By Sonia Rolley
Since the 1990s, Congo’s mining heartlands in the east have been devastated by waves of fighting between armed groups, some backed by neighbouring Rwanda, and the Congolese military.
Millions of civilians have died and been displaced.
Competition for minerals is one of the main drivers of conflict as armed groups sustain themselves and buy weapons with the proceeds of exports, often smuggled via Rwanda, according to U.N. experts, and human rights organisations, opens new tab.
Rwanda denies benefiting from the trade.
Among the appendices to Congo’s legal complaint in France was a statement issued by the U.S. State Department, opens new tab in July, expressing concerns about the role of the illicit trade in minerals from Congo, including tantalum, in financing conflict.
The statement was a response to requests from the private sector for the U.S. government to clarify potential risks associated with manufacturing products using minerals extracted, transported or exported from eastern Congo, Rwanda and Uganda.
Congo’s complaints focus on ITSCI, a metals industry-funded monitoring and certification scheme designed to help companies perform due diligence on suppliers of 3T minerals exported from Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda.
Congo’s lawyers argue that ITSCI has been discredited, including by the Responsible Minerals Initiative (RMI) of which Apple is a member, and that Apple nevertheless uses ITSCI as a fig leaf to falsely present its supply chain as clean.
The RMI, whose members include more than 500 companies, announced in 2022 it was removing ITSCI from its list of approved traceability schemes.
In July this year, it said it was prolonging the suspension, opens new tab until at least 2026, saying ITSCI had not provided field observations from high-risk sites or explained how it was responding to an escalation of violence in North Kivu province, which borders Rwanda and is a key 3T mining area.
ITSCI criticised the RMI’s own processes and defended its work, opens new tab in Congo as reliable. It has also rejected allegations in a 2022 report by campaigning group Global Witness entitled “The ITSCI Laundromat”, opens new tab, cited in Congo’s legal complaint in France, that it was complicit in the false labelling of minerals from conflict zones as coming from mines located in peaceful areas.
Apple mentioned ITSCI five times in its 2023 filing on conflict minerals. The filing also made multiple mentions of the RMI, in which Apple said it had continued active participation and leadership, but did not mention the RMI’s ditching of ITSCI.
In its July statement, the U.S. State Department said flaws in traceability schemes have not garnered sufficient engagement and attention to lead to changes needed.
Robert Amsterdam, a U.S.-based lawyer for Congo, said the French and Belgian complaints were the first criminal complaints by the Congolese state against a major tech company, describing them as a “first salvo” only.
Writing by Estelle Shirbon; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne
Source: reuters.com