The Congo Tantalum Rush

Logic Bomb writes: "The New York Times Magazine takes a look at the mining of a muddy substance called coltan. Once refined, it becomes tantalum, the crucial ingredient in capacitors. To put it simply, the modern high-tech world depends on this stuff. And while most of us have images of squeaky-clean chip factories and such -- in marked contrast to sleazy textile sweatshops -- it turns out that this industry has a dark side that takes a major toll on human lives. Definitely worth a read."

Heard this story before

[Anonymous Coward]

This paragraph from the article basically tells the whole story, all one has to do is change the decade and the name of the country. The U.S. overthrows yet another democratically elected country (Australia, Chile, Brazil etc. etc.), sets up support for the military dictator, chaos ensues:

In the 1960's, the Americans waded in. To fight Communism and secure access to cobalt and copper, the Central Intelligence Agency helped bring about the assassination of Congo's first democratically elected prime minister, Patrice Lumumba. That was followed by three decades of White House coddling of his successor, Mobutu Sese Seku, Africa's most famous billionaire dictator, who set a poisoned table for the chaos that followed his eventual overthrow in 1997.

Re:And the point is?

[lemox]

The crux of the matter is that when you talk about the poor conditions in just about any region of Africa (aside from the extreme north), almost all o fthose poor conditions did not exist until industrialized European countries and the United States decided to change them into colonies or banana republics to benefited their own economy at the expense of the African ones.

Re:What a waste.....

[Scrameustache]

Because people know they will be dead before the consequences on the environment become unbearable.

Its just plain old "somebody else's problem" syndrome.

Re:And the point is?

[Logic Bomb]

Your argument is a fairly standard one against those who bitch and moan about the horrors of globalization. (I think it's basically a good argument.) This is not a typical case of globalization though, because "the wheels of progress" are not turning in the Congo. The mining is not an organized commercial operation at the lowest levels, like a factory. The reason fully organized commercial operations are beneficial is because they a) build infrastructure, and b) educate the population in at least some capacity, whether it be through pure technical skills or through low-level management. The mining does neither. In fact, it destroys the potential for future infrastructure by wrecking the environment. And people digging around in holes for buckets of mud is hardly an educating process.

This process is not an example of globalization at work. It is advanced-industrialized countries extracting resources from poorer countries and leaving little in return. Though I am not attempting to place a value judgement upon it in this comment, I must point out that arguments which attempt to defend globalization are not valid here.

/.'s social conscience

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah. Opinions from /.ers on social justice (where it doesn't directly affect Open Source Software) are as generally as relevant and informed as Barney the Dinosaur's opinion on the DMCA.

Fuck you, you self-satisfied, self-important, self-obsessed twerps.

Opinions raised vary between "screw you jack, i'm all right" and "duh, why don't they just become more american".
Christ can't you people grasp that there are some more important issues than the price of components for your latest toys?

Can you not attribute any significance to injustices that *don't* directly affect you personally?

No wonder the rest of the world is sick to death of wealthy, white American technocrats. The *only* reason we keep swollowing your shit is because it's rammed down our throats.

Fuck you.

Re:Strange but true

[Anonymous Coward]

Mainly because the Balkans is right in the EU's backyard, remember we were only bombing across the Adriatic about 150 miles from Italy. All this going on in their backyard was a disgrace, so you limit the fallout.

The Balkans has been a thorn in the side of western Europe for centuries and was the trigger for WWI, so I guess they want to finally sort the place out.

Africa is seen as distant in some countries including the US, and they doesn't really express much interest in what's going on there, including genocide. However some countries have taken a belated interest in Africa, Britian returned to their former colony of Sierra-Leone to originally free some rebels, I think they lost 3-4 soldiers in this exercise.

It seems they've stayed on to help fight back the rebels and kit out then train government troops. According the BBC World Service, people in Britain have labelled this as neo-colonialism and have questioned why their forces are even out there, since they're overstretched enough. But peculiarly, the Sierra-Leone government seems to welcome of their presence [bbc.co.uk].

On a related note, what's the justification for a Western country to go these countries, fight a resource intensive war, loose men, spend millions building infrastructure (remember there's no slaves to do like before) then get kicked out and denigrated as oppressors?

The above is basically what happened to the British Empire, sure it wasn't nice, but the oft used reasoning comparisons makes it sound worse than Nazi Germany, why would any country desire that labelling on their character for centuries?

Besides, there's plenty of tantalumin in Australia, it's just more expensive to extract it because of higher labor costs, but those costs are certainly cheaper than annexing some country.

Americans.....

[Remote]

If you were not so well armed, you USians would be the funniest breed in the world, even without Dennis Miller or Dana Carvey.

Ive been ther a few times, I lived there for a while. I was amazed when I saw someone on TV or at an University setting claiming that the U.S. should not do business (actually *buy* things) from nations that did not respect basic human rights. Though thats not what the article says, Id say it falls in the same broad category of narrow perspective.

