Paul Kortenhoven: Keep humane supply chains for dangerous mining - HollandSentinel.com

By Paul Kortenhoven

EDITOR'S NOTE: Rep. Bill Huizenga issued a statement regarding his justification for introducing H.R. 5485. Read it at bit.ly/2ee1LbG.

A few weeks ago we again saw horrendous pictures from the Mediterranean: Boatloads of African migrants, packed as tightly as on any slave ship, dying in their attempts to reach Europe.

What causes people to take such risks? One reason is to escape the armed, lawless and brutal groups that enslave local people to mine valuable minerals in places like the Congo.

Those of us who have spent time in West and central Africa as missionaries have witnessed this firsthand, and we applauded in 2010 when sections of the newly passed Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act forced mining companies to give public evidence that the minerals they extract are mined in non-conflict areas and in ways that protect human life and dignity.

So we wonder, why U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga (as vice chair of the Monetary Policy and Trade subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee) seems determined to dismantle parts of Dodd-Frank that save lives and protect vulnerable Africans in the Congo and in other resource-rich, high-conflict countries?

Diamonds, gold, coltan and titanium are extremely valuable and high-profit raw materials mined mostly in poor, African countries. These minerals are commodities to us, bought and sold and used in many of our high-tech gadgets. They are morally neutral when mined and used properly, but they have been found to be deadly to local communities when mining corporations lack accountability for the ways they work.

Major companies from the industrialized world, mining in unstable African countries, are there for high profits. They take advantage of — or feed — the wars and violence that continue to break out in the areas where these minerals are found.

No country has suffered more than the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Regulations on the extraction, transportation and sale of what are now called “blood minerals” are needed because they work. They increase the likelihood that workers are not mistreated or forced to labor at the point of a gun.

Rep. Huizenga is pushing legislation that would systematically weaken U.S. human rights requirements on the mining and sale of these commodities.

One example is the Kimberley Accords, an international agreement that regulates the mining of diamonds. This single international legal agreement has likely saved thousands of human lives and has given hope of a better life to miners and local populations. I know this because I helped create the Kimberley Accords.

Our family was a missionary family in Sierra Leone from 1980 through 2002. We were there throughout the brutal civil war (1991-2002) and personally witnessed the horrors that the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) visited on the people. Our home was among thousands burned to the ground in hundreds of villages attacked by the rebels. We were caught in the crossfire of several battles and could have been killed if not for God’s protection. It was a war supported by the un-regulated diamond trade. For those of us who experienced such horrors, the Kimberley Accords have shown what can happen when the world works together to stop an evil.

Huizenga apparently wishes to dismantle safeguards that protect vulnerable African miners. He has recently sponsored an amendment to an appropriations bill (H.R. 5485, amending Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act) that seeks to weaken or eliminate common sense regulations on these “blood minerals.” I worked with former Rep. Vern Ehlers to get the Kimberley Accords in place. It is disturbing to see another West Michigan representative trying to dismantle similar legislation.

During the diamond-driven wars of the 1990s in West Africa, over 500,000 people were killed, and at least another 300,000 were wounded. Cruel amputations permanently crippled over 30,000 men, women, and children in Sierra Leone.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is suffering an even more terrible fate. In the first civil war (1996-1997) over 1 million people were killed. In the second civil war (1998-2003), also over minerals, about 5.4 million people were killed.

Huizenga’s attempt to remove and weaken corporate accountability for humane mineral extraction and clean supply chains in Africa is dangerous.

Huizenga should know this. I and others with long experience in Africa have tried to tell him.

We should stand with the long-suffering people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Predatory and immoral extraction practices must be stopped. Mineral wealth should benefit all citizens of the Congo. Rep. Huizenga should be strengthening humanitarian laws NOT weakening them.

— Paul Kortenhoven is a missionary emeritus to Sierra Leone 1980-2003. Contact him at newsroom@hollandsentinel.com.