Orientation to Advocacy, Conflict Metals, and Other Regional Issues

New Regional Peace Specialist, Patrick (center) at our house with Felix and wife Alex, and Matt our SALTer.  


Among the things I will not miss when we leave here next summer is driving upcountry on muddy roads in the rain on steep slopes. I say this having just come back from a five day trip upcountry and to Rwanda.

The occasion was part of an orientation we are giving a new service worker named Patrick. Although Patrick is part of the MCC-DRC team and will be living in Bukavu, the fact that we are only a couple hours away from him and the DRC reps are based in Kinshasa, means that we will be giving him some moral support--as well as help out in emergencies.

He is also here to do some regional coordination as he is assigned to be a Great Lakes Peace Coordinator and will have, among his jobs, the task of trying to create meaningful advocacy positions for MCC in the region. MCC does have advocacy offices at the UN in New York and in Washington DC, and we do lobby in coordination with other organizations for peace building and non-violent conflict resolution.

MCC has been trying to create some consensus in our organization on the issues in the region and it is surprisingly difficult as programs in Rwanda and Burundi can hear different things and have a different perception on the Eastern Congo conflict then those in the Congolese MCC program. Patrick will work to understand the issues so that MCC can speak meaningfully into public opinion with some on-the-ground expertise from our local partners.

Patrick arrived on Thursday of last week at about 2 in the morning and planned to spend about a week with us. I had set up meetings for him on Friday with someone from the UN office here and with an INGO called the International Conference for the Great Lakes Region. This was for the morning and in the afternoon we were to talk to some local partners and someone from AFSC (The American Friends Service Committee.)

I was happy to accompany him as I have been interested in the regional conflict and wanted to hear some thoughts from some regional experts. Each meeting shed a tremendous amount of light on the issue, but did make me realize how hard it is to find a simple solution.

Among the most interesting discussions was the one with ICGLR. They specialize in the area of conflict metals and are working to create a registration system for 'clean' mines. They explained to us which metals were prevalent in the region and said that gold and coltan were among the most valuable. I am sure many of you who are reading this have heard about coltan because it is an important ingredient in the fabrication of computer processors.

One thing they said was that gold was by far the most valuable and immediately usable. 5 kilos of gold was worth far more than 5 tons of coltan, thus making it much easier to move out of the country. Gold also does not need to be smelted in China or Malaysia like coltan does.

What I found interesting as I learned more about conflict medals was the way in which some of our lobbying efforts in the West to stop these metals from being drivers of conflict, have actually made matters worse. They referred to the Dodd-Frank law which has language making it illegal to buy metals from conflict regions like Eastern Congo. This blanket legislation put many legal 'clean' suppliers out of business, forcing them to go underground and sell at lower prices on the black market—thus exacerbating the problem of buying from rebel supporting mines.

They also pointed out that the regions that supply the most coltan (Katanga—in Congo) and other places in South America, are not suffering from any conflict.  So the larger questions about how these minerals seem particularly contentious in that region and whether they are the real drivers of conflict are interesting.

I think there has been a tendency in our media to try to reduce the conflict to a first world interest in mining these metals, but the sad reality is that it is far more complex. In my own opinion, one of the major drivers has been ethnic conflict between hutus and tutsis, as well as a long history of Mubutu welcoming many rebel groups from other nearby nations to make a home there.

At this point it is more or less a feudal society, uncontrolled by the Congolese government, with rebel groups setting up fiefdoms in various regions. At this point the main conflict driver seems to be the long history of conflict. There is almost no other logic, and no government strong enough to bring the area under some kind of law and order.

The discussions with the UN representative and others confirmed this as well. Rwanda has been playing a negative role as well, but the motives cannot be reduced to a simple interest in riches of the region or as a proxy for those interests by other nations.

It was encouraging to hear that companies like Apple and Intel have been working to buy from 'clean supply chains' which is where metals come from certified mines through recognized mining companies, and smelted by certified smelters. They are, of course, not the only buyers on the market. China and Russia are also large consumers of coltan and not as concerned with where it came from.

All of that in one day. We had Jennifer and our new SALTer Matt, and Felix our program assistant over to meet Patrick that night. On Saturday we took him to the beach after yoga. Jennifer took he and Matt out Saturday night then he came to church with us on Sunday.

On Sunday afternoon I took Patrick and Oren to an ultimate frisbee game that happens on Sunday afternoons with other ex-pats. I have not gone before but know many people who do. Patrick turned out to be an excellent ultimate player and really enjoyed the opportunity to go out and play. I was hoping Oren would want to join in as well, but he did not really feel ready to jump in with the other adults. (His friend Samuel was there from school, but he was still not inspired.) I have been working to improve his frisbee skills and hopefully he will be able to play soon.