Sweatshops? Is that what do you call a place where one has to work for more than 12 hours a day under pressure? Like a law firm in D.C. or some programming shops in CA? No matter these guys are working so as to be able to afford their condos or wine&dine twice a week, its still food and housing, only at first-world standards. Not too different from minework in Congo, given ones expectations. Thanks God I have to work only 8 hours a day, if I ever do more than that its because I want to.

How about human rights? Where I live an employee is entitled 30 days of vacation every 12 month period. Oh, you dont in the U.S., would that be a human right violation? Children are allowed to work here after they are 16, is that a HR violation? Whos to say? You think its fine to show a kids face on TV and screw him for the rest of his life if he has been charged with some felony even before conviction? You cant do it here even after conviction. You think you live in a free country? I never felt so oppressed and watched and under someones monitoring as I did while in the U.S.. Granted, I was living in D.C., but I think the average urban USian is yet to experiment real freedom. Maybe that would explain their behaviour when they come over... I could do this the whole day (even without mentioning U.S. foreign policy), but the point is: you have to broaden your horizons! Stop judging everyone under your values. They are good, very good indeed, but they dont work all over the world! Youll only profit from that.

Thank you.

[Fat Casper]

I love it when non-NYT articles get linked to here, because I don't feel like registering to read my news. I like it even more when they are linked to in the actual story (nudge, nudge, folks).

Re:Objective Journalism?

[mamba-mamba]

You must not have read the whole article. They spice up the lead like that to draw you in, but there was significant counterpoint brought in at the end.

Go back and read the last half of the article where people who actually live in the Congo speak there views.

MM
--

Not exceptional...

[Mike Schiraldi]

Sure, the story sounds appaling -- notably the way Mama D. exploits her workers. But do you really think any other business is different? You like having a car, right? Hundreds if not thousands of Mama D.'s went into the production of it. They're called entrepreneurs, and we'd all be living in the dirt without them.

The workers are thrilled to make $80 a day -- it's 400 times what they'd make otherwise. They're overjoyed to trade some muck they dug up for whores and antibiotics and beer and cash. Nobody's forcing them to do it -- they can always go back to whatever they used to do. Without someone "exploiting" them, they'd be bored and poor.

If you're really concerned about this kind of thing, how about asking the guy who cleans the the toilets at work how much he gets paid to do it. Or the people who pick the oranges so you can have a morning glass of OJ. Or just about anything else you enjoy.

Re:What a waste.....

[Anonymous Coward]

It's easy for some college boy to bitch about other people destroying the environment. All the damage you cuase is distant from you. You think all the luxuries of a first world country come at no cost to the environment?

Re:Strange but true

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is the notion of "postcolonialism." The cultural elite have decided that any level of interference with other cultures is bad. They don't realize that there is a great deal of middle between the wholesale colonial exploitation of the 19th-20th c., and the cold-blooded hands off approach, which has left millions of people at the hands of a few cruel dictators, with poverty, disease, and starvation in attendance.

Re:Ding! Right!

[visualight]

The problem is we are staying uninvolved. The Congolese do not have the ability to form a government. I know this is hard for a westerner to relate to, but there is not one leader in the whole country. Only robbers and pillagers. Whenever someon gains power it purely to enrich himself, not because he loves his people and wants to improve their lot. We started all of this when we killed Patrice and we are responsible for whats happening now.

Re:And the point is?

[mimbleton]

Whose fault is that?
After all, if it weren't for Europeans these people wouldn't even know they had valuable resources.

Re:dumbass

[n xnezn juber]

How many coders and lawyers do you know that make $90,000 in a country where the cost of living is $1 US per day?

Is there some reason that all wages should be compared to an absolute value versus a relative purchasing power? Even in the grand old US of A we have different costs of living in various parts of the country. Do we complain that an engineer in Iowa is making $50,000 and the same job is paying $90,000 in the Silicon Valley? Nope. Know why? Cost of living!

Bzzzzzt! Wrong!

[Robber Baron]

Now here comes my admittedly controversial point: the vast majority of the world is still like that. The Congo basin is still like that. The evil greedy capitalist colonial corporations have nothing to do with it. There are all kinds of funky diseases, famines, and ethnic infighting in the area. If anything, the establishment of mining and factories will add stability to the region, since the companies want to protect their money and investment.

With all due respect, you are out to lunch on this one.
From the Article:

In the 1960's, the Americans waded in. To fight Communism and secure access to cobalt and copper, the Central Intelligence Agency helped bring about the assassination of Congo's first democratically elected prime minister, Patrice Lumumba. That was followed by three decades of White House coddling of his successor, Mobutu Sese Seku, Africa's most famous billionaire dictator, who set a poisoned table for the chaos that followed his eventual overthrow in 1997.

The evil greedy capitalist colonial corporations are NOT helping the situation. Sure, they'll give them the bare minimum to keep them digging or to keep churning out Nike's but they will never allow them to achieve the stability that will allow them to choose not to be exploited.

