By Melissa Pistilli—Exclusive to Tantalum Investing News

I’ve always been behind the times when it comes to the latest technological gadgets. While many of my friends were trading in their pagers for cell phones I was still relying on land lines and that now elusive dinosaur the payphone.

Today, I’ve had two cell phones in my life and I never gave a thought at all as to what went into making them before I learned more about the ongoing human degradation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Inside your cell phone is a mineral known as tantalum and its use allows manufacturers to make phones so small they are barely recognizable from that monstrosity your dad use to lug around in his briefcase.

Tantalum is found in the capacitor that rests atop the fiber glass circuit board in your phone. While tantalum capacitors, which function as energy storage untis, are found in a wide range of electronic devices, nearly 35 per cent are made specifically for cell phones.

However, the advancements in technology tantalum offers come at a very high price. Tantalum has the unfortunate distinction of belonging to a class of metals known as “conflict minerals”, particularly the three T’s:  tin, tungsten and tantalum;  all of which are mined under soul-crushing conditions in the eastern provinces of the DR-Congo.

“US consumers play a direct but inadvertent role in perpetuating the violence in Congo,” said John Prendergast, co-founder of the Enough Project created by the Center of American Progress, speaking at a recent forum hosted by St Michael’s College.

Proceeds from the mining operations under the control of Rwanda-linked FDLR militia groups and even corrupt members of the Congolese army help to purchase weapons used in a bloody conflict that has taken the lives of over 5 million people in the last 15 years, involved the rape of countless women and children, and the dislocation of scores of the population to neighboring regions.

Because the electronics industry is the largest consumer of tantalum from the DR-Congo, NGO’s and concerned consumers are urging companies like Apple, Hewlett Packard, Intel, Nokia, and others to conduct stringent supply chain audits and create strict policies that ensure conflict minerals like tantalum are not making their way into cell phones, MP3 players, laptops, DVD players and video game systems.

“If there was no ready outlets for these minerals on the international market, the capacity for armed groups to carry on their brutal warfare would be hugely reduced,” said Global Witness campaigner Daniel Balint-Kurti.

Some electronics companies like Dell, Intel, Motorola, Phillips and Hewlett-Packard are bending to the pressure and reviewing their supply chains to determine whether or not conflict minerals are making it into their products. HP conducted an investigation a few years back into the origins of the tantalum used in capacitors. That initial review, according to the company, found no direct link between HP products and the conflict zones of the DR-C; however, subsequent investigations have not been so absolute.

“Because our suppliers are not using material from the DRC that gave us some comfort. But to this day, there is still no certification mechanism that can assure us wholeheartedly that they are not sourced from the DRC,” said Zoe McMahon, manager of supply chain social and environmental responsibility at HP.

Major electronics firms like HP claim the supply chains for their products are complex and difficult to unravel. But, groups like Enough and Global Witness say research conducted by themselves and the United Nations proves otherwise.

Members of the Enough Project, for example, say they have travelled to the eastern provinces of the Congo to track the flow of conflict minerals like tantalum from mine to consumer. “From this ground level view, the conflict minerals supply chain is far less intimidating than the industry would have consumers believe,” report Sasha Lezhnev and John Prendergast.