What cannot be denied is the link between the Central African wars and the mineral which continues to provide the resources to sustain the militias. The war which started in 1998 officially ended in 2003, killing an estimated 3.8 million people. Although the war is formally over, outbreaks of violence continue today and spiked in 2005 with a brief rise in consumer demand for coltan. With the 2001 technology bust and with the newly-elected Alliance for the Presidential Majority (AMP) government, coltan has initiated fewer battles. Many electronics companies reject coltan from anywhere in Central Africa, instead using “legitimate resources” from Australia. Other companies, including American-based Kemet, the world’s largest maker of tantalum capacitors, have specifically requested certification that the coltan they purchase is not from the Congo or bordering countries. Much of the coltan illegally stolen from the DRC, however, is already in electronics all over the world, and the host of rebel groups in the eastern DRC remain a lasting presence.

Corruption and Coltan in the Congo

When the Second Congo War broke out in 1998, eight African nations (DRC, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Angola, and Chad) as well as an additional 25 rebel armies were engaged in the largest interstate war in modern African history, “Africa’s World War.” Abundant resources alone did not lead to war. The eastern provinces of the Kivus and Ituri are populated by high concentrations of diverse ethnic groups, many of which have a long history of hostility, dating back to the days of King Leopold’s constructed ethnic rivalries. Ethnic tensions heightened following the 1994 Rwandan genocide and associated hostilities in Burundi. As Hutus fled into eastern areas of the Congo, refugee camps were penetrated by Interahamwe Hutu militants that carried out the mass-murder of Tutsis.

The second crucial factor in initiating the ethnic factionalization was the joining of rebel armies; the installation of a new rebel leader, Laurent Kabila, was the outcome of the union of rebel groups in eastern Congo. These rebel groups were backed by the Rwandan and Ugandan governments and successfully captured Kinshasa, the country’s capital. They overthrew the weakened then-President Joseph Mobutu in 1997. During Kabila’s regime, peace in the DRC was unattainable. Government militias from Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda proved disloyal to Kabila, backing rebel movements independently in the east and bringing their armed forces to the region. The region was further destabilized with the entry of the so-called peacekeeping forces from Chad, Zimbabwe, Angola, and Namibia. With no order in this area, the region’s abundant natural resources were squandered.

The fortuitous discovery of coltan in the DRC, which occurred alongside the technological boom in the 1990s, meant that the rebel armies of the east had more than enough funding to support their armies. In order to understand the role of coltan in this “African World War,” one must first understand how the local-global supply chain originating with the activities of rebel forces underpins the trade of coltan in the Congo. The warring factions in the DRC are currently tribes and small rebel forces in the east. In the past, however, many governments were involved, and it was widely agreed that the Rwandan Government’s Rwandan Patriotic Army together with its allies, the rebel group Rassemblement Congolais pour la Democratie based in Goma, ravaged the Kivus provinces for coltan. In a similar vein, the Ugandan government’s Ugandan People’s Defensive Force and its allies looted minerals in the province of Ituri.

The looting of eastern Congo by the governments of neighboring countries has in recent years come to a halt. In December 2002, the Pretoria Agreement made between Rwanda and the DRC asked for the withdrawal of Rwandan troops from the DRC in exchange for international commitment towards the disarmament of the Interahamwe Hutus. Less than a month later, the Ugandan government’s presence in the Congo came to end with the the signing of the the Gbadolite Agreement which brought about a ceasefire between three rebel groups backed by the Ugandan government. However, approximately 18,000 armed rebels remain in the North and South Kivus states, precisely where the majority of coltan in the Congo is mined.

For these 18,000 rebels, war-like conditions continue. Just as the UN reported in 2003, at the end of the war, the rebels’ primary motive is to “extract the maximum commercial and material benefits” from the area, an unmonitored practice that has resulted in systemic, rather than systematic, resource exploitation. The UN report described the actions of rebel forces in the region as acts of “plundering, racketeering and criminal cartels with worldwide connections that have become commonplace.” To date, strategies employed by the DRC government in North and South Ituri have been restricted by rebel groups in the region.

Overcoming rebel forces is often impossible, as guerrilla tactics allow rebel groups to establish strongholds and destabilize resource-rich areas. It was therefore unsurprising when the Security Council renewed the mandate of the 17,000-strong UN peacekeeping mission in May 2007. Most disturbingly, since January 2007, the primarily Tutsi Congolese army and the Rwandan Hutu rebels have continued to kill and rape civilians, thus displacing more than 120,000 people in the process. Rebel fighting currently represents the most serious security problem in the region. The destructive presence of coltan in Ituri and the Kivus, as well as other natural resources in the DRC, must be addressed.

Stronger State, Stronger Awareness

Building an accountable, uncorrupt government and allowing for legitimate mineral extraction in the future requires the cooperation and efforts of numerous players, including the present DRC National Unity government, the international community, international financial institutions, and the UN Security Council. For solid reforms, an international diplomatic effort must accompany unbiased monitoring of trade activities in the region. As France’s ambassador to the United Nations, Jean-Marc de la Sablière, told reporters, “the solution cannot be solely military...a global strategy using political actions and diplomatic actions is needed.” Given that natural resource extraction is crucial to economic growth and the post-war rebuilding of the DRC, international financial institutions and businesses, as well as diplomats, must carefully monitor the situation.