Re:And the point is?

[H310iSe]

The funny thing is I usually find myself argueing postions similar to yours, only in this case I think you're wrong. In the olden times (say, Rome) they lacked the ability to raise living standards for a majority of the people to a decent level. Technology, etc. (maybe even capitalism...), has provided this ability to our age for what is probably the first time in history (sure,you could create small utopias in the past but nothing large scale). Therefore since we have the ability to achieve this, we might also have a moral obligation to pursue this end. This addresses your next point, that the 'wheels of progress' will pull these people out of thier current state. This is the typical arguement for global capitalization (vs. the anti-WTO crew) and it has some merrit. Just extend it logically - take a sweat shop making Nikes. If you pay the workers $.50 a day and this is twice as much as they'd make otherwise and applaud yourself for it, why not continue and give 'em a dollar or two? See, the wheels of progress tend to weigh human suffering and profit margins rather peculiarly, giving *way* too much weight to profit margins. They're important, but maybe, say, equally important as alleviating (sp?) suffering.

Now your point about how farked up the place is before 'we' got there and how 'we're' a stabalizing influence, well taken. It's true that many places would be content to screw themselves for eternity and capi-colonialism stepping in simply changes the dynamic somewhat but doesn't nesc. create any *more* suffering (different, sure, but not more). People like killing other people. Still, the point is we *could* do better so maybe we *should*. Not just leave, but intervene more positviely. ...

Not just hi-tech

[Sawbones]

To put it simply, the modern high-tech world depends on this stuff. And while most of us have images of squeaky-clean chip factories and such -- in marked contrast to sleazy textile sweatshops -- it turns out that this industry has a dark side that takes a major toll on human lives

The sad thing is I think you would be hard pressed to find ANY industry that doesn't depend on some "sleazy textile sweatshop" at some point. I would wager that most of us are wearing at least one piece of clothing produced under less than ideal conditions.

Lets also not forget that caps have been around for a hell of a lot longer than the "modern hi-tech industry".

Re:And the point is?

[MrGrendel]

Why should we care? Maybe because we (or at least some of us) have a sense of ethics and respect for human life in general. This kind of oppresion is wrong. All the time. Everywhere. There is no possible way to justify it. The fact that humans have been treating each other badly and enslaving one another for much of the past 10,000 years does not mean it is an ethical activity that we should be supporting, whether it contributes to the illusion of progress or not.

If anything, the establishment of mining and factories will add stability to the region, since the companies want to protect their money and investment. In short, the next time you feel like whining about the plight of people in the third world, ask yourself "Do I want to live like that?" I suspect the answer is no, and if it is no, please don't stop the wheels of progress from helping them escape.

Why don't you explain to everyone how giving money to a group of people conducting an extremely violent and oppressive civil war contributes to the stability of the region? Companies don't need to bother protecting their money and investment, because they have no investment in the region. The rebels run the mines and then sell the raw materials to western corporations. They then use the money to buy weapons which are used to enslave, kill, and torture their advisaries. How is this improving anyone's life (other than those who are getting rich off of the war)?

And as long as we're talking about helping people escape from poverty, let's talk about what "the wheels of progress" are up to in neighboring areas of Africa. In Sierra-Leone we have (you guessed it!) another civil war being funded by western corporations. In this case it's the diamond industry that we can blame. People (even children) who are not active rebels or aren't eager enough to mine diamonds for them are helped by having their hands lopped off. Children are sometimes helped by being forced to participate in the torture and murder of their parents. That's progress if I've ever seen it! In nearby Nigeria, Chevron officials helped labor leaders trying to organize their employees by participating in their assasinations. More progress inspired by a corporation protecting it's valuable assets! Unfortunately for the people who were helped by Chevron, human beings are not considered to be valuable and worthy of protection.

So, no, I don't want to live like that and I don't want to help turn the wheels of progress. Trade can help people, but only if they actually get paid fairly for their labor and their countries are not turned into toxic wastelands in the process.

life might imitate art

[banky]

In GDW's old role-playing game "2300AD", the tantalum was the primary element in the creation of FTL drives. The Congo became a power center and the nations of the world scrambled to get enough of the stuff, while the recently united African nations on the Congo region charged them out the ass.

When the game was written (late 80s sometime?) was all this going on?

Continue to sit on your hands

[Phlip]

This will continue happening, if not over this, then over Nike shoes, or who knows what's next. We read an article like this using our computers made on the backs of the third world, say "Oh that's terrible" then go back to depending on the cheap prices you pay for their sweat. The only way anything will change is for everyone to stop sitting on their hands and make a statement against this kind of activity.

Here in the US we depend on getting stuff dirt cheap even if that means hurting people in other countries. We're only willing to help people in third world countries if it will be beneficial to us (eg: Kuwait).

Everyone in the US (myself included) needs to take a step back and realize how much we are destroying the entire world in order to give ourselves comfortable lives.