Senegal
Fourth Committee
Megan Eberle
Divine Savior Holy Angels
The Role of Precious Minerals in Fueling Conflict
Civil conflict in Democratic Republic of the Congo has been occurring for over a decade
by the violent struggle of control over the country’s vast natural resources including gold, coltan,
diamonds, and timber, most of which is exploited using harsh manual labor. Sales of coltan used
in cell phones, fund rebel that continue brutalizing eastern Congo. The Congo is marked by
murder, rape, violence, and abuse on a horrific scale. Obama recently signed a Bill that is part of
the sweeping financial reform resulted largely from intensive lobbying efforts by the Enough
project to stop genocide. The new law requires that companies doing business in the Congo
disclose both the origin of the mineral they use and the efforts they have taken to ensure that
their dollars do not directly or indirectly support armed groups that employ rape as a tool of war
and perpetuate the conflict. The seemingly faraway nature of the wars in the Congo make them
easy to ignore. Until you realize the internet-enabled smart phone beeping in your pocket which
contains inside them little pieces of eastern Congo.
With violence steaming from conflict minerals in Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic
of the Congo, Angola, and Liberia, it is clear that the problem is particularly severe. Although
there are countless reasons why the conflict minerals are a problem and it is clearly demonstrated
that the conditions surrounding the sites where the minerals are extracted from the land,
countries such as the United States, benefit from these harsh extractions. As previously stated,
the United States is a huge benefiter of the conflict mineral, Coltan, because of the minerals use
in smart phones.
Organizations, such as the Institute for Interconnecting and Packaging Electronic Circuits
(IPC) along with other affected companies and industry associations have been working for
several years to find a solution that will cut off revenue received by rebel groups in the Congo.
from the trade of minerals used in electronics and other products. Efforts by the U.S. Congress,
human rights groups, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the European Union, and
industry are underway to improve transparency of “conflict minerals,” columbite-tantalite
(coltan), cassiterite, wolframite (ores for tantalum, tin, and cobalt, respectively) and gold, in the
supply chain.
Although farther northern west geographically and not being a resource for the conflict
minerals, there are many ways in which Senegal can help assist the ending of the usage and
trafficking of the conflict minerals. Partnership is a huge thing to consider when a problem
becomes and involves more than a single country and when it becomes as severe as the mineral
conflict. Senegal needs to partner with other countries with higher authority and better financed,
such as the U.S, to diplomatically solve the problems as quickly and efficient as possible. What
needs to be considered and pondered is how this possible solution would affect other countries,
directly and indirectly, as a result of the changes made.