June 2011

For over a year, students at the university level have been the leading voice in the movement for conflict-free products. Since Stanford University passed a proxy voting resolution in spring of 2010, four other universities, the most recent being the Ohio University Honors Tutorial College, have issued statements calling on electronics companies to clean up their supply chains, and over 50 schools across the nation are participating in the Conflict-Free Campus Initiative. Now high school students have joined the movement, using their power as individual consumers and collective communities to change the demand for conflict-free products and change the equation for peace in Congo.  Read More »

A sharp divide over the resumption of diamond sales from Zimbabwe has left members of the Kimberley Process struggling to keep the process intact. Last Thursday following a week-long meeting, the Democratic Republic of Congo, or DRC, (the rotating chair of the Kimberley Process) announced that diamond exports from Zimbabwe would resume, leaving members grappling with fundamental questions about legitimacy, corruption, and credibility. At the heart of the issue is the debate over how, in the face of egregious humans rights abuses perpetrated by the Zimbabwean security apparatus, exports from the controversial Marange fields of Zimbabwe can resume, and how those exports would be monitored and overseen to ensure that human rights abuses do not continue. The Marange fields are considered one of Africa’s richest existing diamond deposits and for years have caused controversy because of reported abuses of Marange’s mining communities by Zimbabwean state authorities.  Read More »

Representatives from government, industry, and civil society gathered at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars last week to participate in an Enough Project-hosted panel on the issue of conflict mineral certification in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  Read More »

The conflict in eastern Congo may not seem obvious fodder for a cartoonist, but in his graphic novel Roza or the Courage to Choose Life Congolese artist Seraphin Kajibwami from Bukavu does a masterful job telling a powerful and uplifting story aimed at educating and inspiring youth about the many challenges that civilians – particularly women and girls such as Roza – face in eastern Congo.  Read More »