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ADES (the Social and Economic Development Association), where local people talked with us late into the night about how they had come to oppose mining. ADES organizer Vidalina Morales acknowledged that “initially, we thought mining was good and it was going to help us out of poverty…through jobs and development.”

He talked about watching the river near his farm dry up: “This was very strange, as it had never done this before. So we walked up the river to see why…. And then I found a pump from Pacific Rim that was pumping water for exploratory wells. All of us began to wonder, if they are using this much water in the exploration stage, how much will they use if they actually start mining?”

Three people recounted how a Pacific Rim official boasted that cyanide was so safe that the official was willing to drink a glass of a favorite local beverage laced with the chemical. The official, we were told, backed down when community members insisted on authentication of the cyanide. “The company thought we’re just ignorant farmers with big hats who don’t know what we’re doing,” Miguel said. “But they’re the ones who are lying.”

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.

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.

Some criticisms of this campaign have implied that this issue is at odds with the views of Congolese people and civil society organizations. Again, this is simply false. We tend to be skeptical of anyone who tries to speak on behalf of “the Congolese people” because Congo’s population is far too vast, diverse, and opinionated to be reduced to a talking point

There are numerous other pressure points that the international community should help address, from security sector reform to justice and accountability, from ensuring a more transparent process for returning refugees, to devising a more effective strategy to dismantle the FDLR and to demobilize Congo’s many militia groups. But the conflict minerals issue resonates with a potent group of actors in the United States, namely, advocates and concerned consumers who do not want their purchases to fund armed groups in Congo, a handful of dedicated members of Congress and leaders in the Obama administration who see a lasting solution to the Congo conflict as part of their personal priorities and legacies, and increasingly, leaders in the electronics industry itself, which is responding to the moral and consumer pressure to take on this issue.

The Security and Exchange Commission is just beginning to work out the details of how the conflict minerals law will be implemented, and industry groups are lobbying hard to see that the SEC regulations carry as little weight as possible, by narrowly defining, for instance, which companies have to report on their activities in eastern Congo.

While recent statistics show that China's gold imports have risen dramatically this year, despite China itself being the world's largest gold producer with mine production still rising to, anecdotal evidence suggests that this may just be the tip of the iceberg as Chinese people are, apparently, rushing to buy gold as an inflation hedge. A report in the Financial Times suggests that gold purchasing by individuals is turning into such a rush - and the rising price, if anything, is - contrary to Indian experience - fuelling the intensity of gold demand there.  With the ever-rising growth in the numbers of middle-income Chinese as the country's wealth drips down to the people, this source of gold demand is becoming increasingly relevant to the global market.  China is expected to surpass India as the world's leading gold purchaser within the next few years and with the kind of surge in popularity of gold bars and coins, rather than jewellery, there this could even take place sooner rather than later. As an indicator of the kind of demand being seen in China, FT Reporter Leslie Hook notes in a despatch from the Chinese capital: "At Beijing's largest gold shop, the queues to buy bullion mini bars have turned into scrums as customers jostle for one of the country's hottest commodities. The phone behind the bullion counter rings off the hook as a frantic sales clerk tries to answer buyers' questions. The electronic chart displayed behind him says it all: the price of gold is rising and Chinese investors, worried about inflation, want in on the trend."