Christop Vogel in Think Africa
The Dodd-Frank act has not only had limited effect on militant groups, it has also undermined artisanal miners' livelihoods and local economies.
Photograph by Christoph Vogel
...There are various reasons why the association between minerals and conflict put forwards by certain advocacy groups and policy circles is overly simplistic if not misguided.More here
The most straightforward is simply that minerals have never been a root cause of the conflicts that have shattered the eastern DRC. Instead, instability has typically been driven by contests over land, identity and citizenship and the related struggles over power and external intervention. This does not mean that the ruthless exploitation of minerals has been a constant feature of rebellions − many armed groups have been partly sustained by revenue from these resources − but mining has rarely, if ever, been militants' primary goal.
The M23, for instance, never sought physical access to mines; in fact, many of its commanders left areas where they had close mining access in order to join the rebels. And furthermore, as Seay explains, militants typically have diverse sources of income, including from taxing civilians and traffic, cross-border smuggling and trading many other legal and illegal commodities.
In short, making it harder to deal in minerals may make it slightly harder for rebel groups to sustain themselves, but mining is rarely if ever an end in itself for armed groups, and when rebels do engage in mining, minerals are just one of their many lifelines.