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Democratic Republic of Congo plans to clamp down on companies that buy or source minerals from its war-torn eastern region, where smuggling is fuelling one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
The country has already warned Apple that its purchase of metals like tin, tantalum and gold may be linked to violence in Congo and smuggled through neighbouring Rwanda.
The government is now investigating other companies as well, Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner said, without naming them.
“We are also taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture of what this means in terms of supply chains, what this means in terms of companies that may be liable for contributing to destabilising an entire region,” Kayikwamba said in an interview in New York last month.
“There’s legal action that has been explored, but I wouldn’t want to divulge much more.”
Eastern Congo’s mineral riches have helped fuel conflict for nearly three decades, since fighting in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide spread over the border. The region is the world’s biggest source of tantalum, used in portable electronics.
Mineral smuggling from its eastern provinces costs the country billions of dollars, Kayikwamba said.
Earlier this year a rebel group known as the M23 took control of the nation’s biggest tantalum mine, Rubaya. Congo, the US and United Nations experts say Rwanda has sent thousands of troops to Congo to back the M23, one of more than 100 militias active in the country’s east. Rwanda denies the allegation.
In July, a UN group of experts on Congo said minerals from Rubaya were “ineligible for trade” under its due diligence guidelines because of their link to violence. Apple has previously said it did due diligence on its supply chain and found no links to Congo’s conflicts.
More than 6 million people are displaced in Congo, according to the UN.
The displacement has complicated the country’s response to a large mpox outbreak in the east, Kayikwamba said. – Bloomberg
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