EU urged to pressure computer companies over blood minerals

HUMAN rights groups are lobbying the European Union to follow the United States in compelling computer manufacturers to certify whether their products use so-called blood minerals from the Congo.

Virtually every computer, mobile phone and Ipod on the planet currently contains metals mined from the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, and rights groups including Christian Aid, Human Rights Watch and Global Witness want the trade to stop.

Earlier this summer, Washington imposed a law, as part of its Wall Street reform package, that forces companies including Apple and Hewlett Packard to declare their use of blood minerals and what actions they are taking to stop their cash ending up in the pockets of warlords.

A United Nations report has already named 85 international companies as responsible for the trade, identifying the money paid to warlords as the mainspring for wars that have cost an estimated five million lives.

Despite internationally supervised elections and a significant UN peacekeeping force, Congo continues to be rocked by battles fought by rival militias for mines containing rich deposits of gold, diamonds and an array of metals.

"We are working very hard to try and get the European Union in general to look at the legislative path," said Annie Dunnebacke of Global Witness.

Rights groups say the EU needs to add its muscle to that of the United States to force global manufacturers to have a re-think. But some manufacturers say that such a ban is hard to implement because the supply chain from jungle mine to computer showroom is too complex.

In a letter to the New York Times last month, Apple Computers boss Steve Jobs complained: "There is no way for them to be sure. Unless someone invents a way to chemically trace minerals from the source mine, it's a very difficult problem."

Not so, says Global Witness. It has already pinpointed the world's huge smelting companies as a bottleneck where blood minerals could be separated from the rest. And it says the big makers such as Apple and Nokia have the muscle to enforce such action.

"There's a huge amount of pressure that can be extended by the end user," said Dunnebacke.

The US law does not impose fines on manufacturers for using such metals, but firms know they could face a possible consumer backlash if the link between their products and the massacres, rapes and child slavery now practised in Congo are made public.

But one London metals trader, at his request anonymous, told The Scotsman that even if a ban is enforced, it may have unintended consequences.

This would include the closing of Congo's mines, depriving the miners of their livelihood. For rights groups, the ban is not an end in itself, but a step they say will remove the incentive for warlords to seize mines and terrorise miners.