Tin Cans and the DRC

High in the mountains of South Kivu Province, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, miners look for coltan, a mineral used in the manufacture of mobile phones, gold, and cassiterite, or raw tin. Much of the final product from the efforts of cassiterite ends up as the microscopically-thin layer of tin which lines metal food and drink cans. Tin does not corrode so it is safe for food packaging and is why there may be a tiny bit of DR Congo on your table or in your cupboard today.

Many of the mines like these in eastern DR Congo - in North and South Kivu provinces - are controlled by ethnic Hutu rebels from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR). The BBC reports:

This group first arrived in DR Congo - under other names - in 1994 after Hutu military commanders and militiamen had masterminded the genocide of Rwandan Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The FDLR still vows that it will return to power in Rwanda. It says it doesn't want war and calls for a political dialogue with the Rwandan government (which the Tutsi-dominated elite in Kigali is most unlikely ever to agree to). The FDLR says its weapons are just an insurance policy. But for now, with the rebel group deeply implanted in the forests and mountains of DR Congo, those weapons are also used to extort taxes and minerals from local diggers and traders, reaping profits worth millions of dollars a year.

In Mwenga, local traders also told us that they had to pay the FDLR rebels to get in and out mine sites under their control. They also had to pay a tax for each bag of minerals that they removed from these sites. We followed the mineral trail from Mwenga to the city of Bukavu, where several large export companies have warehouses and offices. We asked local business leader Basila Milabyo if it was true, as traders on the ground had told us, that the export houses knew exactly where the minerals they were purchasing came from - and, by implication, of course, that some of them colluded with the illegal activities of the FDLR.