Bad solutions to a nasty problem

Below are links to some recent discussions about mining in the Eastern Congo, profits of which are said to go towards funding some very violent and very nasty rebel groups. After each link I have included some of my thoughts.

The true cost of your new Christmas laptop? Ask the eastern Congolese – The Guardian

This story is highly hyperbolic, which makes me disinclined to accept any of it, but its fairly clear cut that some fairly nasty rebel groups are involved in mining in the Eastern part of the country, and increased oversight doesn’t sound like that irrational of an idea.

The DRC mining ban: the view from Kamituga – Texas in Africa

Everyone I have spoken to about the DRC generally agrees that mining is one of the better opportunities for poverty alleviation available over there and some academic studies argue that DRC could recover from its civil war as fast as Angola did primarily because of the presence of a large quantity of mineral wealth. Still, despite this and the previous article completely disagreeing about the effectiveness of the Kivu mining ban, I’m inclined to believe that they are talking about the same thing, corrupt practices and violence related to control of the mineral sector.

Exclusive: Interview with UN group of experts – Congo Siasa

The main problem is the assumption that the Congolese government is acting as a unified actor, which this article makes abundantly clear is not the case. Some factions in the FARDC (the DRC military) are likely to be just as criminal as the people they are fighting.

Like all problems in failed states there’s no easy answer here, but I’m pretty sure the answer is not robbing one of the poorest countries in the world of one of its few tools of poverty alleviation. The problem is made far more complicated though by the fact that its not even clear that Kabila (the DRC’s president) has control over the army (people I have spoken to who have done business there indicate that he doesn’t), so its unclear whether he can actually extract the army from “guarding” mines.

China has been doing a lot that is rather helpful in this regard, in that they are creating a mining zone that is subject to the demands of external investors. China’s mines of course have their own safety problems, and there are always appropriate questions about worker treatment, but in general they have managed to create a stable, developing area in the South of the country, despite often being put in deliberately bad situations. (Someone at the China-Africa Development Fund told me that the mines they were given in return for an infrastructure loan were essentially worthless).

Though the absolute decimation of the local wildlife has a lot to do with demand from China, so we shouldn’t give them too much credit.