"the lack of one big, central issue leaves the [DRC] out of the public's eye"
The Congo has abundant amounts of rubber, ivory, gold, diamond, copper, cobalt, coltan, manganese, uranium, iron and tin; however, they lack the funding and people to protect and work at what should be government run mines. If the government ran these mines, they could increase the GDP which could allow more money to go to health care, hopefully deaths from treatable diseases like malaria, diarrhea, malnutrition and pneumonia, which account of a vast majority of the some 5.4 million deaths since 1998, and continue to claim 45,000 lives every month. A lot of these minerals go into the electronics we buy here in the west, so an iPhone you buy here could give rebels money to buy weapons and basically just fund all of these groups. Progress is being made, however, towards making devices with non-conflict minerals in them, led by HP and Intel. The Congo has around 80% of the world's Coltan reserves, however, they only produce 1% of the world's supply, this is because the mines are run by many rebels groups in the area. Foreign rebels in Congo are also a huge issue, after the Rwandan genocide, many Hutu fled to Zaire (the DRC’s old name), the Rwandan government invaded Zaire as the Hutu (who perpetrated the genocide) were a threat to national security. The Rwandans gained control of the mines and many Rwandan rebels groups have stayed there fighting for the mines. More DRC-born rebel groups started to combat the Rwandans to try to give the land back to the Congolese. (Friends of the Congo, 2011) (Wolfram Alpha, 2014) (Rescue, 2014)
As you can see, this is an extremely complicated conflict as the combination of many different parties with their own interests and many different crisis' lead the DRC down a path that they can't recover from without the help of other. Let's get the Democratic Republic of the Congo back to a great, flourishing country in the heart of Africa that it once was. (VICE, 2011)
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CITATIONS
DRC Death Toll Exceeds 5 Million & Almost No News Coverage? | SociologyInFocus. (2012, November 26). Retrieved from http://www.sociologyinfocus.com/2012/11/26/aware-of-ongoing-violence-democratic-republic-of-the-congo/
Raising consciousness about the challenge of the Congo - Films & Videos. (2011, June 11). Retrieved from http://www.friendsofthecongo.org/resource-center/films-a-videos.html
Special Report: Congo. (2014). Retrieved from http://www.rescue.org/special-reports/special-report-congo-y
VICE. "The VICE Guide to Congo - Part 1." VICE. N.p., 15 Sept. 2011. Web. 12 Mar. 2014.
The Holocaust death toll. (2005, January 26). Retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1481975/The-Holocaust-death-toll.html
(n.d.). Retrieved March, 2014, from https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wolframalpha.com%2Finput%2F%3Fi%3Ddrc