First Mining Drc-Zambia July/Aug 2019 First Mining DRC-ZAMBIA July-August 2019 digital | Page 7

“In the near term, they know and accept
they have to buy cobalt or products at
least in some part from the DRC,” said
Caspar Rawles, senior cobalt analyst
at consultancy Benchmark Mineral
Intelligence.
Glencore said its KCC concession had
not asked the army to intervene and
while troops were operating around
the mine, they had not entered the site.
The army said it evicted 20,000 miners.
Miners responded with a series of
protests during which stores were looted
and at least 20 people were arrested.
The commodities trading and mining
company based in Switzerland referred
Reuters to a letter its managing director
wrote to Congo’s President Felix
Tshisekedi urging Congolese forces to
respect human rights and use least force
possible.
IndustriALL, an international union,
said its affiliate at KCC asked regional
Governor Richard Muyej to address
the issue of illegal miners but opposed
sending in the army.
“There are strategic interests at stake,”
said General Numbi. “If investors
complain government will take measures
to deploy the army if it decides the police
cannot handle it.”
MINING ALTERNATIVES
The industrial copper and cobalt mines
in south-east Congo are far from conflict
zones in the east where there are gold, tin,
tantalum and tungsten mines controlled
by militias and army commanders. The
eastern areas of Congo have been
targeted by US legislation seeking to
stop so-called conflict minerals ending
up in products such as smartphones.
Analysts say clashes between the army
and miners in the copper belt where
TFM and KCC are located could further
unsettle investors worried by the reports
of child labour and dangerous conditions
in artisanal mines.
“It’s not entirely clear whether you can
operate a responsible mine inside the
DRC or not. I genuinely do not know
whether you can,” said a mining investor,
who asked not to be named for fear of
angering authorities. Clashes earlier this
year between police and stone-throwing
miners in southern Lualaba province,
where TFM and KCC are located, killed
three officers, convincing authorities
better armed forces were needed.
Local police and private contractors
supposed to secure mines are often
bought off by illegal miners and traders,
analysts say, strengthening the case for
intervention by the army. Government
sought to convince informal miners to
leave in favour of agriculture and mining
companies also offered alternatives.
Glencore, for example, supports co-
operatives working in farming, welding,
sewing and carpentry.
Informal miners say they don’t earn
nearly as much through these activities
and begrudge industrial mines claiming
the richest concessions, some on
land where their families have lived for
generations.
An estimated 170,000 small-scale
miners operate across Lualaba and
numbers appear to be growing. Often
equipped with just shovels, buckets
and straw sacks, they burrow deep
underground in search of ore. Accidents
are common.
“There are cave-ins all the time,” said an
official at an industrial mine. “Wherever
there is cobalt in the DRC, there will be
artisanal miners.”
In the absence of long term economic
alternatives for the illegal miners, they
are likely to return to concessions,
pushing soldiers to harsher measures,
said another mining consultant, who
asked not to be named.
“Displacing artisanals is like whack-a-
mole,” he said. “What they will end up
doing is brutalising miners to make them
too afraid to come back.”
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