The Great Lakes region member states will soon start fingerprinting their minerals to trace their origin in order to end the illicit mineral trade that has fueled conflicts in the region.
The member countries are concerned that the illicit miberaks are fueling human rights abuses especially the sexual and gender based violations.
The analytical fingerprint (AFP) system developed by the German Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BCR) and commissioned by the International Conference for the Great Lakes Region, identifies the mineral concentrate origin by comparing its mineralogical and geochemical characteristic features to samples of known provenance that are stored in a BGR reference database.
Silas Sinyigaya, the ICGLR Programme Officer for Democracy and Good Governance, says the fingerprinting center could be established in Tanzania.
He says the initiative is expected to make it extremely difficult for the mineral dealers that have ventured in an illegal trade and therefore lessen the urge to start wars which affect mainly women and children.
Successful application of the AFP method for a positive certification of mineral producers necessitates detailed and comprehensive sampling of active mining sites of the producer; geo-chemical and mineralogical data obtained from the analytical procedures.
The data has to be updated regularly and any changes in production methods should be communicated to a CTC counterpart (like changes in production sites; commissioning of concentrate upgrading equipment).
The fingerprint system is expected to reinforce the six tools for fighting illegal exploitation of natural resources which include; regional certification for gold, coltan, cassiterite and the walframite, harmonization of national legislation and domestication of the protocol on natural resources, establishing a regional database for mineral flows, whistle blowing mechanism and extractive industries initiatives.
The six tools as supposed to curtail any further trading in blood minerals that have recently fuelled conflicts especially in eastern DRC and Sudan leading to gross human rights abuses particularly sexual gender-based violence, which is currently a subject of discussion in the ongoing ICGLR special session summit in Kampala, Uganda. Militarized mining, which is part of the illicit trade, has meant massive use of forced labor, widespread violence against workers and the population in general, continued abuses of human rights, and unending war.
