英语论文网

Militant groups and civil wars impede country's development and push people into poverty. The FDLR has been known to fundraise for their group in Rwandan refugee camps in Uganda. Their main objective is to spread rumours that it is dangerous to go home and that there is no money to make (Kabeera pr.10 [11]). These lies prevent people from going home and rebuilding their lives and instead trick them into joining the FDLR. Civil wars like the Rwandan genocide force people to leave everything behind and to start a new life somewhere safe. A lot of people are left with nothing and have to go into militant groups and conflict mineral mining just to survive.

Other countries need to start doing the right thing in order to prevent civil war and in general violence. During the 1990's the United States armed Africa with over $200 million of arms and military training to 6 out of 7 militant groups operating in the DRC (Hochschild pr.16 [12]). Actions like these prove that some countries care more about financial gains even if they know it supports a conflict. International powers use the conflict as a money maker and others don't want to get involved because they don't need to. There truly is a dilemma with international priorities.

Corruption is everywhere in Africa because of corrupt military regimes, corrupt societal ways and multinational corporations. The FDLR is associated with conflict minerals especially coltan in which they control many mines containing it in Eastern Congo. Society is also very corrupt in the way that business is handled honestly. Multinationals like shell also take advantage of low work wages and a great quantity of natural resources. These three groups are the leaders in corruption in Africa and really hurt development both economically and socially.

The FDLR controls many of the mines in Eastern DRC and controls the people under slave labour conditions. Human rights observers say that coltan is used in cell phones, computers, video game systems, and much more which is directly linked to the funding of civil war in the DRC ('Coltan: a new blood mineral' pr.2 [14]). Companies take advantage of the fact that coltan is cheapest here and therefore they can make more profit on it even though coltan is found all over the world including Australia, Canada, China, Brazil and other potential mines. In Nigeria corruption happens frequently in government institutions like hospitals and schools where patients have to bribe with money to be seen and student have to bribe to pass examinations ('How deep is corruption in Africa?' pr.3-4 [15]). If the people are unable to come up with the money they can't further their education or get diagnosed at a hospital which is really unfair. In Nigeria the international oil giant shell admitted that it fed conflict, poverty, and corruption through oil activities in the country ('How deep is corruption in Africa?' pr.1 [15]). Although shell has 10% of its oil reserves in Nigeria the country is still in dire poverty and conflict. Something drastic needs to be done in order to curb this corruption in which Africa is deeply involved in.

With the great quantity of minerals that the DRC has it could be one of the richest countries in Africa, but in its current situation it is a very bad thing ('Congo's conflict minerals' pr.13 [16]). Not only does the DRC contain the valuable coltan but it also contains minerals such as gold,