Status Updates From Blutrotes Kobalt. Der Kongo...

There are bad actors at every link, but the chain wouldn't exist were it not for the demand for cobalt created by the companies at the top. It's there,& only there, where solutions must begin. Those solutions will only have meaning if the fictions promulgated by corporate stakeholders about the conditions under which cobalt is mined in the Congo are replaced by the realities experienced by the miners themselves.

As of 2022, there is no such thing as a clean supply chain of cobalt from the Congo. All cobalt sourced from the DRC is tainted by various degrees of abuse, including slavery, child labor, forced labor, debt bondage, human trafficking, hazardous and toxic working conditions, pathetic wages, injury and death, and incalculable environmental harm.

Of all the tragedies that have afflicted the Congo, perhaps the greatest of all is the fact that the suffering taking place in the mining provinces is entirely preventable. But why fix a problem if no one thinks it exists? Most people don’t know what is happening in the cobalt mines of the Congo, because the realities are hidden behind numerous layers of multinational supply chains that serve to erode accountability.

Belgium, the UN, the US, & the neocolonial interests they represented rejected Lumumba’s vision [the 1st democratic leader of Congo], conspired to assassinate him, and propped up a violent dictator, Joseph Mobatu, in his place. For 32 years, Mobutu supported the Western agenda, kept Katanga’s minerals flowing in their direction, and enriched himself just as egregiously as the colonizers who came before him.