Help create conflict-free green technology.

Update: Judy Anderson is currently Executive Director at ACT for Congo.

The Second Congo War, also called Africa's World War, killed 5 million people between 1998 and 2003. It was the largest war in Africa's history; it involved eight African nations and more than twenty armed militias. Although there was an agreement between the warring parties in 2003, the conflict continues in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo. It continues because of the metal mines that the armed groups fight to control.

There is an action item at the end of this diary that will certainly help save lives and impact suffering: The Senate Financial Overhaul Bill contains a provision that requires companies that use targeted metals to annually report where they buy them. The House Financial Services Committee is reviewing the Senate bill during the next two weeks.

We need to preserve that provision as a necessary first step in conflict relief. These metals are used in clean energy and green technology, as well as medicine and industry in the US across the board. Accountability is key to resolving this war.

The interview below is with Judy Anderson, Executive Director of HEAL Africa USA. HEAL Africa is an organization that helps victims of sexual violence in eastern DRC. Brutal militias use systematic rape and torture as weapons of war, and those who survive these attacks are usually left totally incontinent because they suffer from traumatic gynecologic fistula -- destruction of the tissue between the vagina, bladder, and bowels. These injuries are often the point of the attack. Militias commonly use weapons to rape, mutilate, and leave women for dead.

HEAL Africa has a state of the art hospital that specializes in treating these injuries, as well as other common wounds of this war. The UN reports tens of thousands of these rapes take place per year, and that is since the war officially ended in 2003.



Judy is talking about coltan, the ore that contains tantalum. "Congo is in your cellphone," is a meme. It's true, too. But tantalum is everywhere -- it isn't just in your computer and cellphone. From an engineering perspective, tantalum is a sweetheart metal. It has ideal mechanical, thermal, and chemical properties for applications throughout industry. It can be heated to very high temperatures, it is stable in corrosive environments, and it machines well. And it maintains these properties after heating; tungsten, for example, becomes extremely brittle and fragile once it's heated. This is not so with tantalum, which is easily re-machined after heating to high temperatures. Alloys of tantalum behave nicely, as well.

Camera lenses are made with tantalum oxide. Tantalum metal is ideal for making surgical implants and instruments -- it even bonds with hard tissue better than other metals. It is ductile and supple and it is the metal of choice for fine wires and long-lasting filaments. Its alloys are used in jet engines, missiles, and process equipment for engineering across the board. Our technology makes us dependent on coltan, and it comes from the mines that draw the militia groups to fight this war.

Ngalula was one of the first women treated at the HEAL Africa hospital. A militia destroyed her village, killed her family, kidnapped and kept her as a sex slave. She was only sixteen. After a year and a half in their grasp, she escaped and made her way for help. She was filled with fistulae but also pregnant, so she had to wait until after the baby's birth to have surgery.

In the DRC, abortion is illegal in every context. It is strenuously forbidden by law.



The Congolese people are of strong faith, so HEAL Africa works directly with the faith-based leaders. Catholic, Protestant, Kimbanguist, Muslum, and local tribal leaders help them to affect change. The Nehemiah Committees that are central to changing the face Congo are made up of these leaders.

Mama Muliri is at the heart of this work. She pioneered HEAL Africa's Heal My People program and is a founding member of their Women Stand Up Together program. She was one of the first to stand up to the men who hold power in the DRC and demand a better way for the women who suffer.

The first time Mama Muliri stood in front of the tribal leaders, they met her fully painted, brandishing spears and guns. She stood her ground and demanded change for the women who suffer. After four days of meetings, the political and tribal leaders understood the law and what HEAL Africa was trying to do, and they agreed to stand up with Muliri. Today these leaders give support to the rape victims from their villages.




This war will not end unless we address the corrupt mining operations in east Africa. The action we take must be on two fronts -- we need to stop using buying material that supports this conflict, and we need to be sure that civilians can keep life going when the mines get pinched.

Another important step is to learn about microcredit programs, and support them if you can; Half the Sky Movement has a primer that includes information about how to know that your aid gets properly used.

Your cellphone is killing people: Regulate conflict minerals in the DRC

In 1994, a Hutu paramilitary organization called the Interahamwe perpetrated a mass genocide in Rwanda against another ethnic group, the Tutsi. In response, the Rwandese Patriotic Front eventually drove the Interahamwe, their supporters, and the Hutu who feared retaliation from Rwanda into nearby countries: over two million people crossed the border into the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The Interahamwe remain in the Democratic Republic of Congo today. They now call themselves the Forces Democratiques de Liberation du Rwanda, or the FDLR. They compete with other groups to control the Coltan mines in the DRC, but they set the bloody standard for terrorism in the neighborhood.

The violence connected with these mines is absolutely monstrous. The militias use terrorism to intimidate the people, and the most brutal are the ones who gain control of the ore that comes from the mines. But the weapons of terror are not car bombs or explosive devices. They use public torture and rape to intimidate the Congolese people. Nicholas Kristof recently described the horrible conditions that result in his columns The World Capital of Killing, and From "Oprah" to Building Sisterhood in Congo.

More than two hundred thousand Congolese women and children have been raped and mutilated, often in front of their families or in front of the whole village -- and this has been going on for years. Among the stories that the UN reported in 2005, paramilitary men grilled villagers' bodies on a spit and boiled two girls alive in front of their mother. More often they gang rape a woman, penetrating her with weapons and mutilating her. Sometimes they use machetes or guns, and they are reported to set her on fire, as well. Those who survive are often left entirely incontinent because they suffer from traumatic gynecologic fistula -- destruction of the tissue between the vagina, bladder, and bowels. The UN reports tens of thousands of these rapes per year. There is an increasing number of men who suffer this fate, as well.

Jeanette and her husband were farmers when the Interahamwe stormed into their village and burned it to the ground. They raped and tortured her, cut off both of her hands, and left her for dead. They raped another woman in the village who was pregnant, penetrated her with a rifle, and shot her.

The Interahamwe killed Generose's husband, hacked off her leg with a machete, and cooked it in front of her family on their kitchen fire. When her 12-year-old son refused to eat it, they killed him.

The violence continues, and stories like these play out daily in eastern DRC. The causes for the conflict in the DRC are complicated, but one thing is simple: the suffering continues because of the mines. Militias directly control the region's coltan and tin production. At the end of 2007, the International Rescue Committee estimated that nearly 5.5 million people had died, and that number continues to rise.





I want to draw your attention to coltan, which is the ore that contains tantalum. From an engineering perspective, tantalum is a sweetheart metal. It has ideal mechanical, thermal, and chemical properties. It can be heated to very high temperatures, it is stable in corrosive environments, and it machines well. It also maintains these properties after heating; tungsten, for example, becomes extremely brittle and fragile once it's heated, which is why incandescent light bulb filaments break so easily. This is not so with tantalum, which can be re-machined after heating to high temperatures. Alloys of tantalum behave nicely, as well.

The video refers to widespread use of tantalum capacitors, but because of its favorable properties tantalum is commonly used in industry. Camera lenses are made with tantalum oxide. Tantalum metal is ideal for making surgical implants and instruments -- it even bonds with hard tissue better than other metals. Its ductility and suppleness make it the metal of choice for fine wires and long-lasting filaments, and its alloys are used in jet engines, missiles, and process equipment for engineering across the board. Our technology makes us dependent on this precious metal.

** Jeanette and Generose's stories are told by Women for Women International, another organization that is doing fine work to support war survivors in the DRC. Read about Jeanette in The Other Side of War by Zainab Salbi; Nicholas Kristof tells Generose's story in the links provided.