Post by Amy L.

80 Congolese workers dead. Please read the caption. It’s really hard watching what’s happening in Congo right now. The images are horrific but this hasn’t “suddenly started”. It’s been happening for decades. So who do we hold responsible? First: ourselves. We do not need the latest iPhone. We do not need every new gadget. And I say that as a total tech and gadget person, I’m scaling that back now and won’t be upgrading, and if I need a replacement I’ll go second-hand. It’s also about what we teach our kids. My son was due an upgrade this Christmas (you know how teens are with phones). After we talked about Congo and what cobalt mining actually looks like, he decided not to upgrade. He’s sticking with what he has. That’s a tiny act, but it’s a start. But let’s not stop at individual guilt. Let’s name the people and structures putting profit over real human lives. In the video we see Kawama, in the copper–cobalt belt of the DRC. Human rights groups have documented how people working around these concessions are paid poverty wages for dangerous, often deadly work and how, in 2009, hundreds of homes in Kawama were bulldozed in a police operation to clear small-scale miners near the neighbouring Luiswishi mine. The Kawama permit itself was sold in 2015 to Mutanda Mining, then a joint venture between Glencore and the Fleurette Group, and is now held by Mutanda, which is a Glencore subsidiary. Glencore is an Anglo-Swiss commodities and mining giant headquartered in Switzerland, listed on the London Stock Exchange, with its registered office in Jersey. Behind that are billionaires who profit from these operations: Ivan Glasenberg: Glencore’s largest individual shareholder and its CEO from 2002 to 2021. He was born in Johannesburg, has Israeli, South African, Australian and Swiss citizenship, and became a billionaire largely through his stake in Glencore and its global operations, including in the DRC. He was replaced by Gary Nagle as CEO, but remains the largest shareholder. Dan Gertler: an Israeli billionaire whose Fleurette Group was Glencore’s partner in Mutanda when the Kawama permit was acquired. Even after selling his equity in Mutanda and other DRC assets, he retained royalty rights over production at Mutanda and Kamoto worth hundreds of millions of dollars over time. The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has sanctioned him under the Global Magnitsky Act, saying he “amassed his fortune through hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of opaque and corrupt mining and oil deals” in Congo, and that these deals cost the country over $1.3 billion in lost revenues. He denies wrongdoing (of course), but the sanctions remain in place. These billionaires channel wealth from Congolese workers and communities to directly to their bank account, at very human cost. You should know their names. You should remember them. Our disposable gadgets = disposable lives. Skip the upgrade.

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