Mobile phones, coltan and fights

There is a good likelihood that within your mobile phone is a minimum amount of metal that has started its path buried in the country of the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where the war is currently raging.

It can even be directly related to the M23 Rebel Group, which made global titles this week.

Tantal within your device weighs less than half of the average garden pea, but is crucial for the effective functioning of a smartphone and almost all other sophisticated electronic devices.

The unique properties of this rare, blue -gray, lush metal – including the ability to hold a high charge compared to its size, while acting at different temperatures – make it an ideal material for fine condensers, which temporarily store energy.

It was mined by Rwanda, Brazil and Nigeria, but at least 40% and maybe more – from the global supply of the element comes from Dr. Congo, and some of the key minerals are now under the control of the M23.

The current wave of fights has been going on for months, but the rebels have attracted attention with a Sunday attack on the vital trade and traffic center of Goma. The city, borders on Rwanda, is a regional center for a mining company

Over the past year, the M23 has achieved fast progress over the minerals east of the DR Congo, taking the areas of the Coltan-Ruda from which the tantal is extracted.

Like many other armed groups operating in the area, the M23 began as a clothing that defended the rights of an ethnic group that is considered endangered. But as its territory spread, mining became a key source of income, paying fighters and weapons.

Last April, he seized Rubaya, a city at the heart of the Coltan industry.

The extraction of minerals in this region is not in the hands of multinational conglomerates – instead, thousands of individuals strive in open pits that honeycombs landscape or underground, in extremely uncertain and unhealthy conditions.

They are part of the complex, and yet informal networks that sees the rocks removed from the ground using a shovel, brought to the surface, crushed, washing, taxation, sales, and then exported to further purify and eventually melt.

Once the M23 moved to Rubaya, the rebels determined what a group of UN experts described as a “state administration”, issuing permits to diggers and merchants and demanding an annual fee of $ 25 (20 £), or $ 250. The M23 doubled Kopač’s salaries to ensure that he would continue to work.

The area leads as a monopoly, watching – threat of arrest and detention – that only its authorized traders can do business.

The M23 also charges a $ 7 levy on each pound of Coltan. The UN group of experts estimated that as a result of the M23 he earns about $ 800,000 a month from the taxation of Coltan in Rubaja. This money is almost certainly used to finance the rebellion.

There is a questionnaire that hangs on how the ore extracted from the area under control M23 enters the global supply chain.

The neighboring Rwanda, which is considered to support the M23, is located in the center of the answer, say the UN experts.

Theoretically, certification scheme – known as an innovative initiative for a chain of tin supply (Itsci) – should mean that what enters the telephone phone and another electronics does not come from the field of conflict where it could be used to finance armed groups responsible for performing crimes performing crimes .

The US ‘DODD-Frank Law adopted in 2010, and a similar part of the EU Law, aims to ensure that companies buying Tin, Tantalum, Volfram and Golden “Minerals of Conflict”-inadvertently financing violence.

But itci came under a certain criticism.

Ken Matthysen, an expert on safety and resources expert with an independent research group IPIS, emphasizes that the scattered nature of many small mine makes it difficult for local authorities to monitor exactly what is happening everywhere.

Itsci markings should be put on the bags in the mine itself to prove the origin of minerals from the inside, but are often transported to the collection point where it became harder to follow where Ruda actually came, Mr. Matthysen said.

He added that there is also a possible corruption problem.

“Even the accusation of state agents who sell marks to traders because they do not make money for life. So traders then visit the eastern Dr. Congo and mark their bags themselves.”

ITCI did not respond to the BBC request for comment, but in the past he defended his record, saying that the scheme was subjected to a rigorous independent audit. He was also praised for the adoption of “prosperity for hundreds of thousands of small miners.”

In the case of Rubaya, ITCI suspended his business there shortly after M23 entered the city.

However, the group managed to continue exporting Coltan.

The UN experts are changing a circular route that shows how to be transported near the Rwanda border. It is then transferred to “heavy trucks” that were supposed to expand the road to settle down.

Rwanda has his own Coltan mines, but experts say that the distrustful coltan is mixed with the production of Rwanda, which led to “a significant pollution of the supply chain”.

The M23 was already involved in Coltan’s business before grabbing rubay – setting up road blockade and charging crossing fees, according to Mr. Matthysen.

“Many trade of these minerals went through the M23 control area according to Rwanda. So even then, Rwanda profited from instability in Eastern DR Congo and we saw that the quantities of exports in Rwand had already increased,” he told the BBC.

Data from American geological research show that the export of Coltan Rwanda has increased by 50% between 2022 and 2023 Mr. Matthysen said all this cannot come from Rwanda.

In a robust defense of Rwanda’s position, a spokeswoman for Government Yolanda Makolo repeated the BBC that there are minerals and refinement in her country.

“It is very cynical to take a problem like what is happening in the Eastern DRC, where the persecuted community is fighting for its rights … and turns [it] Material benefits, “she added.

President Rwanda Paul Kagama also rejected the UN expert reports, pouring out contempt for their “expertise”.

Much of the East of the East DR Kong has been fascinated by the conflict for many years, asking questions about who benefits and whether armed groups profit from what has been dug from the ground up there.

To emphasize the question and its connection with the smartphone industry, the Congenian Government filed criminal charges in France and Belgium at the end of last year against a branch of the technological giant Apple, accusing him of using “conflict minerals”.

Apple challenged the allegations and pointed out that since the beginning of 2024, due to escalating conflict and difficulty in certification, he stopped getting Tantalum, among other metals, and Dr. Kong and from Rwanda.

The other companies were not so clear, which means that, as the M23, more territories of those small pieces of tantals from the mine that controlled could still be able to enter the devices we were relied to.