In Focus: Congo’s Bloody Coltan
October 28, 2008
Produced by the Pulitzer Center, “Congo’s Bloody Coltan” is a quick glimpse at coltan’s role in Congo’s civil war. It was featured on “Foreign Exchange with Fareed Zakaria” in the Fall of 2006. For photographs, resources and additional reporting by Mvemba Phezo Dizolele on the DRC visit
http://www.pulitzercenter.org/showproject.cfm?id=17.
Coltan is essential to the electronics industries, including military and surveillance electronics, and thus one of the minerals at the heart of the war and human catastrophe in Congo. We should also know about cassiterite, tin, because a tin sodder has now replaced led sodder in computer circuit boards.
Here is a link to a Channel 4 report on “Congo’s Tin Sociers,” http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/world/congos%20tin%20soldiers/108670, and a London Guardian report on “Congo’s Tin Slaves,” http://www.guardianweekly.co.uk/?page=editorial&id=650&catID=7 .