The Lost War --- Three Million Lives Lost since 1998

[seemslikeadream]

The war on Iraq is not the only war in the world and it is not the only war being fought for our material benefit. Western consumers' seemingly insatiable demand for mobile phones, laptops, games consoles and other luxury electronic goods has been fuelling violent conflict and killing millions in the Democratic Republic of Congo(formerly Zaire). by Erik Vilwar.

Either side of an 1800 mile front-line, a country the size of western Europe with a population no laarger than England's has been carved up by warring factions and foreign armies from nine different countries, leaving millions dead or homeless. What little infrastructure dictator Mobutu Sese Seko did not wreck during his three decades of misrule has mostly been destroyed by fighting, or has finally succumbed to neglect.

The Democratic Republic of Congo(DRC) is possibly the most minerial rich place on earth - though this has proved a curse to the people of the Congo. The Congo holds millions of tons of diamonds, copper, cobalt, zinc manganese, uranium (the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were built using Congolese uranium), and coltan. Coltan, a substance made up of columbium and tantalum, is a particularly valuable resource - used to make mobile phones, night vision goggles, fiber optics, and micro-capacitors.

What is Coltan?
Coltan looks like black mud, but is three times heavier than iron and only slightly lighter that gold. It is found in abundance in eastern Congo and can be mined with minimal equipment. Coltan is vital to the high tech economy. Wireless electronic communication would not exist without it. The "mud" is refined into tantalum - a metalic element that is both a superb conductor of electricity and extremely heat resistant. Tantalum powder is a vital component in capacitors, for the control of the flow of current in miniature circuit boards. Capacitors made of tantalum are found inside every laptop, pager, personal digital assistant, and molile phone. Tantlum is also used in the aviation and atomic energy industries. A very small group of companies in the world process coltan. These include H.C. Starck (Germany, a subsidiary of Bayer), Cabott Inc, (US), Ningxia (China), and Ulba (Kazakhstan). The world's biggest coltan mines are in Australia and they account for about 60% of world production. It is generally believed, however, that 80% of the world's reserves are in Africa, with DRC accounting for 80% of the African reserves.

more...
http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/newslestter/issue13/issue13_part3.htm