Phuket’s Thaisarco bows to pressure, drops Congo ore suppliers
Phuket’s last remnant of the tin trade, the Thaisarco smelting company, has bowed to pressure from action group Global Witness, announcing that it will no longer source cassiterite – the ore from which tin is made – from the violence-plagued Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Continuing violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has turned hundreds of thousands of people into refugees. Photo by Julien Harneis
Vicious militias continue to battle for power in parts of the DRC, especially in the east. There, Hutu groups involved in the horrific massacre of mainly Tutsi people in neighbouring Rwanda 15 ago continue to control, by force of arms, large areas that include mines they exploit using slave labour. The profits from these mines allow them to continue fighting, and slaughtering or enslaving civilians.
Thaisarco was accused of buying “blood tin” from groups such as this through middlemen, a charge it strenuously denied. (See our earlier story here.) The company, a subsidiary of British mining giant Allied Metals (AMC) pointed out that it was leading an industry initiative known as the iTSCi to create a transparent system of checks to ensure that metal companies were not buying blood tin.
It added that purchases of cassiterite from the DRC were, in its opinion, crucial for the country’s economy and the livelihoods of thousands of “artisanal miners” working independently of the armed groups.
Now, however, Thaisarco’s chairman Giles Robbins has announced that no more purchases of cassiterite will be made from the DRC.
“Despite significant progress towards implementation of the next stage of the [iTSCi], negative campaigning from advocacy groups and adverse coverage in sections of the international media is undermining the credibility of the process.
“Although acting entirely lawfully, the threat of misleading and bad publicity remains for anyone who participates in the DRC tin trade. These pressures have led Thaisarco to suspend its purchases from the DRC.
“The decision has not been taken lightly,” Robbins said. “In the company’s opinion the mineral trade has for many years been a key driver of the Congo economy … We believe the mineral trade, working with key stakeholders, could, given the constructive engagement of all advocacy groups, be the catalyst for the return of security and economic prosperity to the Congo.”
Global Witness, which called for a much more stringent system of checks and due diligence than was proposed in iTSCi, was not impressed with the decision to stop buying ore from the DRC, accusing the company of “sidestepping its responsibilities”.
“If AMC and THAISARCO are committed to boosting economic growth in the DRC and helping artisanal miners, they should take the lead in actively questioning their suppliers and establishing the exact origin of their purchases,” said Gavin Hayman, Campaigns Director at Global Witness. “Their stated commitment to cleaning up the trade is undermined by their lack of action.”
Thaisarco’s Robbins called for “all parties who are genuinely interested in improving the security situation in the Congo to take positive action in place of negative campaigning.
“We invite the support of these parties for [our initiative] or alternatively for them to develop and implement their own realistic due diligence procedures to allow the Congolese miner the right and opportunity to continue to earn his livelihood.”
Given the antagonism between Thasarco and AMC, and Global Witness, this seems unlikely to happen soon.
