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Should you support the "conflict minerals" movement? - Chris Blattman - 0 views

chrisblattman.com/...the-conflict-minerals-movement rights intervention industry human extractive enough corporate congo coltan cellphones
shared by Arabica Robusta on 14 Aug 10 - Cached
  • Sometimes the correct message is complicated, and doesn’t sell well in the New York Times or Congress. Fair enough. People at Enough know a lot more about marketing than me. I think they’d argue that it’s more important to get attention than to get the message exactly right. Let’s say they’re right (a point I don’t necessarily concede). Here’s my advice: If you’re going to run a vulgar campaign, have the nuanced message in your back pocket for the people in the field who actually have to take action.
  • As I have previously said to Chris, it deeply saddens me to have read his post today and now your comment, Laura. You deride the Enough Project without understanding the complexity and depth of their work and the very committed and wonderful John Prendergast without ever having met him. How can you possibly find that fair. How do you see that helping the people of Congo. For two professors to behave in such a cruel and immature fashion is distressing and hurtful. I realize that you are not cognizant of this, but you are truly hurting yourselves in the process
  • Ultimately, I don’t envy the Enough Project’s position. It’s very hard to push policy on one side, while fending off allies who want you to do more on the other. I’d be willing to bet they do have that “nuanced message in the back pocket” that Chris wants, but their job isn’t to spread the nuanced message. That’s the job of academics and implementers. The Enough Project’s job is to make policy change happen. All that said, please keep criticizing them and pushing them to do better. But in the end, if you disagree with their strategic choices, you should leave academia and launch your own advocacy campaign: pick up the phone, raise the money, knock on the doors, and prove to them that a nuanced narrative can sell.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The industry has another, entirely different, choke point. The processors. There’s a very small number of companies that have the ability to take coltan and produce tantalum from it. No more than a handful globally. Cabot in the US, Fluminense in Brazil, Starck in Germany, a couple in China, Ulba in Kazakhstan. Perhaps a couple more.
  • The way to effect real change in this situation is to follow the flow of money. It is as simple as that. While I agree with Tim Worstall that the processors of tantalum are the ones who really would make the decision to stop purchasing conflict minerals, they would no longer have incentive to buy if the electronics industry didn’t keep BUYING. That is why IMHO emphasis has been put on the electronics brands. GlobalWitness recently released a report which many of you may find of interest. Here is the link: http://www.globalwitness.org/media_library_detail.php/1019/en/do_no_harm_a_gu
  • Arabica Robusta on 14 Aug 10
     
    Sometimes the correct message is complicated, and doesn't sell well in the New York Times or Congress. Fair enough. People at Enough know a lot more about marketing than me. I think they'd argue that it's more important to get attention than to get the message exactly right. Let's say they're right (a point I don't necessarily concede). Here's my advice: If you're going to run a vulgar campaign, have the nuanced message in your back pocket for the people in the field who actually have to take action.
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AfricaFiles | D R Congo: Natural resource exploitation and human rights - 0 views

www.africafiles.org/article.asp coltan congo rwanda uganda human rights
shared by Arabica Robusta on 14 Aug 10 - Cached
  • A number of foreign actors became directly involved in the exploitation of natural resources. The chaos and power vacuum brought about by the 1996 rebellion led to an opportunistic scramble for the DRC's resources. Everyone wanted a piece of the cake. Rebel groups and armies from neighbouring countries all helped themselves, some (such as Zimbabwe) with the blessing of the Congolese authorities, others (such as Rwanda or Uganda) by occupying territory by force or through proxy rebel groups, committing grave human rights abuses in the process
  • A number of foreign actors became directly involved in the exploitation of natural resources. The chaos and power vacuum brought about by the 1996 rebellion led to an opportunistic scramble for the DRC's resources. Everyone wanted a piece of the cake. Rebel groups and armies from neighbouring countries all helped themselves, some (such as Zimbabwe) with the blessing of the Congolese authorities, others (such as Rwanda or Uganda) by occupying territory by force or through proxy rebel groups, committing grave human rights abuses in the process
  • Companies and individual traders who were prepared to trade in natural resources produced in these conditions, or to trade with groups with notoriously bad human rights records, can also be considered to have contributed to, or even enabled, these human rights abuses. In some cases, they were directly implicated.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Province Orientale Province Orientale held even greater promise in terms of natural resources. With its diamond fields, gold mines, vast expanses of forests with valuable timber and barely explored oil reserves, Province Orientale was, in some ways, the biggest prize.
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 14 Aug 10
       
