Introduction

The war-like conflict occurring in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has its origins in various reasons. While the historical, political and ethnical motives explain the causes of the beginning of the war, the continuation of the conflict is mainly because of economic factors.

The DRC is rich in natural resources such as tin, tungsten, tantalite and gold – the four conflict minerals. These are commonly used in automotive, jewellery, ICT and other industries for the manufacture of consumer goods.

Weak governance, poverty, lack of regulation of the Congolese mining sector as well as extraction and trade of minerals to finance the conflict in the DRC can be indicated, among others, as possible causes of the current situation. As a result, the war is still ongoing. Due to the war the country has experienced an aggravation of poverty, human rights abuses, environmental degradation, and people displacement.

Over the years several initiatives were proposed to help resolve the issue of conflict minerals in the DRC. The Dodd-Frank Act was enacted in 2010 in the USA and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises were adopted in 2011 by OECD members. In May 2017, the European Union adopted Regulation (EU) 2017/821 that entered into force in January 2021.

The DRC is almost as large as Eastern Europe and is the third biggest country in Africa. The four Eastern provinces – South Kivu, North Kivu, Ituri, and Maniema – and the countries they border (Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi) (Figure 1) have been the scenes of multiple conflicts at local, national and regional level for at least a decade (peacedirect).

The fighting in Eastern DRC has numerous, complex causes, including long-standing political instability, ethnic grievances and disputes over land. According to Raise Hope for Congo a non-profit organization, the war in eastern Congo began in the early 1990s and still continues. It has encompassed two international wars – from 1996 to 1997 and 1998 to 2003 – and multiple invasions from neighboring countries, with combatants from many armed groups, both foreign and domestic.

However, greed and the desire to control Eastern DRC’s rich mineral deposits seem to be the determining factors of this conflict. The minerals scattered all over North and South Kivu (Figure 1) have acted as a magnet for rebel groups and military fractions throughout the last 12 years (Global Witness).

“The term “conflict minerals” is defined as columbite-tantalite, also known as coltan (from which tantalum is derived); cassiterite (tin); gold; wolframite (tungsten); or their derivatives; or any other mineral or its derivatives determined by the Secretary of State to be financing conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or an adjoining country” (Securities and Exchange Commission).

Conflict minerals are minerals mined in conditions of armed conflict and human rights abuses, mostly in the eastern provinces of the DRC, by the Congolese National Army, and various armed rebel groups, including the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) and the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP), a proxy Rwandan militia group. The looting of the Congo’s natural resources is not limited to domestic actors; during the Congo Wars, Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi particularly profited from the Congo’s resources (raisehopeforcongo.org).

According to Global Witness:

“For nearly 15 years abusive armed groups, including factions of the Congolese national army, have preyed on the trade in tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold to fund a brutal war in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)”.

Armed groups earn hundreds of millions of dollars every year by trading conflict minerals. Government troops and armed groups fight to control mines and smuggling routes, murdering and raping civilians to fracture the structure of society.

Moreover, the unregulated nature of the mining sector in eastern DRC, combined with the weak law enforcement, the corruption and the devastation caused by the war, allowed the armed groups to have unrestricted access to these minerals resulting in establishing of lucrative but illegal trading networks. The profits made through this plunder enable some of the most violent armed groups to survive (United Nations).

The conflict in DRC is notorious for serious violations of human rights, including sexual gender based violence against women, child labor and the use of child soldiers. In their broader struggle to seize economic, political and military power, all the main warring parties have carried out the most horrific human rights abuses.

According to a series of mortality surveys conducted by the International Rescue Committee from 2000 onwards,

“Since the outbreak of violence in DRC the International Rescue Committee (IRC) estimates that some 5.4 million people have been killed and some 3.4 million forced to flee their homes. This equates to some 45,000 deaths a month”.

This number represents deaths directly resulting not only from fighting and murders but also due to treatable and preventable diseases which could not be dealt due to a collapsed health system from war and from unhealthy and bad conditions of living due to displacement (International Rescue Committee).

Equally shocking is the unparalleled surge in rape cases by militias and soldiers against the local populations. Such sexual gender-based violence traumatizes women and girls, humiliates their husbands and often leads to the breakup of families. For these reasons, DRC is often referred to as the “rape capital of the world” and the worst and most neglected humanitarian crisis on Earth (United Nations).

Although it is widely believed that the region’s natural resource wealth is not the root cause of the violence, competition over the lucrative minerals trade has become an incentive for all warring parties to continue fighting and further fuelling the war (Global Witness).

Minerals mined in Eastern Congo pass through the hands of numerous middlemen as they are shipped out of DRC, through neighboring countries such as Rwanda or Burundi, or through the nine adjoining countries: Angola, Burundi, Central African Republic, Congo Republic (a different nation than DRC), Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia, to East Asian processing plants.

Once minerals are processed in this way, it is difficult to trace their origin. The metals mined in eastern DRC enter global markets and make their way into products such as mobile phones, cars, planes and jewelry.