'Konfliktressurser' i elektronisk utstyr dreper

[DrDoogie]

Artikkel fra Head Heritage, diskuterer litt rundt sjeldne jord-metaller som elektronikk-industrien er avhengig av.

 

Utdrag:

...Mobile phones are directly responsible for the biggest war in African history, destroying World Heritage site rainforests and driving rare gorillas to extinction.  

...

Tantalum is a refined metal that stays stable at very high temperatures, it's the only thing capable of making such tiny electronic processing chips work so well. It's in everything that has a small processing chip, and by far the biggest user is mobile phones.  

Tantalum is not only essential for all processor products, it is also unrecycleable. All these amazing gadgets from MP3 players to heart monitors, from in-car GPSs to automatic shop doors, they all use tantalum, and yet it is running out at an ever-increasing rate.  

We sometimes wonder what the best computers will be like in a hundred years time. The answer may well be 'about 40 years old'.  

Tantalum is refined from an ore called columbite-tantalite, or coltan for short. Coltan is only found in few places on earth. By far the largest amount, some 80% of the world's reserves, is in central Africa. Some 80% of that - two thirds of all the coltan on earth - is in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  

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The war that started ten years ago in Rwanda has never stopped in central Africa. Indeed, it has expanded, drawing in troops from at least 10 countries, from Zimbabwe in the south to Libya in the north. It has left tens of millions of people dead. Its effect on Africa is akin to that of the First World War on Europe.  

And it has been intensified, prolonged and largely funded by money Westerners have paid for Congolese coltan. The UN described coltan trading as 'the engine of the war,' confirming that all parties are using coltan as their funding source.  

The World Bank has praised Uganda for the way its economy is doing well under WB advice (curiously, they don't praise Argentina, who also followed WB advice to the letter and to economic collapse and social chaos). But the revived Ugandan economy is based entirely on stolen minerals from the DRC. Since its troops went into DRC in 1998, Uganda has suddenly started exporting phenomenal quantities of gold and diamonds. In the year after Uganda invaded the DRC, 'Ugandan' coltan production went up 2,800%.  

Much of this money was swiftly converted into weapons for what was still inaccurately called the 'civil war' in DRC. Our desire to play make believe wars on Playstations was deepening the real war in central Africa.  

...

 

 

"War is Peace", "Ignorance is Strength"