      resume here
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Texas in Africa: enough - 0 views

texasinafrica.blogspot.com/...enough.html congo extractive industry coltan cellphones enough corporate intervention human rights
shared by Arabica Robusta on 14 Aug 10 - Cached
  • The fact that only a small percentage of the minerals used in cell phones actually come from the DRC, that the region is largely at peace now, and that the situation defies easy solutions, if mentioned at all, is typically buried in the group's more complex reports, or brushed aside.
  • the problem arises when simplification results in distortion, which is exactly what has happened here.This is probably why, despite being able to claim support at the national level from the country's Catholic bishops and a civil society organization or two, the conflict minerals platform lacks meaningful support from most CSO's in the Kivus.
  • My fear is that, as a direct result of Enough's narrowly focused advocacy campaign, Congress will now think it has taken sufficient action to end the conflict in the eastern DRC. That couldn't be further from the truth.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • Everybody involved in this debate wants the same thing: to end violence in the eastern Congo. I want to believe that Enough's leadership and staff began their campaign with the best of intentions. But by overstating the extent to which American consumers are actually using Congolese conflict minerals - and the extent to which it is actually possible to change the way minerals are traded there - they've given Congress, the Congolese government, and the electronics companies an easy way out. All three groups will come out looking good here, while Congolese government officials will continue to benefit from the mineral trade, electronics companies will source the tiny percentages of Congolese materials they've been using elsewhere, and Congress won't feel obligated to support meaningful security sector reform, help sort out the country's land tenure issues, or significantly fund the hundreds of Congolese civil society organizations that have been working for years to bring about meaningful change in the region.
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 14 Aug 10
       
      How does this passage fit in with the broad-scale claim above that the region is mostly at peace?
  • Also, I think you should divorce the attack on Enough from the critique of the conflict minerals bill. It’s true that ENOUGH has engaged in some very misleading advocacy but that shouldn’t be used to detract from a bill that has quite a few merits. Enough might have spoken the loudest but they were not the only voice on this issue. Considerable reflection and solicitation of expertise went into this bill and it should be assessed based on its content, not on the advocacy tactics that Enough used to support it.
  • Any decent level of research shows that the USGS has consistently underestimated the supply of minerals from the DRC by a huge margin, for years and years.
  • The issue is not the validity of the data emanating from the USGS. Should anyone talk to the researchers at the USGS and inquire about the methodology used for arriving at their numbers, one would quickly recognize that the numbers are arbitrary at best, especially regarding African countries.
  • They have been able to present to the predominantly white American audience the misanthropic message of savage Africans raping and killing as the primary driver of the conflict. American consumers then become best placed to save and raise hope for the African brute through conscious consumerism. The savage African and white savior narrative, which Nick Kristof calls “bridge character” work without fail.
    • Arabica Robusta
      Arabica Robusta on 14 Aug 10
       
      Texas in Africa seems not to recognize the paltry coverage of Congo and other less-industrialized areas in the U.S. press.
  • This narrative eschews the main external drivers of the conflict and the devastating role that US foreign policy (the same type of foreign policy that resulted in Nelson Mandela being on the US terrorist list as late as 2008) and Western corporate practices have played in not only the conflict but the maintenance of the structural barriers of dependency and impoverishment in the heart of Africa
  • backing of the invasions of Congo by the Clinton administration "renaissance leaders"
  • Nor is the 14 years of pilfering by foreign multinationals even broached while companies such as the below stand to reap billions in profits for the next generation while Congolese wallow in misery and poverty- Rangold - AngloGold Ashanti - Banro
  • Even other opponents of Enough and Global witness, in the industry are shifting the argument to the fact that there cannot be a crackdown on tantalum from the DRC as it makes up too high a percentage of world supply.
  • Arabica Robusta on 14 Aug 10
     
    The fact that only a small percentage of the minerals used in cell phones actually come from the DRC, that the region is largely at peace now, and that the situation defies easy solutions, if mentioned at all, is typically buried in the group's more complex reports, or brushed aside.
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