Neighboring countries in Central
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