Congo miners, buyers launch tin tracing scheme

By Katrina Manson

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Firms that dig tin in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, merchants and ends users have launched a monitoring scheme to show armed groups are not profiting from mines, an industry body said on Friday.

The trade in tin ore and tantalum found in Congo's violent east helps finance rebel groups that have attacked civilians, according to a United Nations report last year.

Mining is one of the principal sources of income and jobs in eastern Congo, but bad publicity surrounding so-called "conflict minerals" prompted Belgian metals merchant Traxys and tin smelter Thaisarco to stop buying material from the area last year.

Miners, trading firms and end users, including consumer electronics makers such as Apple, IBM and Sony, want to be able to prove the material they use does not come from mines controlled by rebel groups.

The scheme "will begin to track minerals and provide verifiable provenance information from individual mine sites in eastern DRC; something that has not been possible up to now," tin industry federation ITRI said in a statement.

Lobby group Global Witness says "mafia-style extortion rackets" still cover some of the most lucrative tin and tantalum mining areas in the east, following a visit earlier this month.

"Any scheme that does not include on-the-ground investigation on a regular basis, looking at the routes the minerals take as well as the mines is meaningless," Annie Dunnebacke at Global Witness told Reuters by telephone.

It said companies in Congo and neighbouring Rwanda are still buying goods directly from militarised mines, and which trade through armed checkpoints.