Showing posts from category minerals.
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DRC’s Conflict Minerals: Can U.S. Law Impact the Violence?
›July 13, 2010 // By Schuyler NullApple CEO Steve Jobs, in a personal email posted by Wired, recently tried to explain to a concerned iPhone customer the complexity of ensuring Apple’s devices do not use conflict minerals like those helping to fund the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. However much one might be tempted to pile on Apple at the moment, Mr. Jobs is on to something with regard to the conflict minerals trade – expressing outrage and raising awareness of the problem is one thing but actually implementing an effective solution is quite another.
As finely articulated in a number of recent articles about conflict minerals in the DRC (see the New York Times, Guardian, and Foreign Policy for example), the Congo is, and has been for some time, a failed state.
Although a ceasefire was signed in 2003, fighting has continued in the far east of the country around North and South Kivu provinces, home to heavy deposits of tin, gold, coltan, and other minerals. The remote area is very diverse ethnically and has seen clashing between government troops and various militias from the Congo itself as well as encroachments by its neighbors Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi. Referred to as “the Third World War” by many, there are by some accounts 23 different armed groups involved in the fighting, and accusations of massacres, rampant human rights abuses, extortion, and pillaging are common. According to the UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, “there is almost total impunity for rape in the Congo,” and a survey by the International Rescue Committee puts the estimated dead from preventable diseases, malnutrition, and conflict in the area at over five million over the past decade (or 45,000 deaths a month).
At a recent event in Washington, DC on this terrible conflict (see Natural Security for an excellent summary), DRC Ambassador Faida Mitifu expressed her hope to the audience and panel (including U.S. Under Secretary of State Robert Hormats) that they would not limit themselves to “just talking.” Hosts John Pendergast and Andrew Sullivan of the NGO Enough Project hope to address the demand side of Congo’s mineral trade by pushing Congress to pass the Conflict Minerals Trade Act, which would require U.S. companies to face independent audits to certify their products are conflict mineral-free.
But Laura Seay, of Texas in Africa and the Christian Science Monitor, is dubious of this proposal, pointing out that:Without the basic tools of public order in place and functioning as instruments of the public good in the DRC, the provisions of this bill are likely to work about as well as the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme does in weak states that lack functioning governmental institutions – which is to say, not at all.
The Kimberely Process (KP) is a certification scheme that is supposed to stem the flow of “blood diamonds” that support corrupt regimes and fuel human rights abuses. But the KP’s governing body has recently reached a crisis of action over whether or not to punish Zimbabwe for alleged abuses, with one diamond magnate even claiming, according to IRIN, that “corrupt governments have turned the KP on its head – instead of eliminating human rights violations, the KP is legitimizing them.”
The problem with international transparency schemes like the Kimberely Process, the proposed Conflict Minerals Act, or even EITI, is that at the very least, a functioning government – if not a beneficent one – is needed to enforce regulations at the source. In the DRC’s case, not only does the government have little to no authority over the affected areas, but the mining militias are smuggling their loot, on foot in some cases, directly into neighboring countries anyway. By the time they reach U.S. companies (if ever – Americans are not the only consumers in the world), conflict minerals have passed hands so many times that proving their provenance is next to impossible.
Then there is the question of whether or not cutting off the militias, rogue military officials, and government forces from conflict mineral monies would even end violence in the region in the first place. Certainly many armed groups gain a great deal from their illegal mining activities (as do some locals), but is it the root cause of their discontent? In the best case scenario where mining revenues are actually decreased, would that really convince the remnants of the Hutu Interahamwe, fleeing retribution from the now majority-Tutsi Rwandan government, to suddenly put down their weapons? How about the Mai Mai, who are fighting the Hutu incursion into their homeland?
I for one find that hard to believe. Stopping the conflict mineral trade from afar is very difficult, if not impossible, and even if we could end the trade, it would not necessarily stop the suffering. Illegal mining does play a large part in supporting rebel groups, but to address the human security problems that have so horrified the world, international attention ought to first be turned toward improving governance mechanisms in the Congo and rethinking the troubled UN peacekeeping mission (how about more involvement out of U.S. AFRICOM too?). The failure of the current UN mission is well documented, but withdrawing the largest peacekeeping force in the world in the face of continued violence, including the recent death of Congo’s most famous human rights activist under suspicious circumstances, seems more likely to cause harm than good.
Would passing the Conflict Minerals Act make Apple consumers feel better? Perhaps. But that’s not the point. Environmental security measures that prevent the DRC’s tremendous mineral wealth from being used to fund conflict can only make an impact if the government has some measure of accountable control over the area. To make a real difference in east Congo, human security must first be addressed directly and forcefully.
