The rebels have taken over several important cities: at issue is the origin of our batteries – obtained in a country where violations, deaths and hunger are increasingly recurring.
The rebel coalition of the Congo Fogo (AFC), from which the M23 forces stand out, claimed to take another mining city in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (RDC), just over a week after taking the Control of the largest city in the region, gum.
It is an internal conflict that, but has watched an increasingly brutal development of war: combatants violate populations, kill indiscriminately and, to join the nightmare, the spread of viruses like the Ebola increasingly aggravates the humanitarian crisis in country.
After a brief, the rebels continue to occupy highly rich resource zones, more in critical minerals. These minerals are one of the main reasons for civil war – The rebels want to have the control of the mines.
“Access to natural resources is at the center of this conflict,” analyst Jean Pierre Okenda, regarding the possession of territories in the East by the M23, told analyst. “It is not a coincidence that the areas occupied by the rebels are mining areas,” he said.
In truth, 40% of the distributed tantalum around the world comes from the DRC. The ore through which this metal is extracted is the Coltanpresent in the mines of the African country. But what substance is this?
The tantalum present on your mobile device weighs less than half of a pea, compares to, but is essential for the efficient operation of any smartphone and almost everyone else electronic devices sophisticated.
When buying a mobile phone, we are buying tantalum, a rare, blue, bright and shiny metal, used to keep the battery lasting.
Theoretically, the US Dodd-Frank Law, approved in 2010, and a legislative act that resembles this one, aims to ensure that the companies that buy tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold-the calls “Conflict minerals” – They are not financing violence.
In addition, the neighboring country is also accused of trying to extract these critical minerals, invading RDC zones. “Rwanda mineral exports have increased After your forces have Assumed Control Of important mining areas in the DRC, ”the country’s Minister of Communications, Patrick Muyaya, told CNN.
However, still last December the RDC in the mines dominated by the rebel forces.
The Okenda analyst summarizes: “It takes money to make the war. Access to mining extraction sites finances the war. ”
Our mobile phones are then like a pennies that we innocently deposit in the rebels’s sounheiro.
CAROLINA BASTOS PEREIRA, ZAP //
