Just before the week-end, and after 10 days the Sama Gazette has been online, we thought it was time to talk about serious things. We know an expert in serious topics (initials are M and D, ring a bell?) so the bar is set high. This is also our first post in the Raison d’être category and we want to talk about an article we read just a few days ago on the Boston Globe: The new blood diamonds by John Prendergast. He is co-founder of the project Enough at the Center for American Progress.
John Prendergast explains how, after they visited a gold mine in Congo, his traveling companions and him have been ‘held at gunpoint by 30 drunk and angry militia in the middle of the night on a deserted road in one of the most dangerous war zones in the world’. After a couple of hours of negotiations, they finally were freed for $1,000. So one may ask: how and why did they get themselves into this dangerous situation? The author answers the question:
“The “blood diamonds’’ case provides a crucial precedent. Until there was general consumer uproar about the effect Western demand for a precious commodity was having on the people of Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Angola, those conflicts continued to burn, with Western consumers providing all the fuel necessary to keep the wars going indefinitely. Electronics companies should pressure their suppliers to ensure that these minerals don’t originate in mines that fuel the war and corruption, and allow independent audits to prove it.”
Doesn’t it remember you anything? If you’re into movies, maybe you saw Blood Diamond with Leonardo Di Caprio. Max Dana blogged about the movie a while ago and what John Prendergast is telling us in this article, is the exact situation depicted in the movie. Mining in some countries in Africa is about money, power, war, rape and violence… Either we buy electronics products or offer a ring to our fiancé, we, in a way, fuel the deadly conflicts out there. This report speaks for itself.
Now, we know. So now, what do we do? That’s the moment when things get complicated because the solution is not an individual one. John Prendergast declares: “Only when it becomes more profitable to exploit the minerals legally will there be sufficient incentive for peace in Congo.” How can ‘we‘ do that? Should we stop buying cellphones, laptops and iPods as well as jewelry? Maybe we should just be more responsible and, as Prendergast suggests “begin to demand conflict-free electronics products that don’t source their essential materials from mines that produce deadly conflict.”
Seriously, I have no clue how to change that situation but as a team, we discussed the topic together as it caught our attention. It’s our humble contribution to spread the word about it, although we can’t actually do much ourselves…
Sama-Reader: Dittta
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