Sources: BBC, Christian Science Monitor, Daily Beast, Human Rights Watch, IPS News, IRIN News, International Rescue Committee, Enough Project, Foreign Policy, GlobalSecurity.org, Globe and Mail, New York Times, Share the World’s Resources, Southern Times, Times Online, UN, Wired.
Image Credit: “Minerals and Forests of the DRC” from ECSP Report 12, courtesy of Philippe Rekacewicz, Le Monde diplomatique, Paris, and Environment and Security Institute, The Hague, January 2003. -
India’s Maoists: South Asia’s “Other” Insurgency
›July 7, 2010 // By Schuyler Null
The Indian government’s battle with Maoist and tribal rebels – which affects 22 of India’s 35 states and territories, according to Foreign Policy and in 2009 killed more people than any year since 1971 – has been largely ignored in the West. That should change, as South Asia’s “other” insurgency, fomenting in the world’s largest democracy and a key U.S. partner, offers valuable lessons about the role of resource management and stable development in preventing conflict.
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Interview With Wilson Center Scholar Jill Shankleman: Could Transparency Initiatives Mitigate the Resource Curse in Afghanistan?
›June 25, 2010 // By Schuyler NullIn the wake of The New York Times article detailing a potential mineral bonanza in Afghanistan, Senators Ben Cardin and Dick Lugar earlier this week published an op-ed in support of a bill that would create “an international standard for transparency in law” by requiring oil, gas, and mining industries to report amounts paid for drilling/mining rights in their SEC filings. A similar program, albeit a voluntary one, already exists – the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). The senators, however, raised questions about the ability of EITI to ensure transparency and accountability of payments for future mining rights to Afghanistan’s government. Joining EITI was a “good first step,” they say, “but too many countries and companies remain outside this system.”
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Backdraft: The Conflict Potential of Climate Mitigation and Adaptation
›The European Union’s biofuel goal for 2020 “is a good example of setting a target…without really thinking through [the] secondary, third, or fourth order consequences,” said Alexander Carius, co-founder and managing director of Adelphi Research and Adelphi Consult. While the 2007-2008 global food crisis demonstrated that the growth of crops for fuels has “tremendous effects” in the developing world, analysis of these threats are underdeveloped and are not incorporated into climate change policies, he said. [Video Below]
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Trillions of Dollars of Minerals? Misusing Geology and Economics to the Detriment of Policy
›Monday’s New York Times article, “U.S. Identifies Vast Mineral Riches in Afghanistan,” triggered a memory of a 70s-era Popular Science magazine cover that screamed “$3 trillion of minerals on the ocean floor!” That article, along with speeches from promoters of deep seabed mining, built up the anticipation that there were windfall profits to be had from the deep seabed. From this gross misuse of geologic speculation came all the difficulties with the negotiations of Part XI of the Law of the Sea Convention — and the United States’ continuing struggle to join the convention.
One of my roles on the U.S. delegation to the Law of the Sea Conference in 1979 and 1980 was to play defense against the misuse of geology and mineral economics in the negotiations, both by countries on the other side of the negotiating table and by seabed mining promoters at home. Part of that task was to gather and accurately “translate” the scientific and economic data from mineral statistics agencies, including the U.S. Bureau of Mines (since incorporated into the U.S. Geological Survey [USGS]), for policymakers and diplomats.
At times I felt like a goalie in the Part XI negotiations, blocking shots being taken by the forwards of the other teams that were promoting seabed mining as an economic bonanza. Unfortunately, by that time, too many groups had a vested interest in portraying the profitability of deep seabed mining and we couldn’t (yet) turn back the clock to a more reasonable approach.
When I read this week’s article in The New York Times, I had the same feeling of policy being manipulated by misuse of geologic data. With some help, I located the original DOD powerpoint presentation. The differences illustrate how science and economics can be misused to cause extensive damage in the policy process—a lesson I learned from the Law of the Sea negotiations.
The New York Times left out two important items from the DOD graphic accompanying the article:
First, the word “undiscovered” was left out; the original phrase reads “known and estimated ‘undiscovered’ resources anticipated by USGS and AGS and using prices as of 12/09.” Not only does that hide the important fact that the resources cited have not yet been discovered, it obscures that the estimates are largely defined by the USGS as either “hypothetical” and “speculative” resources — not the kind of numbers on which to stake a strategy for war and peace.
Second, the article omitted a caveat from DOD’s original powerpoint slide: “USGS agrees with the assertion: ‘At least 70 percent of Afghanistan’s mineral resources are yet to be identified.’”
