Major Electronics Firms Support Ending Use of "Conflict Minerals"

tburton writes "The US House of Representatives yesterday released the Conflict Minerals Trade Act (HR 4128) to try and end the international trade of tungsten, tantalum and col-tan, the mining of which is accused of fueling violent rape and murder in eastern Congo. Since the very same minerals power the most popular consumer electronics from HP, Verizon, Nokia, RIM and Intel, the Information Technology Industry Council has quickly signed a statement of support. Advocacy groups are hopeful these commitments prove to be meaningful as consumers begin to question the end result of the supply chains powering their favorite gadget."

Comments

Hardly surprising

[jcrb]

Is this of any surprise that the companies don't really care where their materials come from as long as they are getting what they want at a price they want?

Public exposure and "naming names" is the only way to have an effect on this behavior, both so people know the effect of buying a product from certain companies as well as making the companies fearful of the bad PR that will come from using such materials

Re:Hardly surprising

[flyneye]

Gotta watch having one sided exposure. That seems to be the case in most "lets do good" campaigns. So lessee, we quit trading tungsten internationally, we have a shortage, machine tools can no longer make machines and industry crumbles here. In Africa however, since they have all the tungsten, have an industrial boom, environment and working conditions be damned. Now Africa is even worse for the people, do gooders here shot themselves and everyone else in the foot and there isn't enough tantalum to alloy into metal to make industry come back even if we could still machine products.
          Well I'm glad we could do the "right" thing. I just wanna see all the liberals come together, hold hands and sing "Kum Bah Yah" afterwards.

Re:Hardly surprising

[flyneye]

Still, this is just the beginning of legislation (a.k.a. just putting the head in). Did you ever know of legislation that wasn't eventually built on? It's a flip of the coin, perhaps the right will add to it later, perhaps the left. Then more piled on that. What will it be like years from now? Will this screw up industries and jobs with left legislation? Will this ruin the environment or enslave us with right legislation?
          The Congo needs to take care of the Congo. Revolt, flee, or make peace with itself. Kinda like wild animals other peoples countries need left alone to sink or swim, evolve or die. Bad things happen everywhere, we are only selective about rendering aid when it suits our financial interests. We can't do it all for everyone else or we will spread ourselves too thin and be resented for it.
      I'm glad to hear about Portugal, but what of the world to come?
        The World is bad in places just like its deep or high in places, dangerous in places. That's just the way it is. The illusion that you can do something about it to relieve your conscience is only a tool used to manipulate you for someone elses aspirations, good or evil, we end up used, reamed suckers.

Re:Hardly surprising

[espiesp]

Except the numbers seem to indicate that families that earn more money tend to have LESS children.

When you're poor there isn't much to do but sit around the house having sex apparently.

Re:Hardly surprising

[Grishnakh]

How many of you use illegal drugs--which goes into the pocket of vicious and violent people.

The fault here lies solely with politicians, who have nonsensically made these drugs illegal. They tried banning drugs back in the 30s with Prohibition, and it didn't work. It created a huge black market, with lots of violence. Why do they keep trying to repeat history? Users are not to blame for the violence; only politicians and those who support them are.

If the government decided to ban ketchup one day, and this created a black market and violence, would you still blame ketchup consumers for the violence?

Re:Hardly surprising

[symbolset]

Mining of any kind is an environmental nightmare. I imagine globalization has international companies avoiding the practice within the jurisdiction of the EPA as much as they can.

Just like diamonds and oil

[tedgyz]

I'm sure it be just like other conflict industries. We will care about it just long enough until our next purchase. The unwashed masses would buy products made of dead baby carcasses.

Re:Just like diamonds and oil

[Lumpy]

But you can. DeBeers diamonds are sold everywhere. I have yet to see anyone stop the DeBeers Diamond company from selling their dead baby diamonds.

Plus consumers do not care, hey we have been trained by the same evil company that you dont love her if you dont have 2 months salary on her finger.

Personally, I believe that only a complete Idiot would do such a thing, but I see a lot of people that follow that like lemmings.

This will do nothing to end the "conflict".

[John Hasler]

The fighting is about politics, not minerals. This will just make everyone in the region poorer. The minerals will continue to come out albeit at a reduced rate while yet another layer of criminal politicians seize the opportunity to enrich themselves by falsifying the documents necessary to get the stuff on the legal market.

This is just more feelgood crap from the assholes in Washington.

Re:This will do nothing to end the "conflict".

[hairyfeet]

Won't work since this is ultimately "I'm better than you and/or my God is better than yours! Jihad!" kind of deal, and deep built in hatred like that don't go away just from lack of weapons. Remember this is the same place where machete murders are quite common, and you don't get cheaper weapons that a machete.

