Conflict Minerals Quotes

We cannot just be a corridor to smuggle minerals out.

When diamonds' role in fuelling violent conflict in Africa gained worldwide attention, the diamond industry established the Kimberley process in order to keep "blood diamonds" out of international trade.

Diamonds are supposed to be a girl's best friend but it's impossible to know for sure where they have come from so I find it is safer just to avoid them altogether.

Ivory is quickly becoming the new blood diamond of Africa and one that fuels militia battles. Some of the most notorious armed groups on the continent, including the Lord's Resistance Army, are hunting down elephants and using the tusks to buy weapons.

I have nothing against diamonds, or rubies or emeralds or sapphires. I do object when their acquisition is complicit in the debasement of children or the destruction of a country.

Electronics companies are purchasing the minerals that come out of the Eastern Congo, and they are illicit; they're dirty.

The main mineral in your cellphone, coltan [a black metallic ore], comes from the Eastern Congo. Multinational corporations are there exploiting the very rich mineral resources of the region. A lot of them are backing militias which are fighting one other to gain control of the resources or a piece of the resources.

When people accuse us of taking coltan from Congo, I don't understand what they mean. The quality of our own coltan here from Rwanda is much better. But still people from the UN come here, we show them our coltan mines, we show them the documents, then they go and say: Rwanda smuggles coltan.