Therefore, less than 30 percent of DOD’s estimated value is based on tangible evidence of deposits and 70 percent of the estimate is based on hypothetical or speculative resources of uncertain grade and abundance.
The value depends not just on metal content but also on the type of mineral, the grade (percent metal content) in the deposit, the size of the deposit, the distance from fuel and power, the amount of earth that covers the deposit, among other factors. If this report had geological merit as a USGS report, it would have said how much ore was in place at what grade.
Assigning a value to as yet undiscovered deposits is an effective way to influence a policymaker in a powerpoint presentation or generate a headline story from a reporter who has no experience with the terms of art used by geologists. But it has little to do with reality.
So, I drafted these points in response to the story in The New York Times:- According to the USGS, at least 70 percent of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth as estimated by the DOD is hypothetical or speculative, based on geologic theories, not measurement.
- The value estimates are grossly exaggerated by including sub-economic resources because they fail to consider capital and operating costs of recovery and processing to recover ore and convert it to finished metal.
- The DOD assessment fails to note whether the known or hypothetical deposits in Afghanistan are capable of competing economically with known and hypothetical deposits elsewhere in the world.
- Seventy-six percent of the estimated value comes from iron and copper, both of which are already found and produced in many locations around the world in commercially viable mines.
- The DOD values fail to distinguish between economically viable deposits and those that cannot be profitable in the foreseeable future, or to note those that are entirely speculative.
- The headline value of nearly $1 trillion is grossly in error and misinforms policymakers as to the economic potential of mineral deposits in Afghanistan.
Caitlyn L. Antrim is the executive director of the Rule of Law Committee for the Oceans. This article originally appeared in The Ocean Law Daily. To subscribe, please email caitlyn@oceanlaw.org.
Read more on Afghanistan’s mineral wealth and transparency initiatives on The New Security Beat.
Photo Credit: “Sunrise in Afghanistan,” courtesy of flickr user The U.S. Army. -
Afghanistan’s Mineral Wealth: Gold Mine, Curse, or Illusion?
›June 15, 2010 // By Schuyler NullAccording to The New York Times, U.S. officials have discovered a veritable bonanza of heavy metals and rare earth minerals in Afghanistan that have the potential “to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself”:The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.
Reaction to the announcement has been mixed, with both Foreign Policy and Wired bloggers expressing skepticism about the timing of the announcement – in the midst of a difficult period of the war – and pointing out that the “discovery” is old news.
Others have expressed hope that the find, worth an estimated $1 trillion, might provide an injection of much-needed capital into one of the world’s worst economies. Environmental security expert Saleem Ali of the University of Vermont told Public Radio International’s The World that “there’s an opportunity now for the country to develop outside of a predominantly drug-dependent economy and if properly managed the minerals could provide a catalyst for all kinds of other activities as well.”
Afghanistan’s rare earth minerals in particular might prove to be extremely valuable as global demand continues to grow for these critical components of renewable energy technology and advanced electronics. The New York Times reports that an internal Pentagon memo says Afghanistan has the potential to become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium”:Just this month, American geologists working with the Pentagon team have been conducting ground surveys on dry salt lakes in western Afghanistan where they believe there are large deposits of lithium. Pentagon officials said that their initial analysis at one location in Ghazni Province showed the potential for lithium deposits as large of those of Bolivia, which now has the world’s largest known lithium reserves.
The existence of mineral reserves in Afghanistan is not new news, nor is foreign interest in them (see our coverage of Chinese copper investments at Aynak earlier this year). But the size of these resources warrants attention and raises new questions about the possibility of the unstable country falling victim to the natural resource curse – remaining mired in poverty while generating billions of dollars for an elite few.
Mineral wealth has a long history of fueling conflict in unstable countries, such as Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The DRC’s mining laws – which, like Afghanistan’s, were designed by the World Bank – have not prevented violent struggle to control the country’s valuable resources, as described by John Katunga in ECSP Report 12.
How can Afghanistan’s newly discovered mineral resources be developed without funding insurgents or fueling new conflicts? USAID’s Minerals and Conflict Toolkit offers a start with a set of recommendations and discrete steps that development agencies should take to avoid exacerbating the links between mining, valuable resources, and violent conflict.
Stay tuned for more analysis on Afghanistan’s development, resource curse dynamics, and what this all means for the continuing conflict.
Sources: Foreign Policy, National Public Radio, The New York Times, Public Radio International, Wired.
Photo Credit: “Remote Sensing Survey 2006” courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey.
