Consuming the Congo: War and Conflict Minerals in the World's Deadliest Place

by Peter Eichstaedt

Overview

Every time you use a cell phone or log on to a computer, you could be contributing to the death toll in the bloodiest, most violent region in the world: the eastern Congo. Rich in “conflict minerals”—valuable resources mined in the midst of armed conflict and egregious human rights abuses—this remote and lawless land is home to deposits of gold and diamonds as well as coltan, tin, and tungsten, all critical to cell phones, computers, and other popular electronics.

In Consuming the Congo, veteran journalist and author Peter Eichstaedt goes into these killing fields to find what is behind the bloodshed, hearing the stories of those who live this nightmarish reality. He talks with survivors of villages decimated by war and miners slogging knee-deep in muck, desperately digging up the gold, tin, and coltan on which Western culture depends. While these men work with picks, shovels, and iron bars, marauding militias and renegade army units who control the mines roam the jungles, killing and raping with impunity, taking their profits, and leaving villagers to a life of grueling manual labor, brutality, and disease.

Some five million Congolese have died unnecessarily, the worst loss of human life since World War II, yet the pillaging and bloodletting continue at a frightening pace. Consuming the Congo not only explores the violence suffered by the Congolese but also examines how we, as part of the problem, can become part of the solution.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781569763100
Publisher:	Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
Publication date:	07/01/2011
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Peter Eichstaedt is a veteran journalist and author dedicated revealing the stories behind human rights abuses. Formerly senior editor for Uganda Radio Network and Africa editor for the Institute of War and Peace in Reporting in The Hague, Eichstaedt traveled extensively in Africa to cover war crimes and trials. He won the 2010 Colorado Book Award for history for his book First Kill Your Family: Child Soldiers of Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army and is the author of If You Poison Us: Uranium and Native Americans and Pirate State: Inside Somalia’s Terrorism at Sea. He makes his home base near Denver, Colorado, and is currently on assignment in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Table of Contents

Map vii

Prologue: The Gates of Hell 1

1 The Mandro Hut 7

2 Village of the Skulls 19

3 Gold from Blood 31

4 Cauldron of Chaos 45

5 An Epidemic of Rape 57

6 The Agony of Abyei 69

7 A Tale of Two Sudans 83

8 Armies and Exploitation 97

9 Woes of Walikale 111

10 Controlling the Flow 123

11 Into Coltan Country 137

12 Realities of Refugees 153

13 Charcoal, Wildlife, and Angry Mai-Mai 165

14 Things Fall Apart 179

15 Resolution and Illusion 195

Epilogue: The Horror and the Hope 211

Acknowledgments 217

Notes 219

Index 225

Editorial Reviews

In harrowing detail, Eichstaedt (First Kill Your Family) investigates the "the deadliest human catastrophe since World War II," the carnage in eastern Congo, fought for and financed by the country's stores of rare and precious resources including gold and coltan, the metal powering our cellphones and computers. As one of Eichstaedt's interviewees says, "It is as if the blood draws the gold out of the earth." Firsthand accounts of massacres and sexual assault so rampant it is best described as "sexual terrorism" are juxtaposed with the desperate attempts of aid groups struggling to save civilians. The struggle to wrest control of the mining is clotted by profiteers, militias backed by Rwanda and Uganda, and an alphabet soup of aid agency acronyms. The detail can be dizzying, but Eichstaedt keeps the narrative focused. The book includes the stories of survivors, militiamen, the miners in the "killing fields," and recounts the Congo's role in global commerce. While the issues raised seemed daunting if not outright intractable, Eichstaedt provides counterpoint and a glimmer of hope in the form of possible reforms and legislations that could restore order to a devastated region. (June)

Publishers Weekly

"A powerful and long-overdue expose of greed and violence in the battle over Africa’s mineral wealth. . . .  A harrowing and important work that shows yet again that far-flung conflicts touch closer to home that we may imagine."—Greg Campbell, author of Blood Diamonds: Tracing the Deadly Path of the World's Most Precious Stones

"An exceptional book that opens up the complicated and brutal reality of life in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  By explaining and connecting the violence that occurs on the ground to the products it facilitates, Eichstaedt serves up a devastating global insight into the perpetuation of violence in the DRC.” —Sarnata Reynolds, Amnesty International USA


"Eichstaedt provides counterpoint and a glimmer of hope in the form of possible reforms and legislations that could restore order to a devastated region."
—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

Once again, a journalist familiar with African politics, economics and culture tells a shocking story of widespread corruption, greed and bloody violence, this time in a region rich in tin and coltan, minerals used in the manufacture electronic devices.

As Africa Editor for the Institute for War & Peace Reporting at The Hague,Eichstaedt (Pirate State: Inside Terrorism at Sea, 2010; etc.) traveled around the eastern Congo giving workshops to train local journalists and talking to militia leaders, former child soldiers, businessmen, aid workers and victims. A two-chapter side journey into neighboring Sudan, which seems rather out-of-place here, demonstrates that ethnic rivalries and fighting over a country's resources is not unique to the Congo. However, the eastern Congo has become "the rape capital of the world"—and, with more than five million dead in the last decade, the site of "the deadliest human catastrophe since World War II." Eichstaedt's reporting reveals in grim detail how rival ethnic militias and the national Congolese army fight for control over the region's rich mines, how villagers are routinely slain with guns or machetes or by being burned alive, how pick-and-shovel miners are heavily taxed by unpaid soldiers and how rape has become a tactic of war. In their own words, his interviewees often provide unrealistic solutions to their predicament or show a calm acceptance of the chaos and violence around them. The answer, writes the author, is not simply a ban on "conflict minerals" as was recently instituted by the United States, or peace-keeping efforts by the United Nations; it must come from the Congolese people demanding responsible government. Eichstaedt does not offer much hope that it will happen soon.

The welter of unfamiliar names of places, organizations and people makes for slow reading (maps and a cast of characters would have helped), but the main stumbling block for many will be the sheer horror and hopelessness of it all.

Kirkus Reviews