While we debate the merits of the conflicts minerals provisions; the rapes, lootings, and killings continue.
Efforts to render minerals supply chains more accountable have indeed had unintended adverse effects. As I have written here before, commanders such as Bosco Ntaganda have benefited from smuggling and thousands of people may have been put out of jobs. There is no doubt that the implementation of the law has been sorely wanting, and that there need to be more focus on governance and political developments in general and not just conflict minerals. Nonetheless, I still believe that the Dodd-Frank bill -in Section 1502 on the Congo -should be supported.
Why?
Here are some thoughts about David's piece.
http://congosiasa.blogspot.com/2011/08/thoughts-about-conflict-minerals.html?spref=fb
Thoughts about conflict minerals Readers of this blog will probably have read David Aronson's lucid Op-Ed in The New York Times a few days ago. David argues that the Dodd-Frank legislation -the "Obama law" as some Congolese refer to it -has produced a de facto embargo of minerals in the eastern Congo and has actually benefited abusive military commanders.Efforts to render minerals supply chains more accountable have indeed had unintended adverse effects. As I have written here before, commanders such as Bosco Ntaganda have benefited from smuggling and thousands of people may have been put out of jobs. There is no doubt that the implementation of the law has been sorely wanting, and that there need to be more focus on governance and political developments in general and not just conflict minerals. Nonetheless, I still believe that the Dodd-Frank bill -in Section 1502 on the Congo -should be supported.
Why?
Here are some thoughts about David's piece.
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