Ultimately you can't "force" anyone to get along, love his neighbor, or anything decent like that. They have to want to stop the violence themselves. All this will do is help boost the black market for said minerals while doing jack and squat about the violence. remember these folks have been fighting for decades now. We can't change that anymore than we can get the Shia and the Sunni to "just play nice". Wish we could, but we can't, sorry.

Just like conflict diamonds?

[Anonymous Coward]

This will work just as well as all of those useless "conflict diamond" resolutions that have accomplished nothing more than forcing DeBeers to launder its African blood diamonds through its "mines" in Canada.

The big miners will "discover" mines in some "friendly" country and just launder the stuff through them, just like they have done with diamonds.

*sigh*

Doubt it will make much difference

[Anonymous Coward]

The US might care about "Conflict Minerals" but considering most electroincs are all "Made in China", it's hardly going to stop.

Irony

[shareme]

How ironic that we than ask China to supply the same minerals who has similar Human rights abuses.. US House of Representatives ..palm to face..

Re:Irony

[Grishnakh]

You've got to be kidding. China is no paragon of human rights, but they certainly don't abuse them to the extent seen in war-torn African countries, where rape and murder are common. The only thing that China does that sucks is that they practice censorship, keeping strong control over the media. They're also quick to use the death penalty, but that's not really that bad; they're not executing innocent fishermen, they're executing convicted criminals. Yes, Tianenmen was bad, but that was a long time ago. They haven't had any incidents like that in quite a while (and with today's technology, including iPods with video recording, it would be much harder to keep such a thing covered up). China's government is all about building up the country for the benefit of the people, and keeping strong control over social order. Their methods are harsh, but their intent is basically positive. They believe their methods are necessary in their culture to achieve the goals they've set. Trying to turn someplace like Iraq, for instance, into an advanced country would require similar methods, as democracy would never work there. To compare China to African warlords who are all in favor of genocide is just insulting.

Re:Irony

[Grishnakh]

Yes, that sucks, but that's not the same as committing gross human rights violations themselves.

By that logic, the US should be condemned too, as it trades freely with China, as do the Western European countries.

The US traded with Nazi Germany for some time; IBM is famous for this. The US is also happily propping up an obviously corrupt government in Afghanistan right now.

Yeah this work like the Drug War

[commodore64_love]

We all know that banning the use of marijuana, cocaine, and other naturally-occurring drugs helped de-escalate violence.

/end sarcasm

The banning of these conflict minerals simply means that you'll leave former miners without jobs, and then they'll starve, as happened when we embargoed Iraq in the 90s, and Cuba over the last several decades. I honestly don't think there's ANY workable solution to the Congo problem.

Who cares about the Congo?

[tjstork]

Well, once again the Democrats shoot the American economy in the foot.

We may not buy the stuff, but the Chinese will, or some other country, so there will be another set of expertise that we will lose, and they will gain.

To save a region, they destroyed their own country.

Re:Who cares about the Congo?

[Lumpy]

We may not buy the stuff, but the Chinese will,

which means we will through a third party.... China!

Re:Who cares about the Congo?

[dgatwood]

Those aren't true conservatives. They're neocons. There's a difference. :-)

A true conservative talks about a smaller government and means it.

And t-shirts and jeans and shoes

[Colin Smith]

I don't see the problem. Humans have been preying on other humans since the first family split in two. You can get on as high a horse as you like, but all you're doing is adding hypocrisy and sanctimony to your list of character flaws.
 

They might as well rename it

[zogger]

To the "Turn over to the Chinese all the minerals in Africa" act. They'll take them, and they do not care one bit about which local regime is in charge today. They go out of their way all the time to state they have no desire to interfere in local politics, they just want the business/raw materials.

Oh, by the way, how about they ban petroleum products, fuels and plastics? Or do they want to claim petroleum doesn't come in huge part from regimes where human rights are routinely abused, where murders rapes torture and so on are common?

Re:You would have to name everybody

[TheGavster]

Rather than blaming a technology for requiring a particular mineral, or an industry for producing such products, does it not make more sense to blame the people killing and repressing populations over the minerals for any bloodshed? I'm sure that the assholes running their little war bands in the Congo will find something else to murder and repress over, just as tribal kingdoms in the region have for much of history.

Re:Just let me know...

[Grishnakh]

What about statutory rape, like the 18yrold with 17yrold cases?

That's not rape, that's legal bullshit.

I'll repeat it for you: if both people consent, it's NOT rape. There are no exceptions.