05 08 11 Interview with Eric Kajemba on Conflict Minerals (+reactions)

Q:What has been your analysis of the export ban on minerals [imposed
by the Congolese government between September 2010 and March 2011] and
the Dodd-Frank legislation in the US?

A: In general, these two things are linked. The export ban came as a
consequence of the Dodd-Frank law. The government was thinking it had to
do something in reaction to the US legislation, so it suspended exports
of minerals from the eastern Congo. This has had a very negative impact
on the local population. One problem we had was that exporters were
stuck with their stock and couldn't get rid of it. Secondly, the negociants
[trade middle-men] usually work on credits, but they weren't able to
pay their arrears, so they had to mortgage their houses. In sum, the
artisanal mining sector employed many, many people – these people lost
their jobs over night. Also, many of them were demobilized soldiers, so
this had the added effect of producing insecurity.

But the Dodd-Frank legislation did not explicitly require an export ban.

No. But the government was supposed to render transparent the chain
in order to comply with the law. This had perverse consequences. The
army kicked diggers out of the mines, only to become diggers themselves!
That happened in many mines. The army just took over.

But how did they export the minerals if there was an export ban?

There was fraud. Even today with the embargo, people export. Fraud has increased considerably.

But there have been other consequences as well, for example, with other
aspects of the local economy. For example, in places like Shabunda,
people relied on planes to bring them goods and merchandise – rice,
sugar, and so on. Those same planes then left with minerals back to
Bukavu. But now that the planes cannot transport minerals [due to the
export ban and embargo] they don't fly there with goods any more. So the
impact has been huge in many areas. 

Do you disagree with the spirit of the Dodd-Frank law?

No. The motivation behind the law is very good – to impose
transparency. But it the implementation has been the problem. We are not
in a country with a functioning government, you cannot just assume that
certification and due diligence can spring up overnight. Plus, there
were efforts under way already by other actors to impose transparency;
ironically, the Dodd-Frank law slowed these efforts down, as they were
financed by the minerals trade.

No, I agree with the law, but it should have been implemented in stages,
over two or three years. It was too strict, too abrupt: no tagging, no
sale! But there were initiatives like that of the German Federal
Institute for Geosciences (BGR) and the International Tin Research
Institute (ITRI) – and other initiatives at the local level that may
actually have been undermined in the short term by the law.

It is true that there is no official embargo on the Congo today, and
that the Dodd-Frank law did not call for such an embargo. But the truth
is that as soon as the Conglese export ban was lifted, the Electronic
Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC) [an electronics industry body] in
the United States imposed a de facto embargo. Traders here only
had time to sell their stock and then everything stopped again! Now most
of the minerals seem to leak out through smuggling. It is the Chinese
who are still buying officially, and we think that the rest of the stuff
smuggled out might also be going to China.

There has been speculation that Rwanda has been laundering Congolese minerals and then selling them as their own.

That's difficult to know. Rwanda has also been hit hard by
Dodd-Frank, as well. It is true that there is a lot of cassiterite
smuggled into Rwanda. I am sure there are parallel structures in Rwanda,
a black market. On the other hand, I think there are intensifying
efforts to be more transparent – for example, they turned back Chinese
trying to export minerals through Rwanda.

What do you think about the ITRI and BGR initiatives?

We need a big discussion on the way forward. We need a bunch of
things, not just tracing and tagging. We need to sit together to figure
out. There are a lot of initiatives that have been proposed, but this
has added to the confusion. We need one approach. The centres de négoce
and tagging are not enough. Tagging is good – but you can end up
tagging dirty minerals, as well! There is a whole bunch of work to do.
Let's not confine ourselves to tagging.

What else can be done, then?

What we are trying to is to support local communities to supervise
their own mines at a grassroots level. We will try to give them a
mechanism to overview the process – to see if soldiers are taxing the
minerals. We want to do this as civil society and then make reports that
will we publish that will help keep mines clean. This, we hope, will
happen in synergy with our Congolese and foreign partners. In general,
we feel that these initiatives haven't taken into consideration the
contributions of local organization. But we are discussing with them
now.

What about BGR?

BGR work on a larger scale, with state for training experts. They
associate civil society, but they are very bureaucratic. We share a lot
of information, but we can feel the competition between ITRI, PACT,
ICGLR – this competition is not good.

What about the advocacy done by ENOUGH in the US?

Unfortunately I think this is the opposite of what we want – ENOUGH
has hardened its tone. They only show the negative side of artisanal
mining here. This one-sidedness of their advocacy has had negative
side-effects. No,  we know we can't stop Dodd Frank, but we need to be
aware of these negative consequences – we are not very happy with Global
Witness or ENOUGH, but we feel they are very influential, and we are
ready to work with them. On the other hand, we are also afraid of our
government and what they are doing.

Let me explain further. We have documented the links between minerals
and armed groups, we know these exist. But minerals were not the initial
source of the conflict, as you know. There were many other factors. So
we think the emphasis should be on security sector and governance
reform, not on an embargo.  We need to do more than just biometric IDs
[one of the initiatives donors have supported] for the army, we need a
real security sector reform.

How do we go about that?

Take the question of military involvement in the minerals trade. The
soldiers who are involved in these things are known! There are Congolese
generals are involved in this! But there is no real will by the
government to clamp down on them. It is true, Umoja Wetu and Kimia II
did have a serious impact on FDLR, and we need to consolidate this. The
links between minerals and the FDLR was seriously broken during this
time. But soon afterwards, the FARDC started to behave like the FDLR,
exploiting minerals and taxing people. The real emphasis should be on
building strong institutions, not just embargoes and export bans. We
need to focus on the army.

Then there is the whole question of zones of exploitation, which the
laws in theory have called for – so long as artisanal miners don't have a
place to mine, this situation will continue. But they don't, which is a
huge problem. A large international company will come and kick them
out, then they take up their machetes. This question of artisanal mining
zones is absolutely needed.

Is there the political will here in the Congo?

Let me giving example of Katanga – they have local political dynamic
that pushed the thing in a good direction, and they will be able to get
around this embargo to sell minerals. Even if in the meantime they are
giving us in the Kivus a bad name. They have been pro-active, they have
started tagging, working with MMR and ITRI. When there is political
will, you can do this. But that is just provincial, we need Kinshasa
involved. We don't feel that they are.

Do you have anything else you would like to add?

The Securities and Exchange Commission and the State Department need to
know that we don't reject their legislation. It is there, we will work
with it. But they need to understand that Congolese have suffered. We
say: the process needs to be sequenced. We need to work together. There
are NGOs here in the East – BEST, Pole Institute, there are many
organizations working on this. I agree, we have problems, but some are
trying to do good work.