Patrick, Felix and I with Teresa our SALTer

By Monday morning, I think he was resonably refreshed and we headed up to Kigali (Patrick, Felix, and I) where I wanted him to talk directly to some of our Rwanda partners and meet the team that is in Rwanda. As it happened, Michael, the other DRC service worker was arriving in Kigali from a trip to the US the next day.

We had interesting meetings on Monday and stayed at a pretty lousy guest house (unless you hate water and electricity and beds larger than a cot). We met with the SALTers Julia and Teresa who seemed to be settling well into their host families and language lessons. It was good to see them doing well after 2 weeks and we enjoyed a pizza meal together at Sola Luna.

In a meeting with Matt and Food Security partners.

We saw Matt the next morning and met some partners as well. Matt was also just coming back from a trip to the US for a wedding. It was a fairly busy work day for all of us as there seemed to be an endless stream of meetings to plan and trouble-shoot, put out fires, and even start a few where things were getting bogged-down.

By evening we were worn out, but all went out to the airport to pick up Michael. It was his first time to meet the SALTers as well as his colleague Patrick in person. We had a nice evening together getting acquainted. I was also trying to coordinate a ride for them from Kigali to the DRC border at Bukavu and was grateful that Matt offered to make the 6 hour drive to drop them off and come back the same day.

They left early Wednesday morning and Felix and I spent the day in more meetings. I had one more dinner with the SALTers to discuss any last minute issues that night and spent my last night in the bad guest house.
I was happy to get on the road Thursday morning back to Burundi, although it was to be a very long day with an ambitious program.

The plan was to go back passing by the Hope School in Mutaho then continue on to Gitega and meet partners and spend the night. This made for a very long day and, in fact, we finished eating dinner close to 11pm in Gitega by the time it was all said and done.

The visit to the Hope School was quite inspiring. I was able to get a thorough report and the successes (and failures) of the past academic year. The most impressive sight was the new library! This has been a long time coming and the construction is finally done and they are doing the final touches on the outside painting.

Innocent in front of new library.

The shelves and the books were all inside and well arranged. They had hired a librarian as well. The solar lights were working and it was truly inspiring to see this project realized. We are hoping the solar lighting will contribute to better grades as one of the biggest problems is students not being able to study after dark, and having to do work for the family in daylight. We will see whether this can bring about change. (Sadly the biggest problem mentioned in terms of success in school, still continues to be hunger.)

We spent several hours there and I talked to Innocent the director of our partner organization as well as teachers, the principles, and several students about the past year. It was interesting to hear different perspectives on how we can continue to work for student success in a country where less than 40% of children even succeed to pass a test to get them beyond 6^th grade.

The only sad part of the trip was remembering last year's SALTer Teri-Lynn who is not here this year, and is apparently missed by everyone at the Hope School. I believe the English curriculum she left is in use at the school now. (Teri-Lynn is now teaching at another school for Indian children in Northern Ontario, here is her blog link. Teri-Lynn's Teaching Adventures.)

In the late afternoon we left and headed to Gitega where we met two more partners. We went out to an interesting restaurant for dinner connected to a cultural center. It would have been perfect if it had not started pouring rain followed by a power outage. We sat shivering in the dark as it was an open air pavilion. Our food, for four of us in an empty restaurant, took 2 full hours to prepare.

I know better than to try to understand why or how to avoid this problem. The more you probe to get something that takes less time, the more the servers will try to tell you something they think you want to hear. It was not my favorite night out, but not an atypical experience in Gitega where it tends to be cold and rainy with inconsistent power and water. At least the company was good as we were with a partner, who is a friend, and our service worker Melody, who has been doing well, but misses Yolanda who left earlier this summer. (I know you are reading this Yolanda. Jean Pierre and Fidelie say Hi.)

Felix and I stayed at one of our partners' guesthouses but got up at 6 am on Friday morning as we were anxious to get back to Bujumbura after 5 days on the road. It was still raining in the morning and the driving was tough.

We got back around 8am, and I was happy to find there was time for a swim. Rebecca was still at the pool by the time I arrived. It was good to have a swim after a week without.

Rebecca and I caught up in the morning while the kids were in school. Our work sometimes seems so separate. She was parenting but also had many things on her plate work-wise. Her big project in the past two weeks has been to be a connector of Church leaders, Protestant, and Catholic to create a mechanism to speak as one voice into certain national political issues—particularly the formation of a Transitional Justice Committee called the CVR. This is a sensitive issue and the church has wanted to advocate for a restorative justice approach but has a difficult time speaking with one voice as they are not always in agreement on many things.

She has been helping coordinate meetings between different leaders and has asked me to add a note for any praying people to pray for her to hav the courage to do this. It has taken a lot for her to do this and can be intimidating to meet with fairly high level people in the Religious community as well as others.

It is good to be home and I was very happy to see the kids this afternoon. We are still behind in our work but feel very excited about the things we are doing.

Tomorrow we are having a big square dance and we look forward to spending time with new and old friends who will be there. I will try to do another update soon on that.