"Conflict Minerals" & Vulnerable Economies
http://thekojonnamdishow.org/shows/2012-01-19/conflict-minerals-vulnerable-economies
Guest Host:
Paul Brown
Less than two years ago, American lawmakers used a financial reform bill to implement a new plan targeting the international trade of "conflict minerals." It was designed to stop the sale of valuable materials that finance violence in countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo. But some argue that the plan may actually be taking a tougher toll on poor workers in Africa's most vulnerable economies than the warlords it intended to stop.
Guests
Laura Seay
Assistant Professor, Political Science, Morehouse College (Atlanta, Ga.)
John Bradshaw
Executive Director, The Enough Project
Comments
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The Congo was ranked last of 187 countries in the UN's latest human development report. Eighty percent of the adult population is unemployed and twenty percent of children die before the age of five because of poverty. Yet Enough says that the artisinal miners who lost their livelihoods in the Congo aren't being hurt by it because they can take up other occupations, such as subsistence farming.
We understand that if a person loses his or her job in this country--the richest in the world--that can cause real economic pain. How is it possible the miners aren't being hurt by the de facto embargo?