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IPFS News Link • Free Trade

Gadget Makers Forced to Look at Links to Congo War

• AP

Does that smart phone in your pocket contribute to rape and murder in the depths of Africa? Soon, you'll know: A new U.S. law requires companies to certify whether their products contain minerals from rebel-controlled mines in Congo and surrounding countries.

It's a move aimed at starving the rebels of funds and encouraging them to lay down their arms.

 

1 Comments in Response to

Comment by McElchap
Entered on:

While I most certainly oppose abuse of people being robbed, raped, enslaved, and even tortured and killed in miserable oppressive enterprises, I do have a question about this article's focus: 

Are we to suppose these horrid human rights violations are being perpetrated ONLY by "illegitimate" or "rebel" enterprises? Look at the history of the Rockefellers' United Fruit Company, or the lethal forces unleashed upon strikers in the US on various occasions.  During the old mining wars in the 1800's, a certain railroad baron would park a locomotive next to the air vent of a competitor's mine and pump superheated steam into the shaft to kill the miners and interrupt production. Well known "legitimate businessmen", whom Al Capone aspired to join, have long been known to rob, rape, and kill for profits. But the modern trend is to call victims "rebels", insurgents" "gangs" or "terrorists", while the perpetrators use "sanctions", "brave troops", "military options", and occasionally inflict "collateral damage" while they "neutralize" the opponents after "covert units" have conducted "intelligence operations". 


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