Background Report on Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo

Warren, Tracy A

Oak Ridge National Laboratory

关键词: By-Products;    Death;    99 General And Miscellaneous//Mathematics, Computing, And Information Science;    Economics;    Gold;   

DOI  :  10.2172/1034662
RP-ID  :  ORNL/TM-2010/153
RP-ID  :  DE-AC05-00OR22725
RP-ID  :  1034662

美国|英语

来源: UNT Digital Library

【 摘 要 】

Each month, approximately 45,000 people die from violence, hunger, disease, and other effects of displacement as a result of war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The country is often said to be plagued by a 'resource curse.' During each period in history since its discovery by the West, the DRC has possessed the resources the world craves and the world has sought these without regard for the consequences to the Congolese people. The catastrophic consequences of Congo's history of natural resource exploitation are the direct and indirect death of millions of Congolese people. The current war in Congo is multi-causal in nature but explanations are often reduced to describing it as an ethic conflict based on objective grievance. Objective grievance such as inequality, ethnic tensions, land disputes, and lack of democracy do exist, but they are neither necessary nor sufficient to explain the cause of the violent conflict, and more importantly, they fall short in explaining why this conflict has continued for years. The reality is the conflict is an economic war in which the trade of conflict minerals, gold and the 3Ts (tin, tantalum, tungsten), is directly linked to the financial sustainability of the groups fighting each other in eastern DRC. Objective grievance is a by-product of the conflict, used to create a false but plausible moral justification to continue violence. This paper examines the history of conflict in the DRC and the socio-economic variables contributing to the current war fought over conflict minerals.